Chime Solutions

By: William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton and Shai Bernstein and Mel Martin

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Synopsis: Just two years after launching their 10k by 2020 initiative to hire 10,000 employees by 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Chief Executive Officer Mark Wilson to send nearly all of his staff at Chime Solutions (Chime) to work from home. Chime was a customer contact firm that offered call center services to corporate clients. Chime's had an employee-focused model where it hired call center agents from underserved communities. It then offered skill building and life services to these agents, which lead to industry-leading employee-retention rates and an overall more committed and expert staff. After agents were deployed to work from home, however, it struggled to maintain its current operating model, causing increased attrition rates. It also had amassed a large amount of debt from maintaining its facilities in Morrow, Georgia, Dallas, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. At the same time, the company was growing at a record pace, but needed to address their talent and debt challenges before realizing their dream of uncovering hidden talent in underserved communities.