Is Customer Service the deciding factor as to which companies succeed or fail in this economic downturn?

Just received my copy of the Call Center Openings & Expansions Report from King White at Site Selection Group and for the first time I can remember there are no new builds or expansions in Canada. Nor are there any in India either for that matter.



The numbers show a dramatic slowdown in the job creation with 2,930 net new jobs created- down almost 70% from a year ago, of those 2,560 are located outside of North America. The majority of the increases occur ed in the outsource BPO sector with new centers in the Philippines and expansions at home.



2,143 jobs were displaced in 16 contact centers in US and Canada in January.



The fact that the market is tightening up isn't a surprise to anyone. We are bombarded by horror stories in the media every time we listen to the radio, watch or read the news. What is surprising to me at least is how resilient the contact center industry is proving to be.



In January 598,000 workers in the US and 129,000 workers in Canada lost their jobs. That adds up to a staggering 727,000 people looking for work. Yet in a sector much maligned the net of hiring and firings were about break-even. That's a lot better than the banks or automakers fared.



Now its possible that the axe just hasn't fallen yet as job cuts work through organization and the customer facing call and contact center positions are just coming into the cross-hairs.



Or maybe organizations are recognizing that in a downturn where cash is king, getting a customer to part with their cash is becoming increasingly difficult. Good service, as infrequent as it often is may just be the key to prying open the purses and wallets of customers. Service can be a key differentiator between organizations.



In tough times we all choose between alternatives, buy this, pass on that, maybe later or not at all. In days of plenty we would have bought it all. So how will customers...you and I make decisions? I postulate that increasingly the service we receive will be viewed as a part of the purchase or transaction. When customers view the customer service experience inherent with making that purchase as a part of the buying experience and capable of increasing purchase satisfaction, then savvy companies and organizations will embrace true customer advocacy, and all of our customer service experiences will become significantly more effective, more efficient and above all more enjoyable.



Of course this may just be me looking for a silver lining...but it is a happy thought.

Be careful what you wish for

They say you need to be careful what you wish for because it just might come true. Well just a few days ago I was discussing our new business pipeline with my team and we wondered exactly where our meals would be coming from in March. I wished out loud then that "it would be wonderful, if we could just close client x,y and/or z". Then we secured a new engagement with that client. We celebrated, then we secured another client and another. All in the space of a few days. Downturn, what downturn. My concern over too little business quickly became how do we ensure the quality of what we do for our clients with this additional work. So much for a recession.

The solution to the problem is, as always, is to deliver superior service and to exceed the customers expectations. We have brought on-board additional resources to help us meet our requirements and exceed what is expected of us.

Exceed expectations, delight your clients, Make the client the star within their own organization and always give more than is expected and you will be judged by your accomplishments and by your network of friends and fans.

IQPC Call Center Summit- Review

Call Center Summit in Orlando just wrapped up and it was a bit of a disappointment. Attendance was about 150poeple (down by about 20% I am told from last year) with 15 or so exhibitors (also down from last year).

The show was O.K. a lot of recycled content and too little original material, but that is normal for most shows. A couple of very good sessions on on 'Maintaining Control in a Virtual Contact Center Environment', by Prem Uppaluru of Transera. The completeness of the Transera solution for integrated management of numerous disparate outsource centers is quite impressive. If you employ multiple outsource agencies with multiple locations you really should look into this solution to improve management and reduce costs.

The session by Steve Sullivan of CIT on 'Optimizing Contact Center Resources During Tough Times' was really mislabeled as it focused almost entirely on outbound IVR as a cost effective tool to improve communications and preempt inbound calls. While Steve's focus was from the collections industry the information has application to every contact center operator.

As with most shows of this kind there were too many commercials thinly veiled as presentations, too many "look at me I'm smart" case studies and the show management itself had some challenges with technology, a guide that didn't identify session rooms, incorrect titles and associated speakers and a keynote that turned into a webinar.

Personally, I don't think the show was worth the cost $2500 to attend, but as they say "you only need one idea you can use to pay for the conference"

Piss off the Call Center Agent at Your Peril

The following article was published recently the UK Press and I found it to be very chilling.
Whenever any organization outsources work to a third party organization, in tranferring the business they also transfer a great deal of power. Power to mimprove or erode customer relationships and as this news story indicates power that can be used in a punitive manner. Let this story be a wake up call for all of those firms that outsource to ensure that they have appropriate controls and audit trails on changes made to their customer records.

