Automatic Purge Implementation Susan L. Straub Alliance Data Dallas, Texas

Transcription

1 Automatic Purge Implementation Susan L. Straub Alliance Data Dallas, Texas NEED/OPPORTUNITY / Alliance Data was implementing a new automatic purge policy that would affect every associate across all of Alliance Data s businesses. Beginning 15 October 2009, all s more than six months old would be automatically deleted from the e- mail servers on a daily basis. The purpose behind this new policy was threefold: 1. Reduce the costs of storage across the company by an estimated US$350,000 annually. 2. Reduce litigation costs and company liability as it pertains to the storage of electronic communication beyond legal time frame requirements. 3. Follow best practices in effectively managing resources for a company of Alliance Data s size. has become the top communication vehicle for associates within the company. Unfortunately, it has also become the primary source of data storage for many associates. Prior to the start of this communication project, 75,300,833 messages were stored on Alliance Data servers at a cost of US$1,435,376 per year. This averaged out to 6,681 messages per mailbox. Once the automatic purge policy was implemented, the records management team estimated that 30 percent of the total on the servers would be automatically deleted, but they were concerned that associates would lose valuable information that they needed to do their jobs. Records management contacted Alliance Data s internal communications team to develop a comprehensive communication plan designed to raise awareness of the pending policy change and to encourage associates to move the s they needed to retain (for legal, contractual or historical purposes) to a secure location before implementation took place. The greatest challenges the internal communications team faced were capturing associates attention and reinforcing their need to take action. The team needed to break through the clutter of information associates receive on a daily basis and explain why and when their would be automatically deleted. Because of the time-sensitive nature of the message, they couldn t rely on a single point of contact or on a short communication campaign; they needed to give associates time to delete or move their to a secure location. INTENDED AUDIENCES / Over the past 13 years, Alliance Data has grown through the acquisition of several companies. As a result, Alliance Data now operates as the parent company to three distinct lines of business (LoBs): Alliance Data Retail Services, Epsilon and LoyaltyOne. Alliance Data employs more than 7,000 associates at 40 locations worldwide. While each LoB operates independently, they all must adhere to certain companywide policies and guidelines, including this new automatic purge policy. Alliance Data Retail Services. Retail Services has been part of Alliance Data since its inception in The organization employs 3,400 associates in eight locations in the U.S. Ninety-four percent of the population has access to company . Seventy-four 1

2 percent of Retail Services associates work in a call center environment. These call center associates are inundated with phone calls every day. They all have access to a computer, but they often do not have time to pay close attention to information that does not increase their productivity. Epsilon. Epsilon joined Alliance Data in The organization employs 2,300 associates in 25 locations around the globe. Eighty-seven percent of the population works in professional environments with access. Prior to being acquired by Alliance Data, Epsilon had a long history of being bought and sold by various parent companies; therefore, it had a high resistance to paying attention to information from the corporate office. Furthermore, Epsilon made it a practice to store each and every client on their servers for safe keeping. LoyaltyOne. LoyaltyOne joined Alliance Data in The organization employs 1,400 associates in five locations, primarily in Canada. The entire population has access to e- mail. The associates of LoyaltyOne have a fierce independent spirit and strong affinity to their company and their country. They share corporate information with their associates; however, they often use their own communication vehicles or leaders to disseminate information. Corporate support groups. Two hundred seventy associates work in the various corporate support groups in two locations in the U.S., all with access to . They are Alliance Data s greatest champions and are eager to receive and share information about the company. However, because they are often pulled in so many directions to support the LoBs, getting their attention for this campaign would be a challenge. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES / The overall goal of the communication campaign was to raise awareness of the pending policy change and to encourage associates to transfer s they needed to retain to a secure location before implementation took place. Objectives included the following: Encourage associates to delete or move s more than six months old from the servers. This would effectively reduce the number of s on the system by 6,777,075. This is a 9.0 percent reduction in overall , regardless of age. Even though the implementation of the new policy would eventually eliminate all s more than six months old, the company wanted to encourage associates to take a more proactive role in managing their to ensure vital data was not lost. Minimize the number of calls to the help desk and the number of s sent to the records management department to 200 calls or s. This aggressive goal could serve as a key indicator of awareness and understanding of the policy implementation as it represented calls from less than 3.0 percent of the associate population. If too many calls or s were received, that would indicate the team was not effective in letting associates know what was happening, the actions they needed to take and when they needed to take them. Reduce the companywide costs of storage by US$350,000 annually. storage costs are based on data storage size, not the number of s in storage. This was the company s best estimate of potential cost savings. 2

