By Colin Taylor I read an interesting article by Jennifer J Deal at strategy+business looking at five myths we hold about Millennials. For the past number of years we have all heard horror stories about organizations that gave away iPads, spot bonuses, socially conscious and social responsible activities, but still had staff leave for greener pastures. This point has been used time and again to characterize the lack of loyalty that Millennials are supposed to posses, which makes hiring and retaining them difficult. Call centers I know of have changed their mobile phone policies to allow millennials to have the phones on and with them at their desks and they are free to check facebook or twitter between calls. These same centers often speak of millennials feeling entitled to the fast track to easy street, their lack of interest in their work and difficultly managing them. This all fits well with our stereotypes and our expectations around millennials, but it may be all wrong. The article cites research involving thousands of respondents and dashs five of the major millennial myths completely. Conventional wisdom would have it that Millennials don't want to be told what to do or follow direction. The research (Center for Creative Leadership) however shows that Millennials are more likely to follow direction than are Gen Xers or Baby Boomers. 41% of Millennials agreed with a statement that Employees should do what their Manager tells them, versus only 30% for each the Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. If you think about this the results really are not too surprising, Millennials know that following direction from authority figures often ends well (at least it has done so often for most of us a children). This perspective on Millennials also creates an opportunity to engage with these individuals by ensuring they understand and appreciate the organizations culture, values and expectations. Myths also surround Millennial loyalty or perceived lack there of, but the research shows that Millennials have a similar level of loyalty and commitment as Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. It is a fact that younger workers tend to change jobs more frequently, even the Baby Boomers were guilty of this. This 'young age = job hopping' was even true when jobs were often perceived to be for life. Similarly Millennials are just as motivated as their Gen X and Baby Boomer predecessors were by work. As with job hopping above the lower you are in the hierarchy regardless of your generation the less motivated you will be. There is no link between your generation and you motivation by perks and high pay. Everyone loves perks and who wouldn't want high pay, but neither of these attributes is unique to Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers display the same behavior and there is no evidence in the research to show these perks improve loyalty regardless of age. So what does this mean to you in managing your call center? Well first of all I think you can lose the generational labels. Increasingly Millennials look just the same as you and I, only younger. Second forget trying to attract them with the perceived hot-buttons around perks, toys and special treatment. Nothing the research shows that these tactics work. the ability to take direct is one area where Millennials perform better than Gen X or Baby Boomer workers and this provides you with a great opportunity to share what your company is about and to show them how they make a difference. Be specific with how they will be judged and assessed and what you expect of them. Transparency is also valued by workers of every generation and Millennials are no different. So be open, transparent and specific about what they are to do and what you expect them to achieve and you can be well on your way to a successful working relationship.

Why Most Call Center Customer Service is So Bad?

By: Colin Taylor We have all had the experience, we phone our cable company, wireless provider or our utility and Bang! The pain and suffering begins: “Your call is important us, Please hold”. Well if my call was really important I would have thought you would have answered it. Of course some hold messages can be even more frightening: “We are experiencing higher call volumes and you should expect a longer than average hold time”. No I don’t make it a habit to phone my wireless provider often enough to know what their average hold time is, but I am scared nonetheless. Perhaps the standard greeting announcement should be replaced by “Abandon All Hope Yea Who Enter”, a little dramatic, but perhaps more accurate. Then when I finally reach an agent can they help me? Am I able to get done what I want to get done? The answers to these questions often depend upon the organization and the complexity of the question I asked. In some cases the center is quite helpful and able to provide me with the information I seek quickly, effectively, completely and professionally, with other centers it is more like phoning the call center in those old Capital One ads that featured David Spade. None the less research has repeatedly shown that while the quality of mercy is not strained the quality of customer service call center often is strained. The expectation of poor service has become engrained in our society. Comedians quip, television ads for Capital One and CarMax entertain us with bad service experiences and the twitterverse is alive with hundreds of thousands of people complaining about their call center or customer service experiences- hashtags #custserv, #callcenter and #cctr. Why do so many organizations deliver poor service? Research Proves Service is Bad I would like to propose some highly intelligent and provocative explanation, but unfortunately I feel the truth is much simpler. Companies and organizations don’t care. It’s not that they necessarily want to not care it is just that they don’t. There are too many other priorities and ‘more important fish to fry’. The research on this topic backs me up: 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience, according to Harris Interactive. That figure is closer to 73% said Gartner. American Express found that Customer Service Experiences generally….’ •Exceed Expectations – 2% •Meet Expectations – 62% •Miss Expectations – 32% •4% weren’t sure! In fact 90% of executives see Customer Service as crucial to their future business success. In the same study more than 70% of senior call center executives revealed that their companies fail to meet their customers’ expectations, according to Bain. So we have a strange dichotomy. Organizations know that good customer service is essential to their future success; they understand that there is a real tangible cost and risk of dissatisfied customers defecting and yet these same organizations seem incapable of affecting change. They say that the first step to dealing with a problem is to first to admit you have a problem. Well we as the customers of these organizations we may see the problem, as call center and customer professionals we may recognize the problem, but the organizations in question do not seem to recognize this. Why is that, businesses are full of bright, knowledgeable and skilled professionals. Is it as Dave Farrell suggests in his recent article Why Do Companies Give Bad Customer Service? “We have a Contrary Point of view. A point of view is simply how you view, judge or appraise things. How you see things determines how you act. How you act determines your results. In the world of Customer Service it would look something like this; a customer calls in and has an issue. Let’s say that I see customers as people who will lie through their teeth to get what they want. My point of view of the customer will determine how I act toward them. I am much more likely to be defensive and argumentative. The customer then will deal with me however they deal with defensive argumentative people. The result won't be pretty.” Or perhaps as Grant Nieddu pointed out in a Linked In post “Companies give bad customer service because they see that it is far cheaper to pay for a corporate rally and "mission review" teams than to over-haul their tactical processes. Rewording personnel reviews, restructuring the training process, and, gasp, revisiting incentive programs is far more costly and takes more time. You can learn, execute and train a culture of quality customer relationships, as long as you are willing to invest the time and money to do so. Companies that give bad customer service simply do not believe in the investment.” Both of these experts raise good points, we can certainly project our feelings and perception to others and define the service process from this perspective and as Grant said we certainly can’t discount the fact that some organizations are just cheap, but I think that the single biggest factor contributing to bad customer service or as my kids would say Customer Service that Sucks, is… drum roll please…..wait for it… neglect. Sorry to let you down after the big build up but let me explain. There are a number of types and forms of neglect that can lead to poor service. Neglect Equals Bad Service The first one I will deal with is complete neglect. This is most common in SMB’s with small call centers where the center is not really considered as a major part of the enterprise. They are neglected, their costs and budgets roll up into other much larger budgets like Operations, IT or Sales and senior managers and executives do not any visibility into what is really going on in the call center nor, likely do they really care. It is neglected. Of course this can change dramatically once the call center reaches that special threshold, whose level varies by organization, but it is when the call center actually appears as a line item on the monthly P&L. The first time this happens you can almost hear the screams of astonishment from the executive suite, “We are spending what on the call center!” In centers receiving this form of neglect they will generally be underfunded- trying to do more with less, significantly lack appropriate technologies to serve customers and be struggling to meet their service performance and targets. The operation of the center is usually in a vacuum, they are disconnected from the organization and only dimly aware of the company’s goals and aspirations. With insufficient staff, poor processes and technology and no vision these centers struggle day in and day out not to deliver lousy service, but they do not often succeed. This is not good service. The second form of neglect is neglecting to understand that a call center is a primary communications channel between the organization and its customers. In fact for many organizations it is the primary communications channel and the only meaningful one that facilitates a two way discussion, a dialogue. Failing to recognize this fact leads organizations to undervalue the contribution the call center and broader customer service and technical support plays in sustaining the business. Not only can a call center generate revenue through orders, up-sell and extensions, but the call center also protects revenue already promised through solving issues and fixing problems, many of which were not caused or created by the call center. As my colleague John Cockerill is wont to say “There are only two kinds of calls; Value, where we gain revenue and Fault, where we fix a problem someone else created”. By neglecting to understand the role played by the call center in maximizing lifetime value and customer retention these organizations treat the call center as an