Colin



Indian call centre worker 'froze customer's account and changed his identity' as revenge for having service criticized
By Luke Salkeld
Telephoning a bank's call centre can be a frustrating experience. And after he was finally put through to a 'rude' and 'arrogant' operator, George Bates felt justified in making a complaint. Taking part in a follow-up survey to monitor customer satisfaction, the 23-year-old made clear his opinion of the call centre employee - who took revenge by putting all of Mr. Bates' finances on hold. When he contacted the bank later that day, the self-employed carpenter was unable to access his account for 'security reasons'. He then visited his local branch and was horrified to discover his identity had been swapped to that of a Ugandan divorcee ten years his senior. Mr. Bates also discovered his overdraft facility had been withdrawn and several direct debits had been cancelled - landing him with £60 in charges. He said: 'This arrogant phone operator has obviously seen that I've given him bad feedback and decided to change all my details in revenge. 'I rang up and I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. He was rude, arrogant, and very pushy. 'He was really unhelpful but he had the cheek to pester me to give him a good rating after the call.' He continued: 'When I heard my details had been changed to Ugandan I was errified that my account had been emptied by somebody else and I'd never have my money ack. 'His spiteful actions have caused me a massive inconvenience and I've changed banks now because I'm scared he could still access my account.' Mr. Bates' rang Abbey's telephone banking service last month to extend his overdraft by £200 to cover direct debits which were due to come out of his account. The operator, who spoke with an Asian accent, extended it from £1,500 to £1,700, but refused to extend it a second time in one day. Mr. Bates claims the worker then pestered him to give maximum scores of seven in an eight-question automated survey which customers take following a call. The frustrated bachelor answered the questions with ones and twos, the lowest scores, because the phone operator had been so unhelpful. But when he rang up the following day to try and extend his overdraft again, he failed to access his account using his correct name, date of birth and account number. He was advised to visit his local branch but was unable to get there during the working week - and then had his cash card swallowed by a hole-in-the-wall dispenser.
The next week he visited the Abbey branch in Broadmead, Bristol, where a manager informed him he was listed on his account as a 33-year-old Ugandan divorcee born in July 1975. The bank manager corrected his details but over the next few days George discovered his overdraft and six direct debits totaling £750 had been cancelled - incurring 4 different charges totaling £60. Mr. Bates, who is single and lives in Bristol, then went back to his bank to demand his overdraft and direct debits were reinstated. All the changes have now been rectified, and Mr. Bates offered £200 in compensation. But he is still not a satisfied customer. He said: 'I am not happy with the service and the fact that the call centre Abbey uses is in India. They offered me £200 compensation but that's not a good apology to me. 'I've been forced to take lots of time off work which has costs me several day's wages and the stress of it all is really frustrating. 'Even though they did eventually sort everything out I'm still unhappy and I'll be switching back to a bank with call centres in Britain.' Abbey, who have five call centres in Britain and two in India - one in Bangalore and one in Pune, say they have 'fully investigated' the incident but refused to confirm whether any disciplinary action has been taken against the worker involved. A spokesperson said: 'An error occurred on Mr. Bates' overdraft. We have since returned his account to the correct position and refunded any charges relating to this error.
'In relation to Mr. Bates' other claims, we can confirm that we have fully investigated these complaints but we do not comment on individual employees.' In 2004, the bank came under fire after announcing plans to close three UK offices, which affected 1,300 jobs and
saw the majority of call centre work transferred to India. The following year following a barrage of complaints from customers, the former building society pledged to bring the jobs back to
Britain.
Originally published on MailOnline

Butterfly Effect

I was speaking at Reinventing Call Center Management in Toronto last week and describing Chaos theory (otherwise known as the butterfly effect). "CHAOS theory- a butterfly flaps its wings in marketing and the call center has problems. We are all familiar with this occurrence though few realize it originated in call centres. Marketing (or Sales) activities result in Substantially Higher Incoming Traffic which adversely impacts the Forecasted Agent Number. Of course in colloquial speech we call this the SHIT hitting the FAN"

Pay for Performance Contact Center Consulting

I have always been a firm believer in the old adage that "you get what you pay for", but it is also true that just because you paid a lot for something doesn't always mean you get a good result.

I think that generally products and services are priced based on their value and based on how the markets have valued them in comparison to alternatives available. But there always are charlatans out there who will charged big bucks and deliver little value. The technology and technology services realm has been rife with these occurrences...think vaporware. How many times have we heard how good something is going to be. How often have these future capabilities been presented or implied as being available today. All to often the truth only comes out after the purchase has been made. This experience is widespread enough to have lead to the creation of another adage specific to the technology space, "nobody gets fired for buying IBM". The upshot of this message is clear, the only safe choice is to buy what you know you can trust.

