Customer Service: Franklin/Templeton Keeps Control of Rapid Growth

Now that customer accounts have grown to 2.5 million following two acquisitions and explosive growth in mutual fund sales, Franklin/Templeton Group officials of San Mateo, CA, are relieved to have found a technology solution to heavy workload problems that seems to be working for them.

When Franklin found itself deluged with a growing number of daily calls and inquiries, it turned to Pegasystems Inc. of Cambridge, MA, to implement a customer processing system that greatly eases the firm's ability to handle up to 15,000 to 20,000 daily calls from brokers and investors. Pegasystems software automates the workflow aspect of customer service. The result of this system implementation is that the firm is able to seamlessly bring new mutual fund products on-line while greatly reducing the work of its 2,000 registered users.

"The system is user-friendly. It's smart. It knows what information it needs to get a job done," says Penny Alexander, Franklin's vp of customer and dealer service. "We were lucky to bring it in when we did. The sooner you bring it in, the more work it's going to do for you as you go along."

The system that Pegasystems developed for Franklin uses an application for large mutual fund companies and securities firms called PegaSHARES, which pulls together a broad array of information in one place so that service reps can quickly answer questions and resolve disputes by accessing the central database. Augmenting this are other products like PegaRELAY, which provides the link between database and screen, and PegaSEARCH, which stores data.

Because the system is leased by Franklin, Pegasystems works closely with the mutual fun company in an effort to anticipate the firm's future needs. Franklin has also contracted Sungard, placing more than five million accounts on Sungard's state-of-the-art Investar One shareholder accounting system. Pegasystems is helping Franklin make the transition.

-peterson tfn.com