Service Corporation International designs more meaningful experiences with TTEC Digital

The challenge

Satisfying customer expectations is no easy task. For funeral, cremation, and cemetery services providers like Service Corporation International (SCI), this challenge is further heightened and complicated by serving families in the midst of navigating one of life’s most difficult and vulnerable times. However, service excellence is engrained in SCI’s company culture. SCI’s 25,000 associates strive to compassionately support families during trying times and preserve memories that transcend generations.

In 2020, SCI made the strategic decision to focus on enhancing their collections experience. SCI wanted to assess pain points, collect feedback, and understand customer journeys throughout the entire collections process. This strategic investment propelled SCI into searching for a trusted customer experience partner.

The solution

Through their vetting process, SCI determined that TTEC Digital had the right mix of customer experience expertise and relevant industry knowledge to tackle their unique business challenges. TTEC Digital partnered with SCI to take a holistic, technologically agnostic approach to analyzing business processes, uncovering CX pain points, and revealing the voice of the customer.

To begin, TTEC Digital guided SCI through a collaborative CX assessment of the collections process.

Current state assessment

To understand the current state of the collections experience, SCI underwent a seven-phase assessment process.

1. Data Analysis
During this phase, TTEC Digital looked at a series of collections data to understand gaps in knowledge and current pain points. This phase helped determine which areas in the process needed optimization and provided the fuel for structuring customer and agent interviews.

2. Customer & Agent Interviews
TTEC Digital spoke with customers and agents to get their unique perspectives and better understand the current collections experience. Agents focused on areas of the collection experience like work from home limitations, manual agent tasks, user authorization, and location notes. Customer interviews covered topics like statements, the fog of grief, phone payments, and the overall experience.

3. Current State Process Mapping
Following customer and agent interviews, a group of SCI’s collections process experts joined a TTEC Digital-led workshop to map out their current-state collections experience and identify pain points. Designed to discover areas for improvement, this workshop empowered SCI to make financial gains and foster happier customers.

4. Design Thinking
Together, SCI and TTEC Digital determined core themes and solutions to focus design thinking around, including payment and self-service, agent tools and system enhancements, account set up, empathy first, and agent and location interactions and rapport.

5. Technology Scoping
Based on prioritized solutions, TTEC Digital and SCI determined technology needs to implement new solutions, including assessment metrics to measure future success.

6. Future State Process Mapping
As part of an ongoing relationship, SCI and TTEC Digital will determine where they can embed future collections solutions into the current-state process map, continuing to solve unique challenges.

7. Executive Summary & TTEC Digital Recommendations
TTEC Digital ultimately delivered a strategic approach, strategy, and recommendations around CX, helping SCI to help improve the collections experience, drive revenue, and wow customers.

The results

With help from TTEC Digital, the process mapping journey was collaborative and insightful. The project helped SCI understand the current state of the collections experience from the agent and customer perspective in a deeper and more meaningful way than they had previously understood it. Following the in-depth assessment of customer journeys, TTEC Digital provided multiple recommendations for achieving the ideal future state collections experience. The recommendations ranged from new technology considerations, omnichannel communication solutions, more self-service capabilities, deeper data analysis and customer segmentation, a VOC program, and agile methodologies around the collection experience.

With the recommendations from TTEC Digital, SCI can now determine what technology solutions are needed to deliver a world class collection experience that will improve revenue, enhance the customer experience, and drive a higher percentage of on time payments. Further, the recommendations will help SCI set metrics to drive agent accountability, assess project success, and improve on-time collections.

Future plans

SCI is committed to improving the collections experience based on recommendations from TTEC Digital. They are striving to enhance the experience to deliver an interconnected, omnichannel experience that leaves a lasting impression on the families they serve.