This whole purchasing premise is based on agreeing up front to price based upon a set of expectations and then seeing what you get. Well known and well regarded firms generally deliver what is expected, though this is not always the case. The less well known companies represent risk for the buyer, "what if they can't deliver?", 'what if it doesn't work?". We all avoid risk and clients are no different. Less well known firm and start ups have to overcome the perception that they are asking the customer to 'buy a pig in a poke', the clients' skepticism and natural risk avoidance can lead all to often to 'buying IBM', which is great if you are IBM and not so great if you are the unknown company with a great product or service, but can't demonstrate that without the client agreeing to buy your offering.

So what is a company with a good product or service to do? Well this is a situation that is common in the consulting space where I operate. The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (TRG) a call and contact center consultancy, may possess a leadership team with hundreds of years of Strategic and Operational Management experience, serve clients organizations that read like a who's who of the corporate world. We may have won awards for the work we do and have offices in three major cities (Toronto Atlanta and Sydney, Australia) and operate globally, but we are certainly not a household name.

I have seen prospective clients elect to go with IBM (or in this case IBM Global), or PwC and other big 5 consulting firms based upon their skepticism and/or to avoid both personal and professional risk. Yet instead of getting a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience they may get a twenty-something year old MBA grad who has completed a six week training program. Now I ask you which approach do you think is more risky?

So the challenge we face is still the same...How do we overcome the skepticism of buying 'a pig a poke' and eliminate the associated risk?

Our approach is to let the client decide. It sounds simple, let the client decide what a project is worth at the end of the task. Rather than agreeing up front to a cost with a set of expectations but no guarantee of the quality of the result we let our clients determine the quality and how much value they believe they received from an engagement of project. Our Pay for Performance Contact Center Consulting model gives the client control over what we get paid. Of course this doesn't eliminate risk it simply transfers the risk from the client to TRG and we have the confidence to know that we can add value and are comfortable giving control over our remuneration to our clients.

So how will this venture work out for us, I can't see the future, but I am confident. I will keep you posted.

The Trouble with Consultants...and Clients

There is an old adage that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch and tells you what time it is. Some times this is truer than we would like it to be.

The reasons for an organization to employ a consultant are many and include:
1-Need for specialized knowledge not available within the organization,
2-Desire to have a 'fresh set of eyes' look at and examine the business or the contact center,
3-The need for additional 'bandwidth' to complete a task or project,

In the first instance above the organization will learn from the process and if the consultant provides effective knowledge transfer then the company will have developed a new capability and competency.

In the second scenario the expectation is that the company "can't see the forest for the trees" and that they are too close and too biased, based on history, experience and how thing have always been done, to see alternatives. The consultant can facilitate a new view of the issues and present new alternatives not previously identifed by the organization. This process can remove the 'blinders' from the organization and create a new method for viewing issues, challenges and opportunities.

It is in the third scenario that we can see the 'borrowed watch' come into play. This is a situation where the organization has the knowledge and skills to complete a task, but not the 'bandwidth' in people or resources to get the job done. In this situation the consultant has the highest degree of risk as the client will often have an expectation of the outcome, based upon their ability to have completed the project if they had the time. The client will often project this outcome to the consultant. The less ethical consultants out there might just set about to develop evidence to prove the clients desired outcome rather than complete the work required to meet the original mandate. While it is obvious to me that the only option is to complete the project without bias, this can pose numerous problems. Clients who beleive they could complete the project, may in fact lack some of the knowledge, skills or experience to actually do so. And when they have a stated expectation of the result it may be very difficult to convince that another result is possible or desireable, let alone superior. The meeting where the consultant finds a different result can be very difficult, yet can prove to be very rewarding when we suceed in demonstrating the superiority of an unexpected result and sucuring the clients buy in and support for this new vision.

Site Selection for your Contact Center

Site Selection for your Contact Center

The boss has just asked you to head up the search for a new location for your contact center. You are flattered by the confidence that the boss has in you, you are confident that you can accomplish this task, just as soon as you figure out what to do. The business of site selection has changed considerably in the past decade.

