Agero Engage

We’ve been busy over the past few years here at Agero, steadily improving the metrics that matter to you. As we transitioned to the industry-leading Swoop dispatch platform, we also redefined our ethos around continuous improvement and operational excellence. Led by the expertise of our Swoop core platform team, we adopted a new methodology for identifying the key factors that influence our primary metrics and triangulating cross-functional solutions to achieve specific outcomes. Part of this is asking “why?” over and over, as we peel apart complex issues until we uncover any number of measurable, actionable opportunities. The results are clear: big increases in the value we bring to our clients and the service we deliver to their customers. 

• Read: How 2023 was like Agero's Super Bowl win 
  
  

In order to move the high level metrics, we break them down into big chunks... 

The highest-level metrics we track, such as Net Promoter Score for customer experience, are really valuable, but not always easy to improve. There are a ton of contributing factors that influence NPS, including ease of requesting service, quality of service, speed of service, and so on. 

So to improve our high level metrics, we peel back the layers and, through rigorous data analysis, identify key inputs – the various areas of our business that influence things like ease, quality, and speed. Then we look at how we can improve each of those discrete areas, and come up with clear and measurable action items, each prioritized by expected impact, level of effort, and alignment with our strategic goals. 

A few recent examples of successful initiatives that have helped us improve our overall NPS by about 8 points over the past 12-18 months:

1. Increase digital containment

• Why it matters: Fully contained digital service requests have an NPS 9 points higher than requests that start in a digital channel but end up requiring agent support
• Metrics: 1500 Basis point improvement in agentless events initiated through digital channels from June 2022 to Feb 2023
• Outcome: Improved experiences for customers who make digital service requests 

2. Increase Auto Assign %

Our goal here was to increase the percentage of jobs that are successfully assigned to a service provider through Swoop’s auto-assign capabilities, rather than manual assignment by an agent.  

• Why it matters: Auto assigned jobs have an NPS 18 points higher than jobs manually assigned by an agent, and result in an avg dispatch time that’s 6 minutes faster
• Metrics: 1000 Basis point improvement in Auto Assign % from February 2023 to February 2024
• Outcome: Improved speed of service for customers

3. Increase in-network dispatch %

Increase the percentage of dispatches that go to in-network providers.

• Why it matters: Jobs serviced by in-network providers have an NPS 21 points higher than jobs serviced by out of network providers
• Metrics: 500 basis point improvement in in-network dispatch percent, from January 2023 to February 2024, now exceeding 99% 
• Outcome: Improved quality of service for customers and improved experiences for in-network providers

While those goals may seem pretty straightforward and the sub-metrics are clear, figuring out how to actually move the needle on them can get complicated quickly. 

It often requires coordinated efforts from teams like platform configuration, product development, operations and people processes, network management, engineering, data analytics, and more. So to start, we evaluate each relevant functional area in the organization with the goal of identifying opportunities to make improvements, big or small, to our target metrics. 

… Then we splinter those chunks into many bite-sized projects

As we break these initiatives down into discrete focus areas, each one goes through the process of initial scoping and impact analysis. If we find that we’re likely to have an impact on the bigger initiative, we proceed to detailed scoping, planning and execution, and finally testing and evaluation before rollout. A single initiative may have a dozen or more separate roadmap items – sometimes spanning years – each of which helps peck away at the target issue from a slightly different angle. While each one of those projects may only have a relatively small impact on its own, by taking the aggregate view, we can see some monumental improvements.  

Diving in: 3. Increase in-network dispatch % to more than 99% 

Let’s take a deeper look at one of the above examples, our success dispatching more events to our network of service providers. This is a really big deal: in-network providers have agreed to our terms and conditions, covering things like insurance minimums, background checks, performance standards, and rates. Because of that, we know they’re going to deliver excellent service to your customers reliably and consistently, be responsive should the event take a sideways turn, and aren’t going to price gouge us or your customers. 

Targeted provider recruitment: ensuring supply

The most obvious way to ensure that dispatches go to in-network providers is to make sure that we have in-network providers available and ready to respond wherever and whenever your customers need them. Our network management team is continuously looking at performance by geographic area, using data to determine where we need to go out and recruit new providers or strengthen relationships with existing providers to keep them in-network. 

Increased provider engagement: supporting providers and their businesses

Flanking our network recruiting efforts, we launched new provider engagement initiatives designed to increase the value we deliver to providers, putting our money where our mouth is in trying to be the best in the business for providers to work with. These efforts ranged from direct outreach campaigns to revamped training & educational materials, including an expansion of Blueprint, our free guide to vehicle-specific handling tips which is accessible to all towing and road service providers, both in and out of our network. 

Increased industry support: being a better partner to the industry at large

In addition to increased engagement with individual providers, we also invested in broader towing industry initiatives with the goal of increasing our visibility and affinity with providers at large. Specific initiatives include our Summer Hustle performance incentive program, an expanded presence at towing industry trade shows, and contributions to the International Tow Museum’s Survivor Fund

Improved network-focused systems: making it easier for providers to work with us

We also looked for opportunities to make it easier for providers to work with us. We surveyed current providers to identify pain points, and subsequently streamlined the technical process for provider invoicing & billing. We also rebuilt our database infrastructure to enable even more fine-tuned provider-matching capabilities in Swoop, increasing our precision for offering providers more of the specific types of jobs they want, based on their business priorities, capacity, fleet equipment, hours of operation and more.   

Optimized dispatch logic: getting the right jobs to the right providers

Finally, we fine-tuned our dispatch logic and platform configuration to ensure that we’re giving the best-suited in-network provider the best possible opportunity to accept any given job. We did this through advanced data modeling and technical analysis, A-B testing, and some targeted product work. 

The cumulative impact of these efforts is that today more than 99% of dispatches go to in-network providers, and our aggregate NPS continues to climb. 

We never stop hunting down the small changes that lead to big impacts

Every day at Agero, hundreds of people across our organization are laser-focused on identifying points of friction, like those mentioned above, and mapping out a coordinated strategy to make the road smoother for customers, service providers, our associates, and other key stakeholders in our ecosystem. 

Our scale as the white label industry leader gives us mountains of data that we use to quickly identify new opportunities for refinement, as well as the opportunity to have multiple dedicated squads in place to support continuous improvement to our network, platform, operations, digital experiences, and more. 

For our clients, this means that whether you are just as obsessed with roadside as we are or prefer to mostly focus your attention elsewhere, you can rest assured that we never stop improving our core products, prioritizing the projects that matter most, and increasing the value we create and deliver, while, at the same time, exploring entirely new services to strengthen our relationships with you and your customers. 

Enjoy the ride!