ECSI Saves $1.5M Automating Front Desk Calls With Replicant

By Replicant
February 22, 2023

Who is ECSI?

ECSI is the leading provider of accounts receivable management for campus-based student loan servicing. In 2022, they serviced almost 1.4 million calls across three contact centers. ECSI partnered with Replicant to deploy a Front Desk solution to authenticate, route, and resolve customer calls. As a result, they’ve been able to navigate rising demand and hiring challenges while driving savings and efficiency.

Industry: Financial Services
Use Case: Front Desk (Tax form processing, Refunds, Loan servicing)
Annual Call Volume: 1.4 Million

“Automation has become integral to what we do. Our business is dramatically different today with Replicant. It’s really made a difference in our employees’ lives and the experience from the borrowers and parents who call us, as well as how we run our business” – Mike Bowman, Senior Director, Operations, ECSI

Replicant Flattens Spikes During Busy Seasons

Replicant’s Thinking Machine currently serves three of ECSI’s core products: tax form processing, refunds, and loan servicing. These flows are all highly seasonal, peaking in the summer and winter months. The Thinking Machine was deployed to gather caller intents, authenticate customers, and contain or route them appropriately. This led to transformational benefits an IVR couldn’t provide.

Some of the key benefits include:

Unlimited seasonal elasticity
Analytics for every caller intent
Natural conversations
24/7 no-wait service

“Last year’s biggest win for us wasn’t just the $1.5 million dollars we saved with automation. The Thinking Machine is really good at collecting information to show us what our obstacles are and where people get stuck. We can use that data to design a better process, to design a better website, to start new solutions.” – Mike Bowman

Results That Speak for Themselves

ECSI didn’t just look at traditional KPIs to measure the success of Replicant. They surveyed customers who were contained by the Thinking Machine as well as callers who spoke to an agent. They found customer satisfaction was almost identical between the two. For calls that the Thinking Machine couldn’t contain, ECSI’s handle times still dropped during escalations. With Replicant at the “Front Desk,” the Thinking Machine authenticates customers, gathers initial information, and passes a summary to each agent, saving thousands of minutes each year.

Transformational Impact:

40% decrease in escalation handle times
70% faster agent response times
$1.5M in annual savings

“The reason you got our businesses is because you’re honest, straightforward and responsive. You were very inclusive with my team, showing them how things work and making them part of the build process. There was just a lot of transparency, openness, honest. You would hope this isn’t true, but you just don’t see that everywhere.” – Mike Bowman