Customer Identity Verification Project Example

Large View

The credit card division of TD Bank Financial Group receives more than 3.7 million customer calls per year. Research showed that customers were experiencing a high level of dissatisfaction when phoning the call center due to the lengthy and complicated process used to verify their identity. Customer complaints over the identity verification process clashed with both TD Bank’s corporate vision to Be the Better Bank and its “comfort” branding strategy (Banking can be this comfortable). In response, a Six Sigma project was chartered to deliver a superior, more comfortable customer experience.

This DMAIC project is a practical example of how Six Sigma can significantly improve the customer experience. The original reason for taking on this project was the high level of customer complaints. The team improved this metric from 26 complaints per week to only 4.6. Historically the customer identity verification process accounted for about 11 percent of our customer complaints. Now it represents only 3 percent. Customer complaints are tracked on a central database. The operations manager gets a monthly report that itemizes the top 10 complaints. This problem used to be No. 1 or No. 2, but now it is not even showing as an issue.

The total financial benefit to the credit call centers was calculated as an annualized operational savings of $1.6 million. In addition, with the extra capacity, the call centers were able to increase sales of credit line increases and balance of account transfers. Sales opportunities average more than 5,000 units per month and have resulted in $725,000 in revenue.