Ten or fifteen years ago we worried about moving our call center off the subway line and today we worry about relocated the center internationally. In both scenarios the key to finding the best or ideal location was tied to finding or keeping staff. In a intra-city move you are concerned with where you can locate and retain most of your staff. In a search to find a location outside of the urban location you previously occupied the focus become where can we locate a center and have access to potential staff.

Of course the connection between labour and location is not and cannot be the only consideration, or if salary cost was king we all would have off-shored our call centers long ago. No, labour, labour availability are critical factors but not the only ones. Other factors that require attention. At Watts we developed a center location matrix that considered 134 factors on a weighted score basis that created a range of more than 500 basis points from the worst possible to the best possible scores. It is important that you develop your own matrix for evaluating and assessing potential locations. Some of the factors that you should consider would include not only staff or workforce issues ( what is the population, what is the employment/unemployment levels, workforce participation, college, university or military base presence all speak to potentially available labour which could be potential recruiting targets for the call center. Assessing the number, type, function and staffing levels of existing call & contact center can provide guidance related to the level of saturation that call/contact center represent in the local workforce. It is important that we locate in a market where we can identify potential sources of employees and identify that there are enough potential workers to support the center, but we also nee to look at how many of them are presently employed in call or contact centers. In my opinion the lower the saturation the better, though you can no longer find locations without contact centers you can find locations that have low saturation levels. We recommend to our clients that markets with more than 6% of their workforce presently supporting call/contact centers will represent on-going recruiting and retention issues, while under 3% can tend to be stable and much easier to operate within. Given that labor is the single greatest expenses in a call center and the cost to recruit a single agent exceed $3,000 finding a stable and easily maintained environment is highly desirable. Other factors for general site consideration would include:.


Population local
Population 45 minute draw area
Workforce Local
Workforce 45 minute draw area
Unemployment %
Unemployed
Under-Employment %
Under-Employed
Participation Level
College/University
Military Base
Other Call Centers
# Type of Centers
Total Call Center Seats
Call Center Saturation
Call Center Saturation
Proximity to airport
Available Real Estate
Estimated Operating Rent
Estimated Leasehold Improvements
Build to Suit' Options


Population Growth %
Average Income
Average house price
Level of Education (% of Pop)
Quality of Life
Public Transit
Infrastructure- Public
Infrastructure- Electricity
Infrastructure- Telecom
Severe Weather Occurances

Available Incentives
Incentives
Right to Work State
History of Union activity
Starting Call Center Wage
Median Wage Customer Service


Some of these suggested criteria are straight forward and others require some explanation. Infrastructure is critical to call center operations. We expect the call center to operate regardless of external factors. Of course we can provision for business continuity through back up power, redundant telephony connectivity etc, but the single largest factor influencing operational survivability will be the location and its pre-disposition to: floods, power outages, hurricanes, snow etc. Of course we must remember that some locations such as the Canadian Atlantic region may get a great deal snow each season they are used to this and have built buildings and infrastructure in expectation of these conditions. Businesses in the State of Virginia lose more work-days to snow than does Prince Edward Island.

Real estate in any considered location is alos critical. If you have found a great market with no available real estate that is suitable, then you options become delaying the project in hopes that something suitable becomes available (unlikely in a small market) or to delay the project and build to suit. This is often a longer and more capital intense option, though can proven to be have the lowest total cost of ownership/operation over a 5-10 year operating window.

The prevalent wages in the target market, associated level of education at that wage level, prevalence of union activity are all valid considerations and ones you must assess and incorporate in building a budget.

If you are considering a US location you will find some additional considerations: Right to work states, which ironically really reflects that the opposite of the right to strike. Right to work states tend to be significantly more favourable to business than non-right to work to work states. The second key factor can be one party versus two party states. This refers to the number of parties that need to be informed that a call is being monitored or recorded. Of course a two party consent state will require that the customers consent be secured whereas in a one party state this is not required.

Incentives opposite job creation still exist though the salad days of governments handing out millions without any real basis for accountability or reconciliation. Today the available incentives are closely tied (where present) to long term employment and are generally available as tax credits in the US and training grants within Canada. In both countries this is positioned as ‘recoverable’ meaning that the government can recover these dollars should the company fail to deliver the agreed employment levels.

Finding a new call or contact center (or any back office function can be very challenging) and that is why a number of firma and organizations have come into existence to serve this market. They generally fall into two camps: real estate driven companies, often spun off from commercial real estate firms that see call and contact center as desirable tenants, who seek new tenants for suitable vacant space. The second type are consulting firms who approach this from a form & function perspective. There are a number of excellent firms within each of these groups and your determination of which is better for you often comes down to the level of specialization and uniqueness your center possesses. The more specialized in terms of staff, space requirements and the smaller the size the less interesting it will be to a real estate based firm.

