Handling Belltone customer calls from across the USA Hearing Care Central’s Illinois headquarters uses Five9.
Over the years Hearing Care Central has prioritized investment in its customer communications infrastructure, and the Illinois contact center reflects this. Far from an identikit ‘cubicle farm’ setup, the main contact center has been specifically arranged to reduce background noise – addressing a common complaint from customers – making it easier for everyone, particularly those with hearing difficulties, to enjoy clearer interactions.
Crystal-clear calls. Quality customer experiences.
A long-time Jabra customer, Hearing Care Central employs a range of Jabra noise-cancelling headsets, including the Jabra Engage 50, to ensure all its customer calls are crystal-clear.
As part of its continued performance success, it began to explore how AI could help them improve their customer experience even further.
Recognizing the value of having a real-time understanding of customer sentiment during live calls, Hearing Care Central chose to invest in Jabra Engage AI.
Whether at home or in the office, supervisors can remotely monitor call progression and offer instant support to agents when needed, to ensure that every call is kept on track. And, because it provides valuable insights on customer communications, the Engage AI solution also enables Hearing Care Central to track sentiment over time, identifying areas of opportunity to improve customer experience KPIs, enabling continued improvement and growth.
Christopher McBride, Director of Contact Center Operations at Hearing Care Central, explains that any initial reservations he had about how perceptive the system would be proved unfounded.
“A concern we had at the start was whether the solution would perceive representatives as rude or performing unsatisfactorily when they repeated information or talked more slowly for hearing impaired customers. This turned out not to be the case. All new employees were trained on the software, with every subsequent training class proving better than before, as we were learning along the way while gaining immediate insights from the solution. Our employees can see their initial scores and how they adjust over time to help build an accurate, valid representation of their individual performance. We can use this information to work with our staff, correcting behaviors for continued performance improvement.”
Contact center KPIs that speak for themselves
Hearing Care Central monitors customer experience via an in-depth dashboard which tracks a range of customer satisfaction KPIs. The resulting numbers speak for themselves.
“In the last year since our contact center started using Engage AI, our business has experienced a 30% increase in booked appointments” enthuses Glen Otey, Owner, Alliance Hearing. “We couldn’t be happier with the results. Engage AI has really been a game change for our business.”
Post-call surveys. A thing of the past.
On the subject of how the Engage AI solution has revolutionized customer feedback information, Christopher McBride admits, “I know most companies like to do post-call surveys but personally I can’t stand them, and I know many customers feel the same. Jabra Engage AI gives us the power to see exactly what’s going on with each call in real-time and it takes a lot of the guess work out of quality assurance. We can see how each call is progressing with the overall picture visible on our dashboards, and thanks to an alarm set up we can quickly intervene if we need to, before we lose a customer. Post-call surveys have effectively become redundant, so we’ve stopped wasting time on them.”
A competitive advantage
Priding themselves on being a progressive organization who push the boundaries of customer experience, for Christopher teaming up with the world’s leading professional audio brand, was a natural partnership, which would help them keep growing their business.
“We also use the Jabra Engage AI solution as a demonstration of how progressive we are in terms of our technological innovation. The power and immediacy of real-time, quality information puts us firmly in the driving seat, making us stand out as leaders in comparison with more traditional contact centers, who still rely on listening to recorded calls. This is enabling us to ensure that we have our pick of the brightest and best staff to join – and develop a career – with us.”
A graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology, Doug has been in the Technology industry since 1976 and actively oversees Fearing’s daily operations. Along with his wife, Lois, and three others, Doug started Fearing’s in a 600 square-foot facility in Portage, Wisconsin. In the 25 years since, the company has grown to over 30 employees with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doug likes to say he’s a “TV Technician with a dream� going back to his history with the family’s original business-Fearing’s TV and Appliance.
Doug values time with family, watersports, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing. In addition to being a devoted member of his church, Doug serves as Board President for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County, Board member of Schools for Haiti and Scripture Chair of the Gideons-Portage camp.
A graduate of MATC, Lois oversees Fearing’s daily book keeping along with various HR responsibilities.
Along with Doug, Lois is deeply connected to community outreach, serving as a Board member and Fundraising Committee Chairperson for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County. She also serves on the Schools for Haiti Fundraising committee. In addition, Lois’ ongoing passion and commitment to provide care for the elderly comes from her 10-year history of working in a Reedsburg, Wisconsin Nursing home.
Lois enjoys singing, hiking, sunny days on the pontoon, and spending time with her 4 grandchildren.
Ehren drives Fearing’s technology by continually seeking out trends to enhance capabilities while supporting Sales, Engineering and Installation teams. Throughout his years with Fearing’s, Ehren’s talent and vision have joined forces to create a wide variety of projects and strategic solutions that exceed expectation.
Ehren loves music, family time, movies, nature, sustainability efforts and electric vehicles.
With 10 years with Fearing’s and over twice that long in the industry, Ben continues to lead, coordinate, and develop the Commercial AV team.
By consistently delivering an outstanding experience and outcome, Ben contributes to the Fearing’s legacy of long-lasting partnerships that truly make a difference. Whatever the Commercial AV need may be, Ben and team deliver at the highest level.
Ben is an avid fisherman and photographer. He enjoys coaching his sons and other youth.
Chris has been with Fearing’s for 20 years and in the industry for over 2 decades. As a Certified leader in Sales Acceleration and trained in EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating Systems), Chris successfully utilizes his skills to lead the Fearing’s Salesforce. Chris and team are motivated and driven to develop new client partnerships while continuing to reinforce loyal long-term relationships with ongoing Service excellence.
Married for 19 years with 3 children, Chris enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting, camping and golf. He’s also been actively involved as a Youth Football and Softball coach for his family and others.
