Insider Newsletter from Information Mapping

August 2007

Live Webinar: Getting Compliance Under Control

Compliance, Risk, and the Art of Policy and Procedure Writing at the 2007 Risk & Control Conference, The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), San Diego, CA

September 2007

Live Webinar: Creating Effective Laboratory Documents

Live Webinar: DITA, Topic-Based Authoring, and Information Mapping: What Authors Need to Know

Live Webinar: Creating Effective Laboratory Quality Manuals

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July 2007	www.infomap.com	Vol. 15, No. 2

Case Study: Comerica Bank

By Cynthia Whitty, Public Relations Specialist

Founded in 1849 as the Detroit Savings Fund Institute, Comerica Bank served Detroit and later the state of Michigan. Today, the bank has over 11,000 employees and operates in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and many other markets. Though Comerica has grown, its focus on forging long-lasting customer relationships and helping people and businesses be successful has not changed.

‘Redesign’ Strategy Includes Information Mapping
In the 1990s a new CEO launched a project to review and redesign the company. Comerica’s bureaucracy was streamlined, businesses or products that were unprofitable were dropped, the company’s top-performing lines were strengthened, and the bank expanded into Canadian and Mexican markets.

One element of Comerica’s redesign effort was to adopt the Information Mapping® method as its documentation standard. Branch offices develop all of their policies and procedures using the method. Recently, a procedures team was formed to standardize documentation nationwide, using Information Mapping to incorporate best practices for the two call centers, one in Texas with 50 employees and one in Detroit with 100.

Standardizing Two Call Centers for Efficiency
As a supervisor of the customer call center in Texas for the past six years, Lisa Sherlock’s job is to maintain her department’s service levels, manage team members’ performance, support sales goals, and measure and maintain the department’s high standards for quality of service. Lisa says the call center is Comerica’s “front line,” and she enjoys working within a busy, customer-facing department.

In order to efficiently handle customer calls and sell new products, agents must be able to quickly and easily access reference materials, such as product information, policies and procedures, and customer files. It is essential that this information be accessible, easy to navigate, accurate, and up to date.

“The procedures team was formed,” Lisa says, “to standardize the call centers so that they work together as one and maintain quality and accuracy. As the centers move from ‘service’ to ‘service and sales,’ new product information must be easy to use and maintain.” The procedures team started by documenting 100 call center functions using the Information Mapping method, and will expand the documentation as needed.

“The agents are expected to fulfill a customer request in a timely manner and be very accurate, since banking is very regulated, while reviewing a customer profile for referral opportunities,” says Lisa. “New customer privacy laws and the Patriot Act make it more critical than ever for agents to follow guidelines set forth in the regulations.”

Lisa points to “rising QA scores” as a result of creating call center documentation using the Information Mapping method. She says, “We are having great success writing scripts our call center agents use when speaking to customers and making referrals to our sales group. The agents are adapting well to the new process.”

“I am a manager who believes in her team and trusts that they will do what needs to be done to make the department successful,” says Lisa. Information Mapping is a tool she also believes in. She took an Information Mapping workshop five years ago, and uses the method daily in all her communications.

Benefits of Using the Information Mapping Method
Companies with call centers like Comerica have found that the Information Mapping method has helped to

• decrease the amount of time it takes to access information by 54%, and
• improve information retrieval and the number of questions answered by customer service representatives by 100%.

In addition, the Information Mapping method has helped companies save money by reducing customer wait time, improving one-call resolution rates, and increasing the accuracy of message delivery.

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