Before you do anything to find a new location, assess what has worked well and what has work less well in your current location and start to compile a wish list for your new location and the either start to contact potential jurisdictions you feel align well with your goals and objects or begin to interview and external firm that has the experience and capabilities to assist you in this endeavour. In my experience building, operating our own centers and assisting client to source more than 40 center locations I have employed all of the above approaches and no one is the best. Your choice will be , as mine have been based upon the specific goals, objectives, timelines and budgets of the project. So long as you do your homework you can succeed in creating a productive, efficient and cost-effective location for your new call center that will remain so for many years.

IP Telephony Seminar in Toronto

If you are considering deploying VoIP or IP telephony in your organization, then this seminar will be of interest to you. The seminar on Oct 3rd at the Toronto Board of Trade is being hoosted by Premcom who have just opened up a Toronto office. Premcom is based i n Buffalo NY and hasbeen one of ShoreTel's top resellers for a number of years.

The seminar will include on overview to VoIP and specific details on the ShoreTel approach and architecture. There will also be a full demonstration of ShoreTel IP telephony.

ShoreTel is the only 'pure' IP telphony manufacturer. Other manufacturers have compromised their architecture by dragging extensive legacy requirements or have compromised their architecture through acquisition. The architecture is what sets ShoreTel appart and is one of the reasons it has been rated #1 in user satisfaction four years in a row by independant research company Nemertes.

Pure IP architecture, Ease of use and low TCO are just a few reasons you should attend this seminar. You can register by calling 416-979-2130 or send an email to me at ctaylor@premcom.com and we will send you and invitation.

Don't buy a phone system until you read this

The folowing press release represents a great opportunity for any company in Canada considering a new telephone system. I have worked on numerous telephony RFP's and have been consistently impressed with the ShoreTel syste. Quite frankly it is the only pure IP telephone system designed from the ground up. Superior architecture, lower total cost of ownership and the highest customer satisfaction, make ShoreTel a must to review before you purchase any new telephone system.


For Immediate Release

Press Contacts:
Peter Proulx – CEO – 716-629-3099

IP Telephony, Network Services Company expands to Canada

Peter Proulx, CEO PremCom Corporation, a Buffalo, NY Reseller and Integrator of Enterprise IP Telephony Solutions and Network Services announced today the establishment of a new Toronto office.

“Our new office will allow us to expand our reach and service base beyond New York State”, said Proulx, “and allow us to offer Canadian customers the best IP telephony and network services solutions available.” PremCom sells ShoreTel IP Phone Systems, ShoreTel is the fastest growing IP PBX Company worldwide and the leader in customer satisfaction.

“We are excited about PremCom’s expansion into the Canadian market.”, said Peter Agricola, Northeast Area Sales Manager for ShoreTel, “PremCom has a proven track record for successful deployment of complex and large Enterprise IP phones systems. They have a proven track record with installations worldwide.”

Proulx also announced that PremCom has retained the telephony centric consulting firm: The Taylor Reach Group Inc. (TRG) to assist and support the new office launch. Colin Taylor the CEO of TRG said, “The establishment of a PremCom office in Toronto represents a giant step in terms of IP telephony options to Canadian companies.
PremCom is one of the leading ShoreTel partners and can now offer ShoreTel solutions to Canadian customers.”

The Toronto office is located at 19 Mercer St. Suite 300 in downtown Toronto. You can reach PremCom Canada at 416-979-2130. You can visit PremCom on the web at www.premcom.com. More information regarding ShoreTel can be found at www.shoretel.com . Immediate inquiries regarding PremCom services may be directed to Colin Taylor at the above number or at 416-276-9068.

About PremCom:
PremCom is an award winning provider of ShoreTel Voice over IP Telephone Systems. Established in 1992, PremCom is a single source provider for the design, installation and support of Communication and Data Networks, allowing organizations to optimize their information systems. PremCom has clients and installations across the USA and internationally. PremCom is a complete network services company providing VoIP Phone Systems, Network Servers, Network Communications Equipment and Cabling Infrastructure. PremCom is the Official Telephone Service Provider for the NHL Buffalo Sabres. www.premcom.com – 1-800-886-9267 – 85 Northpointe Pkwy. – Amherst, NY 14228


About The Taylor Reach Group, Inc.:

The Taylor Reach Group Inc. (TRG) was established in 2001 to assist companies and organizations improve their corporate and contact center services by focusing on telephone centric interactions. TRG award winning approach has assisted numerous companies such as Republic Services, Mercedes-Benz and Habitat for Humanity to improve their phone centric sales and service capabilities.

