Ameritas Becomes Six-Time Recipient of BenchmarkPortal's Center of Excellence Certification

Achieving call center certification is not an easy task. In doing so, one differentiates their center as first-rate, with highly coveted operations and strategies for success. Achieving BenchmarkPortal’s (News - Alert) Center of Excellence certification rises even higher above these standards to acknowledge contact centers that boast strong management and overall leadership in the industry. It should go without saying, then, that Ameritas Group, a division of Ameritas Life Insurance Corp., should be very proud of accomplishing certification for its dental, vision and hearing contact center by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization.

Only the top 10 percent of participating contact center teams make this highly-esteemed cut to earn the Center of Excellence, a statement released last week noted, which only further demonstrates “superior performance in cost- and quality-related metrics.”

BenchmarkPortal took to its company blog last week to share the good news as well, where CEO Bruce Belfiore explained, “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry…Contact centers that achieve certification are remarkable in their ability to balance a commitment to service excellence with cost effective service strategies.”

Image via BenchmarkPortal

The company went on to explain that in order to achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must “undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world’s largest database of contact center metrics.” This is where BenchmarkPortal experts step in to audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification, the company added.

"We applaud Ameritas' ongoing commitment to superior customer service,” Belfiore continued in the official statement. “Certification is an important distinction based on scientifically measured best practices drawn from BenchmarkPortal's database of contact center metrics, which was developed at Purdue University (News - Alert) and is now the largest in the world."

A variety of factors go into determining a contact center’s eligibility for this certification, or what BenchmarkPortal describes as “key performance indicators.” These include:

·         First call resolution

·         Cost per call

·         Call waiting time

·         Customer satisfaction

·         Agent satisfaction

·         Utilization of human resources

A huge part of this is delivering customer satisfaction, or what many consider the heartbeat of contact center operations. BenchmarkPortal notes this in its blog as well, saying that customer satisfaction, which nourishes both customer loyalty and business continuity and growth, is the ultimate goal, as “balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.”

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore. "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs. Ameritas has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics. We have validated its metrics and have certified that Ameritas is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate Ameritas on a job well done.”

A well job done indeed!