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Capital One

Company: Weber Associates
Company Description: Founded by Glenn Weber in 1985, Weber Associates is a strategic communications consulting firm that specializes in sales performance improvement. Weber serves Fortune 50 clients in a variety of industries. Weber has received the prestigious U.S. Senate Productivity & Quality Award and has been featured in the Washington Post.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Customer Service Organization

Nomination Title: Capital One Stays on Track for Being “America’s Most Admired Company”

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Established in 1995, Capital One has become a Fortune 500 company in less than a decade. They have developed into a global diversified financial services provider with operations in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom and continue to add innovative offerings to the current product range. Even Fortune Magazine has ranked them #4 in “America’s Most Admired Company” in consumer credit. Capital One has invested significantly in the technology used in their call centers to better understand and service their customers on every call. Before a customer even hears a voice, information about that customer is appearing on the customer service representative’s computer screen. Things like credit limit, how long they have had their credit card and what their interest rate is. All this prepares the representative better for their customer interaction. But not all of their calls are answered in house. Today, a substantial amount of their pre-identified “retention” calls are being routed to an outsourcer, Convergys. While outsourcing has resulted in cost efficiencies, it has presented specific challenges related to the channel’s overall ability and effectiveness in retaining Capital One’s valuable credit card customers. To better equip their outsourcing partners, Capital One US Credit Card Retention enlisted the assistance of Weber Associates, a performance improvement consulting firm.

Capital One’s Goal: Enable Convergys, the outsourced call center, to match or exceed the internal Capital One Call Center’s queues retention results by the end of first quarter 2005.

Weber’s Strategy: Develop a results-driven front line program that focuses on immediate improvements for the Convergys Front Line Managers and Associates that help them learn simple, best retention practices on-the-job.

Capital One and Weber Associates designed a customized program to address this objective. To design this customized program, Weber Associates first had to determine what the most effective call flow would be for consultive selling in an outsourced retention call center environment. They analyzed customer calls, metrics and skill levels to identify key patterns. Once they determined how a successful call should flow, they designed an on-the-job consultive selling tool that enabled representatives to more easily save calls. Weber Associates trained Capital One management on how to most effectively coach the representatives in the new consultive selling model. Capital One used this teaching format for four weeks and then measured results of the job tool and their efforts using a management reporting system, which helped managers identify how employee behavior related to performance and quantified the impact of the retention program.

Through strong collaboration with key Capital One management and the Weber Associates team, an integrated consultive selling model was put in place that achieved immediate, sustainable results in just three weeks:

* 4.11% increase in save rate* 3003 Incremental Units (customers) saved in 3 week pilot period* $150,000 additional Net Present Value as a result of saved calls in 3 week pilot period

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:

Bob Paisley, Director US Credit Card Sales and Dave Lewis, Group Manager US Credit Card Retention realized that with their new outsourcing call center relationship, there was an immediate need to address the quality received by their Capital One customers. They engaged Weber Associates and began investing and instituting in a program to insure the highest quality customer experience. The results were so positive that Capital One and Weber Associates continued their relationship in creating a roadmap for outlining required partner criteria and steps in identifying new outsource partners to insure they are hiring best-in-class.