Friday, January 25, 2013

Pay it Forward Friday

We are all busy and we all struggle to improve our own lives and that of those around us. But we also know at some intuitive level that helping people by doing good helps us to live a better life and feel better about ourselves. Can we help others by ‘paying it forward’, knowing that somewhere and sometime we may need help from others. Whether you call it ‘paying it forward’, creating good karma or simply as random acts of kindness, doesn’t matter. What does matter is being open to the idea of helping others, because you can.


PIF At Taylor Reach we are committed to helping others and offer ‘Pay IT Forward Fridays’ to do just that. Each Friday we set aside and hour or so to assist others with their call center, contact center, customer experience issues and questions. We do this at no cost and with no expectation of anything other than to be of assistance. Do you wonder which are the best metrics to use to manage your center? Are you looking at outsourcing and wonder the real risks and common points of failure? Would you like an opinion of one technology vendor versus another or one potential contact center location versus another? We can help.


If you would like to take advantage of Pay It Forward Fridays just send me an email and let me know what you issue or challenge is and when you would like to speak. We operate in the eastern time zone so during the work day is best for us. If coordinating a convenient time is challenge we will work to find a date and time that works even if it isn’t Friday.


I hope that you will take advantage of our offer, and I hope that you to will find some way to ‘Pay it Forward’


Colin Taylor

CEO & Chief Chaos Officer

The Taylor Reach Group, Inc.


ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com






via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2013/01/25/pay-it-forward-friday/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pay-it-forward-friday

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Call Center CX Consulting ‘Sale’

Are you planning to employ a call center or customer service consulting service in this quarter?


Are you looking at improving your centers efficiency, increasing revenues, selecting new technologies or evaluating outsourcing options? All of these are tasks our experienced call center consultants have extensive experience completing.


Are you looking to assess your service quality, benchmark your customer experience? We have experience and can assist you with this.


Due to client project delays, The Taylor Reach Group has excess capacity. Our misfortune could be to your benefit. For projects that begin in January we will provide a 20% discount off our standard fees, minimum project size applies. Limited time offer.

To take advantage of this offer please contact Colin Taylor by email or phone (416-979-8692 x200)






via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2013/01/22/call-center-cx-consulting-sale/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=call-center-cx-consulting-sale

Monday, January 21, 2013

Measure your Schedule Efficiencies

I saw a good and very helpful post by W. Richard Spearrin, Jr. on the Linked In discussion group NorthEast Contact Center Forum regarding WFM and staff scheduling. This article has some great tips and suggestions to better manage your schedule efficiency.


The link to the discussion is here


The post is below:


Measure your Schedule Efficiencies

If your forecasts are completely in line, and AHT is within +/- 10% of the forecast day in and day out, but you are still failing to make your service goals, you may need to check how efficient your scheduling processes are.


Many companies use a schedule efficiency measurement for over- or understaffed intervals to see how well they are scheduling. Schedule efficiency refers to the match between the exact requirements for each interval and the number scheduled. There are sometimes too many scheduled due to the need to meet peak requirements with more than necessary resulting in the low volume periods (especially with all full-time staff). There may be periods of understaffing as well. Both under- and over-staffing count as mismatches. The level of inefficiency is a total of both compared to the total requirements.


This schedule efficiency measurement can show where you need to make adjustments. Those may be scheduling changes you need like split shifts or more part-timers or you could just have one or two days that are over-staffed. However, it could reflect a need for other options like flex schedules or 10-hour shifts to get people off the overstaffed days. Many folks have tools available in their workforce management system to measure this type of efficiency.


This week’s tip provided by Rick Seeley of Convergys.






via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2013/01/21/measure-your-schedule-efficiencies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=measure-your-schedule-efficiencies

Monday, January 14, 2013

Each Interaction is a Chance to Delight or Disappoint

ct-7 By: Colin Taylor


I was sitting on my deck this morning a looked toward the lake and noticed the 6‘metal post I have installed, next to the garden. On this post there used to be two satellite dishes one for the television and one for internet. In the past few weeks I have had the occasion to need to upgrade both of these services. As many of you will know cable and internet are two of the worst rated consumer services for customer satisfaction and it was with some trepidation that I embarked on my journey to deal with their respective customer care teams.


My house is a couple of hours outside of the city and as a result I do not have access to traditional cable of internet options. The solution for me has been satellite for both. In short order over a few weeks I had to call both providers; the head burned out on my satellite internet dish and the receiver for my satellite TV also died. My experiences with both customer service organizations were very different.

thumbs up down

When I called Xplornet I was informed that the new 4G satellite was now available and that I could upgrade to this service for less than the cost I had been paying for older technology – great news, so I requested an appointment and was told the installer ‘in my area’ would give me a call to set up an appointment. A couple of days later I received a call from the installer and set up an appointment. On the appointed date and time I sat and waited for the installer to arrive, and waited and waited. I called the installer to see if there was a problem. The call went to voicemail. After a second left message and a few hours later I left, no installer and no satellite internet. I called Xplornet back and reported my no show and requested a new installer, as I didn’t want to patronize the one that had left me high and dry without a call or response, ever. I was assigned a new installer and they called me the next day to set up the appointment, so far so good. So I headed back to the lake to be there when the installer arrived. But this was not to be, as I poured my first coffee as I waited the phone rang it was the installer saying they couldn’t come today as one of their staff had quit. Disappointed, but undeterred, remember there is no other real internet option at the lake, so I rebooked for a week later. Hallelujah, the installer arrived and surveyed the property. After climbing about on the roof, cabin and shed, he announced that I would need a post installed. Now this didn’t surprise me as I had mentioned my current dish was on a post to each of the installation firms I had spoken with. Unfortunately my installer was only on his second day on the job, apparently he had replaced the installer that quit, and he was unaware how they would treat a pole installation, but promised I would have a call back the next day to let me know. Well three days later I called back and was told that this firm “didn’t do poles”. No mention of my promised call back, no offered solution, just we don’t do that. I was beginning to despair about ever getting internet again, when I decided to up my game.

