The Great Resignation, The Great Re-Think, or The Great Retirement

 By Colin Taylor

We are now into the fourth quarter of the year. Retail and ecommerce firms are gearing up for the holiday season, which means more staff. But where are they going to find more staff? It is hard to find new staff. We can blame the Great Resignation if we like, but where did all of the workers go? Have all of the frontline agents found new rewarding and well-paying jobs? Certainly, some have, but I think many people have decided to take a pause. Sure, some are opening a shop, trying their hands at gig work, changing careers, and certainly some have shifted completely out of the workforce.

Many in fact have exited the workforce, including those who deferred their retirement during Covid and are now looking to retire. That could mean 3 years of retirements occurring in a single year. Is there any doubt that this has helped to fuel low unemployment and the shortage of workers. What happens if we don’t have enough staff to deliver the services in the manner and with the proficiency that we wish? With our current and former staff members are considering their options — maybe even quitting or retiring — that is a sad commentary on us as employers. What does it say about the roles and the work these folks have done in our call and contact centers that leaving seems like a good idea?  

We know that working in a front-line role and dealing with customers is challenging. In COVID and post-COVID environments, it can be even more of a challenge as it can be exacerbated by staff shortages.  

Perhaps the Great Resignation is really the great Re-Think; our staff are rethinking their careers and asking themselves, “is this really how I want to spend the rest of my career?” We as employers need to look at ourselves and ask a number of questions... READ MORE

Hybrid Work...Scary Stuff for Contact Centers

 

By Colin Taylor

Halloween, the night of the dead, the end of all things, whatever you call it, this time of year with the harvest behind us and the ghouls and goblins; not to mention Squid Game characters who have now darkened our door; can be a frightening time. It is more frightening perhaps as we are all still dealing with the fallout of the pandemic.

While some areas of the economy are getting back to pre-Covid levels of activity and hiring is robust in many sectors, there are still some areas of concern on the horizon. We have all seen the pundits and experts wax poetic about the risk of a 4th wave, 5th wave, new mutations, and the likelihood that Covid-19 will shift from being a pandemic to being endemic and something we just learn to live with like the flu (or subtitles and bad dubbing on Netflix binge-worthy series). With these two twin challenges of Covid and Korean dramas addressed, let me move on to other less critical, but still important areas of concern…

First, why is it that corporate America, now that it has embraced the concept of remote contact center agents and hybrid work environments[1], is so slow in adjusting its management processes to support these new deployment models? We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that traditionally in the pre-pandemic world there was great resistance to remote contact centers, driven in part by technology concerns and by a management concern that “if we can’t watch them, how do we know that they are working and not watching Netflix”?

The early returns were very positive: productivity went up and absenteeism and sick days went down, to the surprise and delight of managers. Both of these changes were broadly seen as innate aspects of remote work and were taken as positive ”wins”. Both of these are emblematic of darker and more frightening (see how I brought this back to scary Halloween?) shifts that were occurring under the surface...READ MORE

 

The Evolution of Contact Center Scripting

By Colin Taylor

[This post was adapted from a webinar that Colin Taylor delivered for Customer Contact Central on September 8, 2022. You can see the replay here while available: https://www.customercontactcentral.com/frs/22041151/top-industry-secrets-for-successful-contact-center-scripting/email]

There has been a continuous evolution in scripting since we were taping printed copies onto cubicle walls. There are primarily 4 different types of scripts that are employed in contact centers and many variations on these.

Traditional scripts

These are the type I was writing 35 years ago. These outline an “Ideal” path with suggested verbiage for the call. They were disconnected from any systems. Of course, the biggest drawback for any script was that the customer on the other end of the phone didn’t have the script and consequently didn’t know how they were supposed to respond.

Often, these reflected a checklist of all of the elements that needed to be addressed. These could be compliance related or behavioral. These checklists in turn became quality evaluation forms. These checklists and forms tend to be more structured for Outbound calling (Greeting>Qualification>Presentation>Objection Handling>Close>Objection Handling>Close).

Individual performance, where we expected it to be similar between agents using the same script, could still vary significantly. Often the agent’s ability to “make the script their own” was the key to success, as was the agent’s ability to recall and use their product knowledge and training.