About ShoreTel, Inc.

ShoreTel is the fastest growing IP PBX Company worldwide and the leader in customer satisfaction. The company has shipped its groundbreaking solutions since 1998 and continues to outpace the rapidly expanding VoIP market with technological advances and sales that are doubling year over year. ShoreTel voice systems are designed to make businesses smarter, setting new standards for usability and manageability while reducing telecommunications costs. A uniquely distributed architecture extends enterprise-class voice services to every office and outpost, keeping employees fully connected wherever they go. A select, worldwide group of channel partners provide top-notch service and support. For more information, visit http://www.shoretel.com/ or call 1-877-80SHORE.


For more information about PremCom please contact:
Peter Proulx at (716) 691-0791.

For more information about TRG please contact:
Colin Taylor at (416) 276 9068

Revenue Generation: Profit from Pain

Revenue Model- Profit from Pain

One of the biggest challenges facing contact centers today is supporting Managements’ goal to shift the contact center from a cost center to a profit center. This can often be akin to pushing water uphill for Center managers who are under resourced and lack an understanding of the basics associated with up-sell, cross-sell and ‘save’ campaign effectiveness.

The following article sets out the parameters, drivers, sequence and value associated with the model hierarchy and its development.

There is a progression and hierarchy associated with the implementation of a revenue generation process within any call or contact center. This progression or process must begin by identifying where the center is, what the drivers for change are, the pre-requisites and sequence in which those activities must be accomplished and what the impact is of those activities have on the success and profitability of the revenue generation initiative.

Broadly stated the drivers would include:

Staffing:
Adequacy of current staff,
Availability of current staff,
People;
Skills & Competencies related to sales versus customer service,
Level and type of training received,
Competence or proficiency level,
Process:
The complexity of the processes required,
The speed of process completion,
Replication and error rate of the process,
Technology:
Database access, vision and robustness,
Scripting and sales support tools,
Virtual agent,
Offer:
Relevance to customer
Affinity to customer,
Perceived value & relationship,

These broad areas will each perform at differing levels dependant upon the combinations of the above in relation to Offer percentage (the percentage of callers that receive an offer) and conversion percentage (the percentage of callers that agree to an additional transaction). The Offer percentage in most contact center is controlled by the agent or CSR: they determine if it is appropriate to extend and offer to a customer. The latter point will be influenced by the offer the affinity to the customer and the perceived value by the customer.

The following chart illustrates the sequence of activities related to maximizing revenue generation.

Each of these elements builds upon the previous ones. It is possible to operate without following this hierarchy, but the results will suffer.

Against this hierarchy we can classify operations across four bands, which we have categorized as: Base, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. These bands represent and categorize the activities and results achieved in the center related to the progress achieved moving up the hierarchy.

The following table illustrates this progress:


As shown above at the Base level the existing staff is generally customer service staff that has been hired to handle customer inquiries. These staff members in service focused centers often were not selected or assessed based upon their sales focus or sales (potential) competencies. The staff will have often received little if any training opposite up-sell cross-sell activities and as a consequence they rate 1-3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The organizational processes have in most cases been designed to process orders and sales in a one-off fashion removed from the call/contact center. There may be no processes in place to manage add on orders or shipments within the fulfillment operation. In some cases no policy exists for partial shipment rules (ship partials versus hold for complete). The processes are adequate and effective for the business as it has operated but are not optimized, nor necessarily aligned with supporting an up-sell cross-sell environment. The processes at the Base level are generally in 3 – 5 range on the 1 to 10 scale.

Technology in most organizations has not been designed to support up-sell and cross-sell initiatives. Often it is campaign centric and not customer centric. The systems have been designed to support mass selection of names for mailings or other campaigns and not on an individual basis. The result is the database can often not display much detail regarding the actual customer: their history likes/dislikes or affinities. Similarly most inbound customer service support applications feature access to customer records for billing and account status inquiries, not to offer or support specific scripting for offers etc. As a result technology suitability for up-sell, cross-sell initiatives in the Base band is generally between 2 to 4 on a scale of 1 to 10.

As staff selection improves: skills, competencies and sales ability the base values for staffing and People improve. The addition of specific and detailed sales skills training, role playing and use of the existing technology improves the values for Training. As does refining and aligning the operational processes to support up-sell and cross-sell activities also improves the Process values.

