Challenge
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contact centers are a primary entry point into VA for Veterans. Contact centers support inquiries about general compensation, pension, education, health care, provider benefits, life insurance benefits, and internment options for Veterans and their family members. With more than 275 geographically dispersed sites of various size and scope independently handling 140 million phone contacts per year, VA realized that they needed a strategy to improve, modernize, and transform its contact centers to ensure an exceptional Veteran experience.
Solution
The VA Veterans Experience Office (VEO), who is responsible for improving the overall Veteran’s experience with VA by reorienting the organization around Veterans’ needs and empowering employees to provide better customer service, contracted Atlas Research to develop a 3-part strategic roadmap to improve, modernize, and transform VA contact centers. First, the Atlas Team conducted a comprehensive assessment of the current operational capabilities in key areas within VA Contact Centers, including the Veterans and employees experience, to determine the Contact Centers’ level of maturity. Then, the team worked with business leaders in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and National Cemetery Administration (NCA) to identify best practices and opportunities for improvements to operations, infrastructure, and human capital management practices. Finally, the team created an organizational change management strategy and plan to successfully implement VA’s goal of achieving “True North” (an aspirational state of operational maturity for future VA Contact Center capability).
Result
Atlas’ assessment and associated recommendations are helping VA’s enterprise-wide effort to drive toward a modern, user-friendly, technology-enabled contact center and web experience that consistently delivers an exceptional Veteran experience across the enterprise.