Case Study – Strategic Planning, Project Management and Collaboration

Conversion Command Center

Issues

A bank planned to convert one of its acquisitions and the acquired customers to all new systems and processes over one weekend. Over one hundred employees would be learning new computers systems and new processes while staying open and serving customers. The new employees would be unsure of who to call with operational and system questions during a very chaotic time. A central Conversion Command Center was created to act as a single point of contact for employees with questions.

Keys

Early in the conversion planning process, we recognized that, despite extensive training, newly acquired employees would be overwhelmed in the first few days after the conversion, not knowing where to call for information. Their first resource were Branch Buddies, employees from the acquiring bank who were experienced in branch operations and using the systems. These Branch Buddies were placed in each new branch to assist with questions and customer contact. But sometimes the Buddies were overwhelmed or encountered unique conversion related issues. In these cases, the employees could contact the Conversion Command Center.

Technology
Employees could contact the Command Center by phone, email, or a Contact Us form on the corporate Intranet. A Command Center Web site was created listing Breaking Conversion News, Frequently Asked Questions, a Contact form for submitting questions, and a detailed issue list showing all of the issues received by the Command Center and their status.

The Command Center was located in a large conference room with four telephone lines and PC workstations. Calls were automatically routed to the next available agent and, if all agents were busy, voicemail messages were automatically emailed to the Command Center Mail Box. A Command Center email address was created for contact by email. This address was also used to send out periodic updates on the conversion progress and outstanding issues.

Subject Matter Experts
During the weeks leading to the conversion, a list of Subject Matter Experts was compiled for use by the Command Center. Questions that couldn’t be immediately answered by the Command Center were routed by email to the Subject Matter Experts. These employees knew to expect the questions and to respond directly to the person with the question while providing a copy to the Command Center. This process allowed the fastest response to the employee while providing feedback to the Command Center.

Coordination with Existing Help Desks
The Command Center also coordinated its efforts with the existing IT Help Desk and Branch Help Desk. While employees were given instructions on whom to contact for which issues (IT or PC related; Branch procedures, etc) they were never criticized for calling the Command Center and they were never transferred to other departments. The Command Center staff took ownership of all issues reported to them and coordinated the response with the proper department.

Centralized Database of Issues
A centralized database of all issues was maintained, tracking the issue, the employee or area reporting the issue, the department or Subject Matter Expert the issue was referred to, the current status of the issue, and the eventual resolution.

Through this process, the Command Center was able to quickly identify common or wide-spread conversion issues and coordinate the resources to correct them. Updates on specific conversion or training issues were communicated back to all employees through emails and by posting the issue on the Conversion Web site. Common training issues were also identified and passed along to the Training Department for follow up.

The database also became a resource after the conversion to summarize issues for future acquisitions and conversions.

Staffing From All Departments
Staff for the Command Center came from all areas of the company. This diversity helped identify inter-related issues and help speed the response.  Brief training periods were given on how to input call information, triage the calls, find subject matter experts and send the appropriate information to the Subject Matter Experts. The Command Center was operational two weeks before the actual conversion date and for two weeks after the conversion date. The busiest time was the four days immediately after the conversion as employees were first exposed to the new systems and processes.

Daily Branch Update Conference Calls
The Command Center also facilitated daily calls after the conversion for all branch employees to ask additional questions and learn more about specific conversion issues. The subject matter experts were also included in those daily calls so they could hear about operational issues and provide immediate feedback.

Regular Status Reports for Executive Management
Finally, the Command Center provided a nightly status update via email and a recorded voicemail message for members of executive management to keep them up to date on the conversion progress and any customer-impact issues.

End Results

The Conversion Command Center handled over 1,000 emails, 800 phone calls, and 400 customer contact requests during a one week peak time period with just four staff members on duty. The conversion was so successful that the daily conference calls with branch staff were able to end just four days after the conversion.