In 2015, Quest Diagnostics leveraged the Good Jobs Strategy to map out an interconnected set of strategic choices to stabilize their call center teams, raise expectations, and drive increased productivity and customer satisfaction.

Investment to stabilize teams and raise expectations. To reduce turnover and set their teams up for success, Quest increased pay, instituted stronger career paths, and improved hiring and training. 

• They raised starting wages from $13 to $14 and gave all existing reps a 2% raise. 
• Their new career path laid out clear pay progression (2% raise at three months, 2.5% at six, and 3% at 12 months) and a roadmap for additional promotions and specialization. 
• They re-designed the hiring process to better reflect characteristics of successful hires and created more structured training. Quest reduced class sizes from 25 to 10 reps and consolidated training from 7 to 5 week with an emphasis on “nesting” (sitting with an experienced rep to practice taking calls).

Quest simultaneously raised their expectations of reps. They instituted a new attendance policy and improved performance management system. Reps had been judged solely on “speed to answer”. Quest expanded the metrics to include contacts per productive hour, first-call resolution, and average handling time, and set goals for each “pod”. Quest also increased the number of reviewed calls per rep from 1 to 3 per month. 

Simplification to drive productivity and service. Based on customer surveys, Quest lowered live call volume 17% by eliminating unnecessary calls and by implementing a more sophisticated self-service menu. Lower call volume led to an 18% drop in the number of reps, which Quest reached through attrition, not layoffs. The $2 million+ in savings helped fund their investments in people. 

Standardization and empowerment to drive continuous improvement. Quest created standardized “Model Pods” where teams were trained on quality management and continuous improvement and then empowered to identify and solve problems. 

• Model Pods implemented daily huddles guided by huddle boards with their new KPIs, new standards on how to page doctors to increase continuity of call information, and many other projects that drove service and efficiency. 
• These model pod practices expanded new standards to the entire organization through a central project board, weekly results/problem-solving meetings, and a replication checklist of successful interventions. 
• Once teams were stable, Quest introduced a frontline idea system that generated nearly 1,600 ideas from reps in less than a year, ~1,000 of which were implemented.

Cross-training to smooth call volume. Quest further improved capacity management by simplifying staffing codes, creating more cross training across regions, and improving call routing systems to create a more consistent call flow.

Slack to ensure quality customer support. To ensure supervisors were not fighting fires and could develop teams and support customers, Quest added subject matter experts to pods, workforce management staff to help with scheduling, and six quality specialists to take on the thorniest calls.