As the elements outlined as Drivers above the overall scores will improve. With the skill/competency improvement the center will see improvements in both the Offer % and the Conversion %.

As outlined on the table the Conversion % in most centers converting from a customer service environment will be in the 3-5% range and suffers from a low Offer % as well. In these centers the decision to offer or not to offer an up-sell/cross-sell is usually left to the discretion of the agent. It is common that their fears, concerns, lack of training, knowledge of the customer and support negatively impacts their perception of up-sell cross-sell programs and leads them to find reasons to rarely offer the up-sell.

A structured, planned and consistent approach can move the center up the effectiveness curve and begin to achieve superior results is required.

The proof is in the results, employing this approach has already helped a number of organizations move from cost focus to revenue success. This is always a challenging journey, but can be the difference between success and failure for the center manager.

What is the value of Customer Service?

What is the Value of Customer Service?
Can we quantify it?
Can we get senior management to understand it?
We all know what good customer service is when we experience it, but few organizations can translate this into profit or margin at the end of the day.
Why is the value of good customer service so elusive?

The studies are clear 92% of consumers base their opinions of an organization based upon their call/contact center experience (Purdue), 54% of consumers have a higher opinion of an organization before they contact center than after (transversal). So what is the value of customer service? Does it affect lifetime value? if so how? Does change loyalty, repurchase, RFM analysis? If so how? Can we stop speaking of customer service as we do the weather...everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it? Come on weigh in, lets get your point of view.

Help Desks...so why can't we get help?

Help Desks…so why can’t we get help?

So why it is that today the helpdesk is derided almost universally, by the people they are there to help? Why that is the help desk has been renamed in many organizations as the ‘helpless desk’. Is the culprit the design of the help desk, the management, the tools deployed or is just that the users are beyond any form of help? To answer these questions we first need to review and understand the function, design, and management that are elements of any help desk.

According to PCMag a help desk is defined as “A source of technical support for hardware or software. Help desks are staffed by people who can either solve the problem directly or forward the problem to someone else. Help desk software provides the means to log in problems and track them until solved. It also provides the management information regarding support activities.” That sounds simple enough, but as with most things the devil is in the details. Users in most organizations will have 25 or more different software applications on their desktop, other software on their laptop and others yet on their pda. These applications include both company provided and user provided applications. IN addition to the software, they may have a desktop, laptop, pda, printer, scanner and network connections, wired and wireless. As you can see it very quickly becomes a very complicated mash of files, applications, hardware and network elements. Keep the users running is the role of the helpdesk.

IT is the owner of all company sponsored applications, as well as the provider of the network connectivity and hardware, so it is left to IT to manage the help desk and make it as efficient as possible. Of course to the uninitiated this sound fairly straight forward; IT knows the applications, hardware, software and networks after all they selected, purchased, configured and installed each of these elements. In addition the IT group has developed a process to manage help desk inquiries that generally runs as illustrated in the graphic below.


A nice linear process. This is way a help desk is intended to work. Make a request, send it to dispatch, it is assigned a case or ticket number, entered in the queue, dispatch assigns a rep to investigate and respond (fix) the problem and once fixed the case (or ticket) is closed.

Of course few things in life actually work as they were originally designed to. This is certainly true of help desks. Even with the experts who know the technology, its configuration and who are equipped with a logical and straightforward management process, help desks are often hopelessly doomed. Why you may ask? Well with the focu on technology; hardware/software, networks and process one critical element has been omitted, People.

Remember to old adage “to err is human, to really mess things up requires a computer”? We I would suggest that today the inverse is closer to the truth…internet viruses notwithstanding. People and specifically the users tend to be the single largest cause of issues requiring help desk support. Now let me be clear people cause most problems, but they do so often in such ways that we do not see ourselves as the culprit when we have a problem. Let me give you an example, Bob contacts the help desk because one of his Microsoft programs crashed and now will not boot up. He has tried rebooting his pc and has closed all other windows. Bob is in a panic, he needs to get a report done and that can’t happen if he can’t get the software to load. The help desk responds and even they are stumped at first and need to research the problem. The map all of the programs and applications on Bob’s pc. They review all of the files within those applications and finally the ah ha moment. There are two programs that employ a file called “abcd.dll” one in his Microsoft application and one in that new golf game software Bob recently installed to provide some entertainment on those long flights he is required to take. Bob in his haste to install his new game, did what we all do when going through a similar process we click ‘yes’ to any and all ‘replace file x with newer file x’ queries and in doing so Bob replaced the file that was needed to boot his MS file with a snazzy new that works great for golf,, but so good with Word.

