Bankwest breaks contact center records in seven months

When Stephen Dargan was asked to lead the Bankwest Contact Centre in May 2019, his time as Head of Productivity for the financial institution helped him identify several opportunities for performance improvements.

The ever-increasing trend of customers turning to Bankwest’s digital channels was lifting the expectations for service and experience that the iconic institution was determined to meet.

However, it had some ground to cover, with average speed to answer (ASA) times ranging from 400–500sec, NPS in the low 40s and average handing time (AHT) also significantly high for an everyday banking service.

Dargan built on the existing accreditation program he had helped put in place in his previous role and set about lifting the operational excellence mindsets and behaviours of Contact Centre leaders and colleagues.

Short term pain, long term gain

Dargan admits the first six months were painful in building the foundations for sustainable growth and efficiencies, with all metrics trending the wrong way, except for NPS and first call resolution – which were the opposite.

The results bought him time to prove his plan would work and he and his team have repaid that faith.

The Bankwest Contact Centre is now breaking company records, with NPS above 60, first call resolution at 56 per cent and average speed to answer accelerating to 60-100 seconds consistently.

Success, Dargan says, was in listening to the frontline: “Senior leaders do not have all the answers – the agents do.”

To find out exactly how Dargan and his team achieved these impressive results tune into Dargan’s session at CXN Live Contact Centers 2020.