E*TRADE
VISIONARY ONLINE BROKER EMBRACES ASPECT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP SOLUTIONS
E*TRADE invented online investing and has been revolutionizing the financial services industry ever since, using technology innovatively to give individual investors more convenience and control. What does a visionary company like E*TRADE have in its 24-hour call centers? Open technology that delivers the greatest convenience and control, of course, the Aspect Customer Relationship Management suite.
E*TRADE started out with a vision: Someday everyone would own computers and use them to manage their investments. With the launch of the award-winning E*TRADE Web site, www.etrade.com, the demand for the company's online investment services has exploded. The original all-electronic brokerage, E*TRADE continues to add new investor services, such as portfolio tracking, free real-time quotes, Java-based charting applications, and market news 24 hours a day.
E*TRADE complements its expanding online investment services with a highly efficient virtual call center. Some calls come in from the stock and commodity exchanges about transactions that, for one reason or another, can't be completed through automated means. Most calls, however, come from investors with questions—from simple to complex— about their accounts.
“Knowledgeable people who understood our business got to work immediately on a solution to address our requirements.”
Investor calls alone can reach 5,000 a day, and traffic from the exchanges adds several hundred more calls. Overall call volume is growing about 15 percent a year, but day to day, hour to hour, the call traffic can fluctuate as dramatically as the stock market itself.
A virtual call center for the whole continent
The challenge for E*TRADE's call center management is to maintain a high service level for its demanding customers under volatile conditions—without overstaffing. E*TRADE meets the challenge with three networked Aspect ACD servers. These mission-critical platforms run Release 7 of the Aspect ACD Software application, the main component of the Customer Relationship Management suite.
The West Coast call center site in Sacramento, California, and the recently opened East Coast site in Atlanta, Georgia, give E*TRADE transcontinental coverage, enabling the company to extend its customer service hours without extending working hours. A third, smaller site in Palo Alto, California, can take overflow calls from the other two if necessary.
Another component of the Customer Relationship Management suite, the Aspect Network InterQueue application, lets E*TRADE connect the three sites and manage them as one virtual call center. Multisite queuing balances the traffic across the sites, so agent resources are utilized efficiently and queue times are minimized. Keeping queue times short is a high priority because E*TRADE competes in a time-sensitive industry where seconds mean money to customers. Calls are routed to the first available agent with the skills suited to the caller's needs, regardless of physical location. Queue times are sent to the destination site along with the call, ensuring that all calls are treated equally, whether they originate from across town or across the country. And calls are tracked across the network no matter which site or application handles them.
More effective management
“The Aspect system has the unique advantage of making multiple sites look like one site,” says Steve Toedtemeier, manager, Telecommunications. That's important to E*TRADE. “It gives us more flexibility in staffing and saves resources because one person can manage all the sites from any one of our locations.”
Based on the Microsoft Windows NT Server operating system, the Aspect ACD Software application enables E*TRADE to manage multiple sites effectively. “System administrators can now bring up multiple windows at once,” says Toedtemeier. “You couldn't really do that with the UNIX platform.” And Toedtemeier notes that the common Windows infrastructure, from the ACD software to agent desktops, provides a highly stable and reliable environment for disseminating management information to anyone on the network who needs it.
Convenience and control in a changing environment
Another Customer Relationship Manage-ment suite advantage that E*TRADE appreciates is convenience and control for adapting to changing requirements. E*TRADE's rapidly expanding portfolio of investment services means frequent changes for the call center. The Windows-based interface for system administration makes it quick and easy to add, move, or delete resources.
Another component of the Customer Relationship Management suite, the Aspect Architect tool, speeds the development of new call center applications and changes in customer service menus. The Aspect Architect tool is an intuitive Windows-based graphical interface for creating workflows that define how the ACD Software routes calls. “I especially like the copy function. I can copy workflows from one site to another. That cuts development time in half, while it improves accuracy,” explains Toedtemeier.
Empowering agents through real-time information
E*TRADE is highly self-sufficient and skilled in developing its own call center applications. Nevertheless, it tapped Aspect Global Solution Services to assist in the rapid implementation of a custom application based on yet another component of the Customer Relationship Management suite—the Aspect RealTime System. The RealTime System is CTI middleware that enables developers to create applications that display up-to-the-minute status information on agent desktops—not just for local sites but for an entire virtual call center. Agents can see calls waiting at a glance, so they can make instant decisions about call handling. When calls require special treatment, agents can see who's available, regardless of location, to take a transfer call or to come online with them to resolve a customer issue. “It saves agent time and improves the quality and speed of service,” says Toedtemeier, “when agents don't have to find assistance by trial and error.”
Using Global Solution Services to help develop the system proved a valuable time-saver to E*TRADE. “It was an extremely professional process,” says Toedtemeier. “No time was wasted in trying to figure out what we wanted to accomplish. Knowledgeable people who understood our business got to work immediately on a solution to address our requirements.”
Technology and more
It's a real testimonial to a company's solutions and technical expertise to be adopted by a technology leader and innovator like E*TRADE. E*TRADE values the technology foundation that the Aspect Customer Relationship Management suite provides for integrated, multisystem, multivendor call centers. “Aspect customer relationship applications fit in with our direction,” says Toedtemeier. But there is more to value as well. Steve concludes, “I enjoy the relationship.”
Aspect, the Aspect logo, Aspect Architect, and Network InterQueue are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Telecommunications Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other product or service names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
E*TRADE Group, Inc.
A leading provider of online investing services, E*TRADE offers independent investors automated order placement for stocks, options, and mutual funds at low commission rates. The company also provides personalized services such as portfolio tracking, real-time stock quotes, news, and market analysis. Investors can access E*TRADE via the company's award-winning Web site, www.etrade.com, and through other online services, such as AOL.
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