Real-Time Guidance scripts or RTG

RTG introduced a process based on interviews, call recording analysis, and internal best practices to scripts. It included sub-processes and screenshots of the appropriate systems with links. This type of script, however ... Read More

Contact Center Training should not be the Buddy-System

 

By Colin Taylor

A lack of agent training is a sure-fire way of ensuring customers are disappointed. Learning a new skill or capability provide both enjoyment and a break from the mundane, and brings with it the opportunity to increase earnings. But to be effective, organizations need to ensure that they take a measured and consistent approach. Leaving staff to learn on the job or “wing-it” may work for a while, but, to quote Humphrey Bogart, “you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life”. Sooner or later this lack of training, knowledge, or experience will adversely impact a customer.

Now, let’s be clear: no one sits down and says, “let’s design a really lousy training program”. 

Instead... READ MORE

Mistakes are a Great Teacher

 

Alignment is Critical to Customer Experience Success

 

Keep your Employees Happy

 

Top Industry Secrets for Successful Contact Center Scripting

 

By Colin Taylor

[This post was adapted from a webinar that Colin Taylor delivered for Customer Contact Central on September 8, 2022. You can see the replay here while available: https://www.customercontactcentral.com/frs/22041151/top-industry-secrets-for-successful-contact-center-scripting/email]

When we think of a script a number of things can come to mind: The Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as both ”the words of a film, play, broadcast, or speech” and as “a piece of paper on which a doctor writes the details of the medicine or drugs that someone needs” (in other words, a ”prescription’”).

My experience with scripts may go back to my education in TV and Video. In the call or contact center context, however, it goes back to the 1980s when I worked with advertising agencies and was responsible for about half of all of the telemarketing scripts employed in Canada.

What do we exactly mean by Contact Center Scripts?

• Scripts attempt to set out an ”ideal’” path to success on the call: a sale, a resolved inquiry, or a closed case.
• Scripts can be verbatim (or word for word) or they can be guides.
• Scripts can keep the messaging and communications from the call center consistent and accurate.
• Scripts can also shorten call length as they follow an efficient flow or path.
• On the negative side, canned responses and robotic delivery make customers feel that the organization doesn’t value them enough to have a genuine conversation

Scripts have been around as long as contact centers. They set out an ”ideal’” path to success. Scripts try to make it easy for the agent. For example, legal compliance requirements may mandate that verbatims be read, word for word, hence the use of a script. The aim of a script has always been to assist and help the agent. Today’s technology has enabled many enhancements, automation, real-time guidance, and agent assist capabilities, such as real-time sentiment READ MORE    

FCR, and Real-Time Guidance

 

Taylor Reach recently helped to sponsor the ContactBabel Inner Circle Guide to FCR (First Contact Resolution). This comprehensive report provides insight into the current state of FCR and will prove to be a valuable tool as you examine your FCR practices within your customer-facing contact centers.

You can download the ContactBabel Inner Circle guide to FCR https://thetaylorreachgroup.com/the-inner-circle-guide-to-first-contact-resolution

Lastly, I recently did a webinar on scripting and real-time guidance for Customer Contact Central. If you are interested you can access the recording here https://www.customercontactcentral.com/frs/22041151/top-industry-secrets-for-successful-contact-center-scripting/email

Understanding your Contact Center Costs: FCR

 

By Colin Taylor

Contact centers are always striving to improve efficiency, increase customer satisfaction and deliver a superior customer experience. Technology is frequently the strategy employed to achieve this goal. While technology can certainly support improvement in all three areas, improvement can also be realized through increasing First Contact Resolution or FCR.

FCR is a contact center performance metric that identifies the center’s ability to resolve an inquiry on the first attempt. While not a true measure of customer satisfaction, as the customer is not always asked if they are satisfied, or if the interaction met their need, it is nonetheless indicative of satisfaction for both your customers and your agents.

Whenever anyone reaches out to a contact center, they are looking to get “something done.” Completing that “something” to the satisfaction of the customer is resolving the reason for the inquiry. That is why contact centers exist, to resolve questions, issues, and inquiries. Those who can get what they want to get done, on a call or interaction will tend to be more satisfied than those who don’t. So, the higher your first contact resolution rate, the higher the satisfaction levels you will tend to see from those customers.

