How Nutrisystem’s Call Center Successfully Manages Spikes in Call Volume

The wellness giant smoothed out call spikes and saw a huge increase in customer satisfaction after installing Fonolo Call-Backs.

Added Control

Over Seasonal Call Spikes

Reduced

Abandonment Rates

Improved

Customer Experience

The Company

Industry

Retail

No. Of Employees

400+

Location

Washington, Pennsylvania

Headquartered in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, Nutrisystem is a commercial provider of weight loss products and services. Initially, the company offered weight loss counselling and products in brick and mortar centers. However, in 1999, they moved to a direct business model, selling their programs via the Internet and a call center.

As a leader in the weight loss industry, Nutrisystem has helped millions of people over the course of 45 years, transforming their lives with a personal weight management experience that’s simple to follow, effective, and unique.

The Challenge

Nutrisystem has a fairly seasonal business, which makes staffing for peak call volumes a challenge. When a call center experiences increases in call volume, hold times inevitably go up and abandon rates become an issue. Faced with this problem, Nutrisystem had two choices: Staff up for peak periods, or find a way to mitigate the effects of hold-time.

Like most call centers, Nutrisystem’s goal was to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, staffing up to handle peak times is a costly, inefficient operating model, since agents would be underutilized during lower call volume periods.

The Solution

Nutrisystem’s optimal scenario was to keep a consistent staffing level at the call center, across the various peaks and valleys.

Their focus was to eliminate the detrimental effects of hold time, without making any major changes to their existing call center infrastructure. Nutrisystem turned to Fonolo’s Voice Call-Back solution, which gives callers the option of receiving a call-back when hold times are too long. Callers can simply “press 1 for a call-back” while Fonolo waits on their behalf for the next available agent.

Fonolo easily integrated into our current Telephony System and is set to offer customers a call-back if the estimated wait time reaches a certain level. We’ve seen better answer rates, and higher post-call satisfaction scores.

Michael Volensky, Director of Operational Excellence and Support

The Result

Since deploying Fonolo’s call-back solution, Nutrisystem has handled their call volume fluctuations more effectively, reducing abandonment rates. Accordingly, Nutrisystem now maintains a more consistent headcount across its contact center. Best of all, customers don’t need to choose between waiting on hold or abandoning the call.

This has left callers feeling happier, which has reduced handle times and improved the customer experience. By giving their callers the option of receiving a call-back (rather than waiting on hold), Nutrisystem has improved customer satisfaction scores across the board.

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“We decided to engage with Fonolo and utilize their call-back solution as another means for us to establish an effortless customer experience. The most rewarding aspect of utilizing Fonolo has been our customer’s reaction to the option; it’s been very positive. Happy customers help increase brand loyalty and help the bottom line!”

Bill MacBride
SVP, Customer Care Operations