Impacting Real Results for the State of North Carolina

"Sparkhound helped the HOPE Program improve the overall customer experience and effectiveness of the program by implementing strategies and tools that allowed for faster call processing, improved first call resolution, and decreased time to process applications for the citizens of North Carolina."  - ALLISON BASS ASSISTANT MANAGER FOR APPLICANT SERVICES, HOPE PROGRAM OF NORTH CAROLINA

SITUATION

The Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions Program (HOPE) provides rent and utility assistance to low-income renters in North Carolina who are experiencing financial hardship due to negative economic impacts. The program helps prevent evictions and utility disconnections to promote housing stability. With up to 2-hour wait times and call abandon rates as high as 55%, this $770 million Federally-funded emergency rental assistance program for the State of North Carolina needed an outside call center partner. Most important, the call center needed to competently, quickly, and efficiently manage both inbound and outbound customer service calls during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SOLUTION

Since 2021, Sparkhound has provided a 135-person Customer Service Call Center for the State-run rental and utility assistance program. Sparkhound was quickly able to reduce both abandon rates and caller wait times. Caller abandon rates are now below 3% and wait times at 2 minutes or less. This program is currently active.

IMPACT

• Reduced caller abandon rate from 55% down to 2.5%
• Reduced average call wait time from over 2 hours to under 2 minutes
• Accepted and serviced over 8,000 calls per day during height of the COVID-19 pandemic