Company: TELUS Smart Security & Automation, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Company Description: At TELUS, we’re using our world-leading technology to drive meaningful change — from transforming healthcare and making our food supply more sustainable to reducing our environmental footprint and connecting Canadians. We offer both personal and business solutions (security, internet, mobility, tv bundles, online security); healthcare, agriculture, and sustainability solutions.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats) - All Other Industries
 Nomination Title: TELUS Central Alarm Monitoring
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 224 words used.
The attached spreadsheet serves as a repository of evidence supporting the transformative impact of our program. The summary page offers a succinct overview of the program's results, providing a snapshot of key achievements. Additionally, the three supporting tabs within the spreadsheet delve into detailed data, further substantiating the claims made in this nomination.
Tab "#1" in the spreadsheet evaluates our service levels and response times, comparing the stats from the fiscal year 2022 to the current year-to-date figures in 2023. Tab "#2" highlights our performance on alarm.com, emphasizing the hours saved for customers and the reduction in false alarm dispatches, leading to better use of emergency services. On tab "#3," we outline the stakeholder groups engaged in our projects, shedding light on the complexity and cross-functional teams involved. These tabs provide specific details and metrics, giving a clear picture of our achievements and the positive impact of our initiatives.
In addition, we've included a presentation slide deck that was shared with our leadership team in July 2023. This deck offers a visual overview of our key accomplishments, strategies, and outcomes. It serves as another valuable resource, supplementing the spreadsheet data, to further illustrate the impact and success of our initiatives. The combination of the detailed spreadsheet and the visual presentation provides a comprehensive and compelling case for the merits of our nomination.
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2021 of the nominated team, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
- Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2021 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 243 words used.
Our team has focused on technology automation within our monitoring call center environment. This has resulted in substantial cost savings, with a total alarm offload in-year savings of $1.5M annualized and an incremental $0.1M contribution to the budget.
The impact on the business and customer experience has been truly transformative. Through our efforts in the Alarm Offload program, we have achieved measurable outcomes, including OPEX savings of $0.8M year-to-date in August.
Our work in increasing alarm automation from 33% in December 2022 to an outstanding 59% in August 2023, representing a significant boost of 2,600 bps, has resulted in substantial OPEX savings of $0.5M for the year 2023.
Furthermore, the innovative launch of the ADC In-App Cancel feature in late May, which allows customers to self-serve alarm cancellations, enhances the customer experience and reduces operational costs simultaneously. This innovative feature launched to 314K TELUS Security customers in mid May 2023 and resulted in 7K incidents cleared by customers in its first 3 months of operation. This yielded $31K in 2023 Aug YTD OPEX savings and is expected to drive $286K in annualized savings.
Finally, the involvement in the False Alarm Reduction program, which has successfully reduced chronic high volume inbound alarm signals by 44.4K (or 3% of manual alarms) in August year-to-date, has led to significant OPEX savings of $0.4M in August year-to-date and an estimated $0.6M in OPEX savings for the entire year 2023.
- Briefly describe the nominated team: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 183 words used.
As Canada’s fastest-growing security and automation company, TELUS is proud to nominate our Central Alarm Monitoring Department (CAM) for Contact Center of the Year.
This is the heart of our Smart Security service, supporting our 1 million residential and commercial customers with rapid response to their security alarms, and by dispatching guards and life-saving emergency municipal services, such as police, fire, and ambulance first-responders. CAM is made up of 176 operators, receiving 7 million signals annually with 44 thousand signals manually responded to by operators every week. The average response time to a signal is 13 seconds.
One of the products TELUS Security offers is SmartWear, a personal safety device with 24/7 access to emergency responders. As these can be life-impacting signals, our expectation is to respond to these alarms within 10 seconds. We have 100% service level achievement in this category, with the average speed of response being 2 seconds to SmartWear signals.
TELUS entered the security space in January 2018 and reached our aspirational goal of one million subscribers in March 2023, offering the widest selection of security services across Canada.
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 235 words used.
The year-over-year service level attainment increases paint a vivid picture of this improvement: for high-priority alarms, we've seen a remarkable increase from 76% in FY 2022 to 83% in Nov YTD. Meanwhile, medium-priority alarms have surged from 83% to 94%, and low-priority alarms have shown a leap from 82% 95%. Moreover, the response times have seen an equally striking transformation. High-priority alarms have experienced a dramatic reduction from 61 seconds in 2022 to 24 seconds in 2023, marking a drop of 37 seconds. Medium-priority alarms have witnessed an even more staggering decline, plummeting from 927 seconds to 200 seconds, a remarkable decrease of 727 seconds. Finally, low-priority alarms have dropped from 6,123 seconds in FY 2022 to 99 seconds in 2023, a reduction of 5,212 seconds This shift not only reflects improved efficiency but also showcases the substantial impact that alarm automation has had on our operations.
The introduction of the Alarm.com in-app cancel feature reflects a commitment to reducing customer effort. 314K security customers now have the convenience of canceling alarms with a single click, enhancing their overall experience and keeping them informed about their alarm system. This instills confidence in our service and strengthens the bond between TELUS and its customers. The impact has been significant, as evidenced by the impressive figures: year-to-date, a total of 1,871 hours have been saved, with an annualized estimate of 9,858 hours.
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