3 SOLUTION OVERVIEW / Since this policy implementation could have a far-reaching negative impact, the communication team needed to reach associates using a variety of vehicles that would capture their attention. They also wanted to make sure that they gave associates enough time to delete or move their old s. A communication audit conducted in June 2008 indicated that was the most effective and efficient communication tool, especially when it provides quick links to our intranet for more information. The audit also found that desk-drop communications were the best way to get the immediate attention of call center associates for urgent issues. As a result, the team developed a three-month campaign that used multiple touch points: senior leader communications, the weekly bulletin, the intranet, , desk drops and door signs. Senior leader communication: At Alliance Data, it is important to provide advance information to senior leaders whenever possible. Leaders and supervisors play a key role in prioritizing, funneling and clarifying company information to associates. The first communication touch point was a memo sent directly to senior leaders informing them of the impending policy change. The communication also included a detailed Q&A. Intranet (Inview): Every month, there are more than 2,000 unique visitors to the intranet, Inview. Each time an associate visits Inview, the home page displays a variety of timely messages, called infoboxes, which can be customized and linked to other sites and documents. In this case, the team designed a variety of infoboxes that displayed highlevel information about the purge and then linked associates to a Q&A on Inview. These infoboxes appeared on Inview throughout the communication campaign. This information was also provided to the LoyaltyOne communication team to use as appropriate on their intranet. Weekly bulletin (Inshort): Inshort, the primary communication vehicle to associates, is a weekly electronic newsletter sent by that can link back to the intranet or link to documents. The communication team created a time line to place announcements in Inshort periodically throughout the three-month campaign to remind associates of the policy change and of their responsibility to clean out their files. The team worked with their LoyaltyOne counterparts to ensure these messages were also placed in their weekly bulletin. Because Inshort is the primary electronic method of associate communication, the team does not send out separate communications unless they are of an urgent or time-sensitive nature. For that reason, they waited to make a final decision on how many separate s regarding the purge policy to send associates. They set a task at 30 days prior to implementation to review the progress associates were making in reducing their load. The team was not satisfied with the results, so they created a more aggressive campaign schedule that included a series of messages to all associates. They sent these s to their LoyaltyOne counterparts to forward as they felt appropriate. Door signs: The last week of the campaign, a series of door signs were distributed to all locations with messaging that mirrored what associates were receiving via . HR partners in each location printed and posted these signs according to the communication schedule. Desk drops: As is often the case for urgent or time-sensitive communications, the communication team enlisted the help of HR partners in the call centers. They 3

4 encouraged HR to print the communications they sent (primarily the s and door signs) and post them on bulletin boards, in break rooms and cafeterias, and distribute them as desk drops. This was particularly important in the final weeks and days of the campaign as the countdown to implementation grew shorter and shorter. IMPLEMENTATION AND CHALLENGES / BUDGET There were no direct costs related to the design, production and implementation of the communication campaign. All work was written and designed internally. All communication was electronic or produced on in-house color printers or copiers. TIME FRAME Communication planning began in June The communication campaign ran from 7 July 2009 through 16 October CHALLENGES The communication plan included a checkpoint one month before the automatic purge process began. At this time, only 6.7 percent of the total s on the servers had been deleted. Dissatisfied with this progress, the team immediately set out to adjust their communications approach in order to encourage associate action. All Alliance Data associates are inundated with vast amounts of and other communications on a daily basis. The communication team needed to stand out among the clutter to capture their attention and encourage action. A June 2008 communication audit indicated that fun is effective and that fun communications campaigns have a greater impact, particularly among call center associates. For the final weeks of the campaign, the team used catchy phrases, lots of color and fun images to get messages across. This was a departure from the traditionally conservative nature of most of communications. These messages appeared in e- mail, in desk drops, and on door signs in the final weeks and days of the communication campaign to further increase awareness and stimulate action. MEASUREMENT/EVALUATION OF OUTCOMES Encourage associates to delete or move s more than six months old from the servers. At the end of the communication campaign (one day before the automatic purge policy was implemented and the automatic deleting process started), the communication team ran a capacity report on the servers to judge progress. Associates had reduced the number of s more than six months old on the system by 31.8 percent, a total of 7,182,091 s. This was a 9.5 percent reduction in overall e- mail, regardless of age, surpassing the goal of 9.0 percent. Minimize the number of calls to the help desk and the number of s sent to the records management department to 200 calls or s. The records management department received only 24 s with questions or complaints. Furthermore, only four associates could be classified as irate customers. All four of these associates acknowledged that they simply did not read any of the communications sent to them. While the help desk did not capture the total number of calls placed to them regarding this policy, the help desk supervisor stated, Not only were the number of calls extremely 4

5 low, but the Q&A document provided by the communications team was invaluable in helping us to explain the process to those who did call. Reduce the companywide costs of storage by US$350,000. Alliance Data will save an estimated US$360,575 annually as a result of reduced server storage costs. 5