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Banking & Financial ServicesCustomer Servicing

26% Performance Uplift and 22% FTE Reduction — By Fixing Leadership, Not Headcount

A digital bank operating a hybrid/remote customer servicing operation, managing high-volume customer interactions across voice and digital channels.

IndustryDigital Banking
OperationCustomer Servicing
Scale200 FTE · Hybrid / Remote
Time to Baseline42 days

SLAs were being missed, attrition was high, and traditional contact center metrics couldn’t explain why

The customer servicing department was experiencing medium-to-high staff turnover, driven by the perception of entry-level roles with limited career growth. New hires were being recruited and started in fixed batch cycles regardless of actual workload volumes — creating periods of overstaffing followed by understaffing as attrition took hold.

Team managers were attempting to achieve SLA targets using traditional contact center metrics alone — average handle time, calls answered, abandonment rate. But they lacked the granularity to understand agent efficiency on individual calls, how hold times and after-call work correlated with actual performance, and where the real productivity variance existed across the department.

Leadership believed traditional workforce planning and standard contact center reporting was sufficient. The estimated cost of inaction was $2.5M annually — driven by unnecessary FTE carrying costs, missed SLA penalties, and the compounding cost of turnover in a department that couldn’t demonstrate where performance was actually breaking down.

Operational Friction DetectedPre-Bramble baseline
  • SLA attainment73%High
  • Agent efficiency47%High
  • Staff turnoverMedium–HighMedium
  • Performance mgmt consistencyInconsistentHigh

The performance problem wasn’t on the front line — it was in how the front line was being led

Bramble’s baseline revealed something leadership hadn’t anticipated: the primary driver of performance variance wasn’t agent capability or call complexity. It was significant inconsistency in how team leaders managed performance across the department. Some teams consistently outperformed others — not because of talent differences, but because of leadership skills gaps that had never been identified or addressed.

Key Operational Insight
Significant leadership skills gaps were the primary driver of performance inconsistency across the department. The operation didn’t need better agents — it needed its leaders equipped with the right data, methodology, and coaching to manage performance effectively.
Before — Hidden friction
Agent efficiency47%
SLA attainment73%
FTE count177
Leadership approachInconsistent
After — Friction removed
Agent efficiency59%
SLA attainment86%
FTE count145
Leadership approachData-informed

From surface-level metrics to leadership transformation — in four months

Bramble established the operational baseline that traditional contact center reporting couldn’t deliver, identified the root cause at the leadership level, and provided the framework for coaching-led performance improvement.

Days 1–42

Establish Baseline

Bramble integrated with MS Dynamics, Genesys, and Alvaria to build a granular performance baseline beyond standard contact center metrics — measuring actual agent efficiency, correlating hold and ACW times with call outcomes, and identifying variance patterns across teams.

Three system integrations (CRM, telephony, WFM)
Agent efficiency measured at individual and team level
Performance variance between teams quantified objectively
Months 2–3

Identify Root Cause

The data revealed that performance variance mapped to leadership, not agent capability. Teams under certain leaders consistently underperformed, regardless of agent tenure or experience. Leadership skills gaps and inconsistent management methodology were identified as the primary friction.

Performance variance traced to leadership, not agent talent
Specific leadership skills gaps identified and quantified
Management inconsistency mapped across all teams
Months 3–4

Leadership Transformation

Leadership changes were made where necessary. Remaining leaders received in-depth coaching on data-informed performance management methodology. Within four months, the department had transformed its performance trajectory.

Targeted leadership changes implemented
Best-practice performance methodology coaching delivered
Agent efficiency increased from 47% to 59% department-wide

Results measured from the deployment

These are measured outcomes — not projections. Real operational improvements delivered through Bramble.

26%
Performance uplift
Agent efficiency increased from 47% to 59% within 4 months.
−22%
FTE reduction
Headcount reduced from 177 to 145 through improved performance.
+18%
SLA uplift
SLA attainment increased from 73% to 86%.
$2.5M
Annual cost of inaction
FTE carrying costs, SLA penalties, and turnover expense.
42 days
Time to trusted baseline
Granular efficiency baseline beyond standard CC metrics.
47% → 59%
Efficiency improvement
Measured at individual agent level across all teams.
Sustained
Improvement maintained
Data-informed leadership methodology embedded in operations.

We thought we had all the metrics and dashboards we needed.

Head of Customer ServicingDigital Bank
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