In a previous life when I was running a large call center outsource BPO I had occasion to work with a large Canadian cable and wireless company had had spoken with their then CFO on numerous occasions. Well guess who happened to be a senior officer at Xplornet? I reached out to my contact at Xplornet and shared my frustration. I quickly received a response and commitment to help me fix my problem. With 24 hours I had spoken to operations staff and been assigned a new installer. I received a call from the installer to set up an appointment. The appointment was held; the installer was on time and quickly had me up and running. This example shows a great service recovery. Immediately I began speaking about the great service recovery rather than my initial problems.


At almost the same time as I was experiencing my internet issues, my satellite TV receiver failed – no lights, no signal, no service. I picked up the phone and dialled the provider, Shaw on their toll free number for customer support. My optimism flagged as soon as I got out of the automated IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system and heard those dreaded words, “we are experiencing higher than normal call volume”. While this message, I know can be an excuse for poor forecasting and scheduling, I had no reason to suspect this was the case. But with this phrase I knew I could be in for a long wait, how long was the only question. The Shaw call center was quite helpful in this regard, “we anticipate answering your call in approximately 60 minutes”. Wonderful, it would be quite a long wait. I held for a few minutes longer hoping for the opportunity to leave a call back number, but no such option was presented. After 42 minutes on hold in queue, I received another call and regretfully dropped my call and place in queue. A few hours later I was once again able to look at addressing my lack of television issue and once again dialled the toll free number. Once again more than 60 minutes to answer was identified. Though I couldn’t be sure, I assumed that my receiver was dead and had burned out. While dutifully sitting on hold, in queue, I decided to drive to town and see the local retailer to see if they could assist me. I packed my ‘dead’ receiver into to the car, put the annoying hold music into my ear-bud and drove off. A twenty minute drive later and I was in the reseller office. After a five minute discussion and a quick power on test (it failed) I had a new receiver and jumped back in the car for my return drive. I got home plugged the new receiver in and powered it up. In a couple of minutes I had signal and was once again watching television. At minute 58 I hung up my call with the Shaw call center, as I no longer needed their services.


These two experiences underscored a number of points for me, which all service organizations can take to heart;

1. Even if you have challenges during a service dialogue, as long as you are talking to the customer you can still recover. Xplornet did this with some help from me and ultimately prevailed.

2. Choose you partners and suppliers carefully. When the installers didn’t show or couldn’t help, did I blame them? Of course I did, but I also blamed Xplorenet, after all they had chosen these installers to be partners in the first place.

3. Be accessible. Now I have no way to know if Shaw really was experiencing higher than normal volume, or if staff was appropriately scheduled, or if all of the staff scheduled to work showed up for their shift. But I do know that 60 minutes wait times at two different points of time during day is unacceptable. If there was an underlying network issue, they should have surfaced this on the IVR and provided an ETA for repair, if there was not a significant outage, where were all the calls coming from? Regardless of the cause the fact that I couldn’t get through to the call center, was frustrating and time consuming. There are always ways of being accessible: Email, chat, voice through an overflow service provider, voicemail, and of course call back messaging: the solution I had hoped for but didn’t get, that would have let me leave my number and have the phone system call me when it was my turn in queue. It is not surprising the this call back option is one of the most popular service improvements from a customer perspective, as it allows them to get on with their life without sitting and waiting for their call to be answered. In my situation, because I couldn’t reach the call center, I had to take matters in my own hand and drove to the retailer. While at the retailer I could easily have purchased the competitive product. Had I reached the call center I likely wouldn’t have faced that choice. Why would any company want to place a customer in front of the competition, especially while a little frustrated at your service?


Today I am still with both Xplornet and Shaw. The internet and satellite TV both are working well and trouble free. Each interaction we have with a company will influence our opinions and views of the organization. Each of these companies has in my mind has been changed by these recent service events. I have gone from having no real opinion of either company, to now having opinions and perceptions about how they will act going forward. Xplornet I know will get the job done and I believe is working to improve their processes. Shaw on the other hand remains unknown. Despite two abandoned calls from the phone number associated with my account I have had no contact. My perceptions of Shaw have degraded, I really wonder about their commitment to serve their customers and only hope I never have to call them again.






via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2013/01/14/each-interaction-is-a-chance-to-delight-or-disappoint/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=each-interaction-is-a-chance-to-delight-or-disappoint

Monday, January 7, 2013

Staff Turnover Results for Selected Industries 2012

Snapshotz Online, the call center audit and benchmarking tool, recently reported staff turnover profiles for the following industries: Financial, Public Sector, Retail, Services. These are based on reportings over the last 18 months worldwide.


Turnover by Industry






via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2013/01/07/staff-turnover-results-for-selected-industries-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=staff-turnover-results-for-selected-industries-2012