There are a number of ways to measure FCR. The simplest READ MORE

Advanced Contact Center Metrics: Speed to Competency

 By Colin Taylor

Having their best agents poached by other departments is a common refrain from contact center operators. These center leaders do not have any issue with upward mobility of their staff, in fact they likely support it as it offers the opportunity for advancement within the organization which can be a motivating factor.

No, the reason for the lament is simple math. New staff cannot perform at the same level as experienced staff. We all know intuitively that it takes time and attention for new staff fresh from their onboarding to mature into competent agents. Heck, when an agent graduates from training they are about as poor a performer as you will find. They are barely adequate to perform the role, and this is a far cry from the competent staff we are asking them to replace. It will take time, training, coaching and support to assist the adequate agent to complete the journey to competent.

“Competent” we would define as the point where agents are independent, require little support, perform well in all metrics.

There is a cost to the center to replace an experienced agent with a newbie who 
READ MORE

Taylor Reach NPS Score +100

 

By: Colin Taylor

Customer Satisfaction is critical for the success of any organization, and Taylor Reach is no different. Each member of the team strives to delight our customers and exceed their expectations.

To gauge the satisfaction of our clients we employ a customer satisfaction survey and all of our clients are asked to participate and complete a survey.

The results we achieved so far in 2016 have blown us away… our NPS[1] score is an impressive +100, a perfect score! This score is truly remarkable as “a Net Promoter Score of +30% is truly excellent” for B2B firms according to Deep Insight. Circle Research has indicated that score of +35 is the top quartile of all B2B NPS scores.

Thank you to all of clients that participated in this survey. We are delighted and honored to have our customers give us this vote of confidence. We will continue to work hard to earn and retain your trust and patronage.

Colin

October 7, 2016

UPDATE:

It has been almost 6 years since I published our attainment of a perfect 100 NPS score. Since then a lot has changed in the contact center customer service and customer experience industry, we have seen the pandemic drive work-from-home, technologies that we could only imagine in 2016 become realities in 2022. 

But one thing hasn't really changed....Our clients still love us, since we began tracking NPS in2015 our scores have never been below 88, and as of today stands at 91!

We appreciate our client faith and trust in us. We appreciate the positive NPS score and know that this score reflects their satisfaction with our services and with the positive changes and improvements that they have been able to achieve with a little help from Taylor Reach.

Colin

September 15, 2022

[1] Net Promoter® and NPS® are registered trademarks and Net Promoter System^SM and Net Promoter Score^SM are trademarks of Bain & Company, Satmetrix Systems and Fred Reichheld

via The Taylor Reach Group Inc. http://ift.tt/2dky994

Understanding Your Contact Center Costs: Training

Sometimes it seems inevitable that every time a budget is approved with funds allocated for new, additional, or improved training, something occurs and the training is the first thing removed from the budget. We have heard this refrain many times over the years. From the perspective of senior management, Training looks like a safe place to cut:

“We will be no worse off by cutting here than were are today.”

I would agree that this statement is true. However, if you are bleeding, staunching the wound might be a better approach than the status quo of continued bleeding.

Training, coaching, and personal development must be viewed as an investment. Only seeing the cost side of the equation is a common blind spot. It is not about the upfront cost; it should be about the downstream benefit.

Typically, when we think about the cost associated with new agent onboarding training we think of the trainer, the training room, the students being trained, and the cost of each of these. The Trainer for...
READ MORE

Understanding Your Contact Center Costs: Attrition

A recent report from Gartner[1] referenced the cost to replace a frontline agent at $14,113. We have seen similar figures when working with clients. A major municipality that we have worked with, shared that their cost is just over $10,000. While this cost seems high, it is likely too low. When we look at the cost to replace an experienced agent we must include costs that arise in four major categories:

1. Recruitment & Hiring costs
2. Training costs
3. Lost productivity costs
4. Reduction in quality costs / Potential revenue (there is also potential to damage organization reputations but for now we are only including the internal costs).

Recruitment costs include the cost to place or post the position, human support to review applicants, the time it takes to administer any assessments or tests and the cost of the tests themselves, candidate interviews, background, and criminal checks, drug tests, etc. There are then the hiring costs, setting up a new employee into your systems, acquiring licenses, registering them in the benefits program, etc. This cost varies by organization, some employ more automation than others and some may complete this process largely internally while others outsource the entire process. Our research has shown that a reasonable estimate of this cost is...READ MORE