Sam Kale

Sam Kale Email and Phone Number

EXECUTIVE LEADER TRUSTED TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN: Customer Care | Strategic Leadership | Analytics | Workforce Planning @ Edward Jones
st. louis, missouri, united states
Sam Kale's Location
Greensboro--Winston-Salem--High Point Area, United States
Sam Kale's Contact Details
About Sam Kale

Executive leader competitively improves customer care processes, cuts waste, and increases NPS for large, global workforce. Top-tier call center / workforce planning executive drives success across analytics, strategy, and execution.Currently seeking new opportunities in Vice President / Director of Customer Care, Customer Success, Customer Experience, Customer Service OperationsExecutive Leader, Customer Care / Workforce PlanningSam Kale (336) 508-1013I break new ground for call center leadership, devising, testing, and accelerating novel strategies that cut costs, maximize workforce capability, and drive inbound sales volume. I have a unique and well-rounded experience in call center leadership. Over the last dozen-plus years, I’ve aligned my cross-functional leadership strategy to align workstreams across call centers in the U.S. and across the globe. In fact, I took call center leadership to a new level with the launch of the remarkably successful (plus highly visible and potentially risky) home-based servicing / virtual call center, which achieved best-in-class NPS ratings. I also spearheaded and streamlined operations in a more traditional brick-and-mortar call center of 700+. Most recently, I’ve helped to transition some of our call center strategy to offshore locations as part of a workforce strategy cost reduction initiative.One example of my fearless approach to call center leadership involved deliberately combining low- and high performing teams. The combined group netted #1 NPS scores, and leaders of both teams earned well-deserved incentives for strategic and operations success. Another (see below) notable career success involved adding $1B+ in customer spend in the wake of the dissolution of the Costco-Amex partnership. This increase was fundamentally built on solid training and coaching of our staff to maximize existing customer relationships that otherwise would have been lost in the fallout.Please connect with me on LinkedIn.

