4/7/2006

Memo from Sam Carpenter to staff

From the beginning I have tried to find a way to measure quality. About a year ago it dawned on me that the way to do that is to simply count the number of message transactions in a given month, and then divide that by the number of bona-fide complaints we received. These complaints HAD to be substantiated: The complaint had to indicate that one of our TSRs made an error.

At first we determined that the error rate was 1 error per approximately 11,000 transactions. This was a sketchy figure as our reporting and verification process was not defined precisely at the beginning. Now it’s solid, and Hollee Wilson and her management team go deep to find, investigate and document errors. Our latest Centratel “Customer Reported Error Rate” which covered the three month period of January through March 2006 indicated one error per 6,612 message transactions. I feel comfortable with this figure and am eager to prove to any of our 800 clients how we arrived at this figure and why it is accurate.

Human error is a matter-of-fact thing but it’s good to know our system protocols, everything from how we take calls to drug testing to scheduling, contributes to this high level of measurable quality.