AAMC Transforms its Contact Center and Reduces Cost by 54% with Amazon Connect

Assessing damage to a motor vehicle after an accident is an important step in resolving an insurance claim. In Australia, this work is carried out by specialist assessors from firms such as AAMC, who work with insurance companies to determine the condition of claimants’ vehicles, identify repairs and replacements, and obtain approvals to proceed with quoted work.

AAMC’s 85 assessors are supported by a call center with 73 agents who work with claimants to schedule assessments, repairers to request quotes and schedule jobs, and insurers to obtain details of policies and other information.

AAMC adopts flexible working policies that allow assessors, call center agents, and other team members to work remotely. However, in early 2021, the business realized that its incumbent phone system lacked the features to support a remote work environment. Specifically, AAMC began to experience issues with the system not recording calls from team members working remotely. This impacted AAMC’s audit efforts—creating a major blind spot in the organization’s ability to track its performance and quality of service to clients.

“Call center call recordings are an Australian Prudential Regulation Authority standard requirement in our industry, so when we experienced issues, that was the biggest blocker for us. This—and the fact that our incumbent phone system was costly and feature-poor—propelled us to look for an alternative solution,” says Mark Gwynne, chief information officer at AAMC.

AAMC reviewed three alternative call center solutions and after conducting an analysis, decided on Amazon Connect from Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Amazon Connect was very price-competitive with a wide range of features that met our needs,” says Gwynne.

AAMC worked closely with AWS to ensure a smooth implementation, and in three months, the system went live. The AWS account team’s input included helping to build call flows and training AAMC’s IT team to leverage Amazon Connect’s features. Chris Hill, information systems and communications manager at AAMC, says, “The speed and velocity in building and deploying this system, followed by training, was extremely fast for a call center of our size.”

The support from AWS also helped shape AAMC’s call center requirements as it underwent its analysis. Features like text-to-speech from Amazon Polly, initially identified as optional, became mandatory and essential.

Gwynne says, “We weren’t trying to revolutionize our call center system with all the features upfront. We were simply trying to build a call center step-by-step and make sure it worked. It was the easiest transition.” 

With Amazon Connect Contact Lens, AAMC can transcribe calls at the click of a button. The ability to turn call recordings into speech transcription and sentiment analysis allows call center staff to quickly locate and access the point at which a call becomes problematic, instead of listening to the whole recording.

In addition, the business is capturing what Gwynne describes as a “phenomenal” amount of information about call flow in the background. For example, AAMC can now check whether each call center agent has a stable connection to work effectively from home. 

Gwynne says, “Something that’s very high level and expensive in the market can now be commoditized and easily available at a click. To be able to audit calls and ensure they’re handled appropriately, that was huge.”

By leveraging guidance from the AWS account team, AAMC’s IT team can scale the Amazon Connect solution to support spikes in call traffic, due to hail or flooding, without experiencing capacity impediments.

“In the event of an increase in call volume, we can spin up a new call center in an hour with Amazon Connect. This provides scalability that we didn’t have before,” says Gwynne.

Furthermore, with the Amazon Connect pay-as-you go pricing model, AAMC is billed on a per call basis, versus paying upfront or minimum monthly fees. Gwynne adds, “Previously, we would have to purchase a new call center system to support any additional growth, which is prohibitively expensive.” Overall, the business estimates its saving 54 percent compared to the cost of its previous phone system.

With AAMC’s previous call center system, changes to its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) message had to take place after office hours. If any errors occurred, the entire message had to be re-recorded and the upload process repeated. Hill says, “With Amazon Connect, we simply change one word, and it works. That’s amazing and means anyone can now make changes.”

AAMC also leverages other features from Amazon Connect such as call backs, where users can request a return call once an agent is available. Amazon Connect’s rich feature set is now a key selling point for AAMC in responding to tenders from prospective clients. “When preparing tender responses, we cover some of the technology we use, and our call center is a big part of that requirement. We have agents handling calls from insurance companies’ claimants, and these companies are very sensitive about how those calls are dealt with. Communicating that we’ve a feature-rich call center system that’s scalable and secure is a strong selling point,” says Gwynne.

With Amazon Connect, AAMC is delivering a flexible workplace—key to improving employee satisfaction and ensuring the business is a workplace of choice. Since the implementation of Amazon Connect, the business has kept average call center employee turnover levels down to just 2%—well below accepted industry levels.

“We’re competing against insurers for claims handlers and ex-call center employees and our flexibility helps us attract and retain the best talent,” says Gwynne. “Our strategy has always been to remove the need for employees to be based in an office and help deliver work-life balance. Amazon Connect helps us do that.”

To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/connect.