Sam Kale's Current Company Details
Edward Jones

Edward Jones

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EXECUTIVE LEADER TRUSTED TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN: Customer Care | Strategic Leadership | Analytics | Workforce Planning
st. louis, missouri, united states
Website:
edwardjones.com
Employees:
35357
Sam Kale Work Experience Details
  • Edward Jones
    Director Of Information Technology, Service Desk Operations
    Edward Jones Jul 2022 - Present
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  • Benefitfocus
    Managing Director, Service Center Operations
    Benefitfocus Feb 2018 - Jun 2022
    Charleston, South Carolina Area
    Recruited to establish improved service delivery strategy, install workforce planning processes, and manage operating expenses (+$17M) for all aspects of the Service Center Operation. The Operations Center has over 800 associates during peak season, which includes quality, training, workforce planning, and call center associates across 6 locations. - Launched a multi-location strategy to improve disaster recovery planning and enhance staffing ramp-up processes during the peak call volume season of Open Enrollment. This includes leading the execution of a call center location in Tulsa, OK and the execution of an RFP to contract with 3rd party staffing partner to augment in-house staffing.- Installed improved workforce planning and capacity planning processes to drive down shrinkage, improve occupancy, and better meet customer SLAs with a reduction in OPEX ($500K).- Developed KPI Scorecard reporting processes and Scorecards to create visibility to performance, trends, and establish a performance management culture based driving improved +75% improvements on SLA metrics and +93% Top 2 Box NPS customer experience results. - Leading an organizational change effort that includes adding new career growth opportunities at all levels, installing new leadership at the Director level, and shifting responsibilities to better support all levels of the organization.- Installed a digital strategy growing the digital chat channel by 5x, reducing the e-mail channel by 10%, and launched new IVR self-service capabilities reducing calls by 10-15%.- Created a 24-month roadmap laying out further improvements leveraging more IVR & chat self-servicing enhancements to expand the digital servicing capabilities, to improve experience, and reducing expense.
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  • American Express
    Director Of Capacity Planning - Centralized Call Management (Workforce Planning)
    American Express Jan 2015 - May 2017
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    Based on the workforce planning experience developed in my earlier roles, I became director of capacity planning, which is a broader, more global role responsible for 22 markets and about 8,000 customer care professionals. I set up workforce planning initiatives that improved flexibility, process execution, and overall performance, as measured by NPS and a variety of call center metrics (adherence to schedule, abandoned call rate, and so on).CORE CALL CENTER LEADERSHIP STRENGTHSSTRATEGYI worked with my internal customers to help them predict their workforce capacity requirements. With these stakeholder partnerships, I cut workforce budgeting time by about half as well as aligned strategic messaging across global hiring, training, and operational teams. Also, once the Costco partnership was dissolved, I instituted a flexible workforce strategy for the HBS agents, enabling them to choose not to work during specific low-volume shifts, which prevented additional layoffs.SALES VOLUMEMost interesting was my work in increasing customer spend more than $1B after the dissolution of the Costco partnership. Both to take up customer care excess time once customer call volume related to the partnership waned as well as to re-engage existing customers, I set up a plan to extend contact times with customer callers, so customer care staff could introduce and sell new products. TECHNOLOGYI instituted technology to support a new chat servicing channel, which reduced staffing needs and about 75% on cost per call replaced by chat. This strategy is about to implemented in the New Delhi servicing center as well.WORKFORCE PLANNINGFinally, I participated in staffing reconfiguration projects in all 22 markets that shifted resources to low-cost regions, saving almost $50M in the US alone.To learn more about how my strategic leadership stabilized our workforce strategy as well as costs, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
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  • American Express
    Director Of Operations For Home-Based Servicing (Hbs) 2010-2014
    American Express Oct 2010 - Dec 2014
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    When American Express determined a need for call center talent that went beyond the usual recruitment regions centered on brick-and-mortar locations, I piloted a virtual call center strategy with 32 customer care representatives working from their own locations. Our test proved to be wildly successful, and our home-based servicing (HBS) agents placed in the top 20% for performance relative to the network. We expected the HBS virtual call center to grow to about 150, and we were ready for this moderate growth.At the same time, I was leading the workforce strategy for about 800 customer care professionals and team leaders at the Greensboro site. However, not too long after the pilot, American Express announced that this this customer care site would close.Therefore, we quickly ramped up HBS to 300 agents within 2 years, mostly recruiting from the top tier of agents displaced by the site closure. Within 4 months, we had everyone in place, trained, and assigned the equipment they would need to serve our customers exactly the way they would have if they were co-located.Key to the planning of our executive team included developing, standardizing, and optimizing our recruitment, training, workflow, and customer care strategy, so we could more easily shift our team from a traditional office setting to a virtual setting. By 12 months, HBS ranked #2 of 10 for performance, and by 2014, my 200 agents ranked #1 in the directorate for NPS and agent top box KPIs.
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  • American Express
    Director Of Call Center Operations | Manager, Workforce Planning (2005 - 2010)
    American Express Jun 2005 - Oct 2010
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    As director of call center operations, I led workforce planning strategies for 1000+ agents in brick-and-mortar and home-based servicing (virtual) call centers. With a strong focus on KPIs, I led development of performance goals for 3000 customer care agents across the US network. I earned a promotion to director within 1 year based on my leadership strategy and execution.
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  • American Express
    Manager Of Mis & Finance For Revenue Generation Team (Sales Strategy For U.S. Call Center Network)
    American Express 2004 - 2005
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    In this sales and inbound call center role, I launched a strategy for call delivery to prioritize sellable call volume to best sales agents, which increased sales revenue $1.4M. The comprehensive financial model that I developed captured costs and revenue of new customer-focused sales strategy. Also, it optimized call delivery within the channel, saving $2.4M+ in lost revenue by containing sales-eligible call volume inside the inbound channel.
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  • American Express
    Industrial Engineer
    American Express Jun 2002 - Jun 2004
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    As an industrial engineer, I provided a cost–benefit analysis for a range of technology investments meant to improve customer satisfaction and efficiency metrics. Furthermore, I managed projects and provided objective and strategic recommendations that generated revenue or eliminated operational costs.
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  • Transtech Management, Inc
    Consultant
    Transtech Management, Inc Jan 2002 - Jun 2002
    Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
    Developed and analyzed existing performance measurement programs within the public transportation industry.

Sam Kale Skills

Process Improvement Business Analysis Strategy Project Portfolio Management Management Six Sigma Operations Management Program Management Leadership Vendor Management Analysis Team Leadership Requirements Gathering Project Management Call Centers Training Business Process Improvement Change Management Cross Functional Team Leadership Strategic Planning Team Management Financial Services Team Building Analytics Customer Experience Customer Relationship Management Credit Cards Outsourcing Performance Management Customer Service Analytical Skills Contact Centers Consulting Business Strategy Sales Business Development Forecasting Workforce Planning Executive Leadership Call Center Leadership Workflex Offshore Workforce Kpi Dashboards Net Promoter Score Global Workforce Customer Care Customer Focused Sales Capacity Planning Site Director Microsoft Office

Sam Kale Education Details

Frequently Asked Questions about Sam Kale

What company does Sam Kale work for?

Sam Kale works for Edward Jones

What is Sam Kale's role at the current company?

Sam Kale's current role is EXECUTIVE LEADER TRUSTED TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN: Customer Care | Strategic Leadership | Analytics | Workforce Planning.

What is Sam Kale's email address?

Sam Kale's email address is sa****@****ess.com

What schools did Sam Kale attend?

Sam Kale attended University Of North Carolina At Greensboro, North Carolina State University.

What skills is Sam Kale known for?

Sam Kale has skills like Process Improvement, Business Analysis, Strategy, Project Portfolio Management, Management, Six Sigma, Operations Management, Program Management, Leadership, Vendor Management, Analysis, Team Leadership.

Who are Sam Kale's colleagues?

Sam Kale's colleagues are Arlene Schipinski, Stephanie Smyth, Kathy Davis, Dillon Spencer, Gena Givens, Ben Hiltabrand, Jennifer Kozak, Pcc, Actc, P.eng.

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