We are all Bobs’, we all have software application, instant messaging, media players, sound players, games and other goodies on our machines that IT not only doesn’t know about, but that they have experience troubleshooting. The result is longer time to research and repair a help desk request. But besides the software we have installed we can create other problems…the virus the came when we opened that joke, the synchronization software for the pda we got for our birthday, the new business card scanner we purchased as an efficiency tool (not knowing we could actually crash the mail server). Face it people are the problem, not intentionally, but we are just the same. People do not view a pc as tool to just do spreadsheet, report writing and presentation preparation and to access the company CRM database, but rather we view computers as tools that can do thousands of wonderful and entertaining thing to inform and entertain us besides doing all of those functions and tasks that IT has designed and equipped them to do. In developing specifications and configurations for our pcs and networks etc. the IT group will ensure that we have compatibility and that the systems will function as designed…but they can’t even imaging all of the other things we will try to do with our machines.

So all the havoc wreaked by you and I and Bob has an impact on the help desk. They receive more cases and tickets needing attention than forecast, with more requiring research in order to fix. All the while the user is popping blood vessels wondering how they will get the report to the VP by 2pm. The net result of this becomes longer delays in the help desk queue and a general feeling amongst users that the help desk isn’t very helpful. So faced with a 2 pm deadline and the belief that the help desk isn’t very helpful, what is a manager to do? What we always do in times of challenge and crisis, we innovate. Remember that neat and tidy linear process we reviewed above? The one that sets out the process of managing a help desk case? Well enterprising users can turn that on its ear very quickly. Have a look at the graphic below which is actually far more accurate of most help desks.

Being innovative we all understand the concept of work-arounds, but in relation to our help desks many of us have become masters of this. We have cultivated relationships with the helpdesk reps individually just so we can by pass the dispatch and queue steps to speed our fix. We discover the secret queue email address and naming convention and try to jam a bogus case into the queue, we butter up the folks who dispatch to seek preferential treatment, we call our buddy asking for 5 minutes on the phone to see if we can get a quick fix and bypass the whole ugly process. This whole process is often greased by glad-handing, feigned friendship and doughnuts for the Help desk staff. Of course soe help desk staff will try against all logic to actually follow the process they have been instructed to do and forward a work-around request back to dispatch where it gets entered into the queue much later than it originally would have ( I guess we know who didn’t get the doughnuts). While much of the above is ‘tongue in cheek’, the activities and work arounds are not.

Now try designing an effective help desk with people who are always and with little if any consideration of the consequences adding ‘stuff’ onto their computers and a process that often doomed to work-arounds. A daunting task isn’t it? Daunting yes, impossible no. To get a handle on your help desk operation you need to get a handle on the primary cause of help desk cases…people. In practice it makes little sense to try to get people to stop adding stuff, because it is unlikely to work. A better approach is to look at what people do add and determine which ones ( there is a multitude of choice for most of the add ons we install) and determine the ones that are least likely to cause problems and share this with the users. This sharing process is one of education, there likely will be applications that you will forbid text chat and Voip are two of the most common banned applications, but tell them why; security, hackers, viruses etc. Train your people to ask before they install and not to mindlessly click yes to everything. This should be part of your staff induction training and part of the process whenever anyone gets a new or upgraded machine. This will reduce demand for the help desk are reduce the average time to repair, thereby reducing the queue.

Once you have you people and their pc’s under control, or as much control as we can reasonably expect next we need to turn our eye to our help desk staff. Doughnut aren’t good for us anyway so work with your staff to follow the process and be rigorous about it. Set up measures and reports on each of the staff: track mean time to repair, review their tickets/cases and determine what percentage followed the process and call them on it. Of course the senior VP may still get preferred treatment from time to time, but the overall incidence and use of work-arounds and back doors will diminish. This will of course further improve the through put of the help desk and improve their responsiveness both actual and perceived.

The truth of the matter is that most help desk challenges and those that lead us to label the help desk, the helpless desk have much, much less to do with technology and much more to do with people, both within and outside of the help desk.

To view this complete article (including graphics) please visit the TRG website ans subscribe to receive Customer Reach each months, follow the following link http://www.thetaylorreachgroup.com/register.php and join 5,000 + senior call/contact centers executives from around the globe.