According to my notes:  "Our small team, with the addition of two key people from our client, conducted dozens of interviews, visited every processing site and analyzed thousands of telephone calls from customers.  As a result, we determined that the cost of poor quality in our client’s credit card customer service operations was 52% of the annual operating budget.  The main symptom of poor quality was the inability to resolve customer issues at the point of first contact.  For example, whenever our client’s marketing department would send a new promotion to card holders, the call centers would be flooded with calls from customers asking to have the offer better explained.  A simple solution that would pay off in millions of dollars of savings was to be sure that the outbound communication was complete and understandable and that the call center operators, if called, were trained well enough to answer the questions posed."

The main result of the study was a renewed focus, using training and technology, on resolving customer issues the first time.