after- thought. The call center discovers new campaigns and initiatives only after they launch are criticized for failing to meet patently unattainable goals which they had no part in creating and generally receiving all of the perks and privileges bestowed upon it by ‘mushroom management’. It is in these centers where senior executives will ask if we really need all of those people or even if we really need to answer the phones at all. For the record I have heard that exact statement on two occasions in my consulting career. In centers suffering from this form of neglect they will be generally underfunded-trying to do more with less than none, they will often invest in technologies to reduce costs or create efficiencies regardless of the suitability to the purpose of the center or its potential impact on customers. The operation of the center can be characterized as a cost center, in a way that informs you that this is a very bad thing to be. There will be calls to transform the center to a profit center, to reduce costs and to increase productivity. Of course all of these activities can be positive however they are all but doomed to failure if they are not connected to the desired customer experience and the service quality the organization wishes to deliver. With insufficient staff, poor processes and technology focused on reducing volumes and/or reducing transaction times these centers make it difficult for their customers and when they get an answer they rush them off the phone. This is not good service. The third form of neglect is complicity in these organizations the call center is acknowledged to exist, its role appreciated and generally understood and there is an agreement on the value the center delivers to the organization. Senior executives look at their weekly dashboard reports and might comment on the change in service level or abandon rate. All may appear to be happy in ‘mudville’, but that is not necessarily so. The company having invested in people and technology to equip the center to do its job and recognizing its value reviews and scrutinizes the weekly reporting can feel that its job is done. You can almost hear them saying, “There now the call center is completed and we won’t have to worry about that again”. In the call center itself this stage can be the most frustrating as it begins with such promise; spending on headcount to match the demand, acquiring new technologies etc., but it soon grinds to halt coming face to face with the perception that ‘we did this (the call center) and now we are done’. The conversations go along the lines of “why do you need more people, you just hired 6 last quarter”, or “Last year we spent X million on your techno-goodies so you will have to make do”. All of the hallmarks are there of a professional call center engaged and integrated into the business, but it is not really so. The center likely struggles with scheduling and a disinterested and high turnover workforce, adequate technologies give them a fighting chance, but the absence of integration to the company vision and low level of agent experience condemns it to deliver inferior service. It is clear from the above that neglect can take many forms and that these various forms of neglect can handicap a call center and ensure that they deliver bad service…service that sucks. Success in delivering Good Customer Service lies in not neglecting your center but rather to paying attention to the center. Organizations have found success by elevating the call centers role within the organization and openly discussing the role the center plays in attracting and retaining customers. By defining the strategic plan for the call center and linking the call center plan to the company goals, mission and values brings everyone onto the same team and speaking from a perspective of alignment. By equipping the center with the appropriate tools to do the job the organization can begin to reap the rewards of this stewardship. Of course this should not be construed to suggest that the call center should be given a blank check. Quite the contrary each desired investment in people, or process or technology should be modeled, justified and be confirmed to be in line with the call center strategy and the broader goals and objectives of the business. Any requested investment that doesn’t make economic sense and/or fails to align and support the business goals must be discarded until a more suitable and appropriate solution can be found. There is no excuse for an organization to have poor service the cause can includes neglect, lack of funding or perhaps even projection. But if there is no excuse for bad service why hasn’t somebody done something about it? There are likely a million reasons that have been cited by other authors, experts and pundits, but I would suggest that the simplest reason is that companies don’t have too improve service. We expect poor or at least difficulty in resolving customer service issues Forrester Research found in some verticals such as computers and health insurance only 30% of consumers expected customer service to be easy. We often expect to have a fight on our hands. If this is the view of the customer, then is it any surprise that organizations steel themselves for the conflict with restrictive policies and penalties for changes. The Way Forward Of course at the same time this expectation of poor customer service creates an opportunity for those organizations able to rise above the din and actually deliver superior service. They could be motivated by a sincere and genuine wish to deliver better customer service to their customers or they may simply realize that happier customers stay customers longer and spend more money with you. But this can on the surface appear to be a risky strategy, to spend more money to improve the quality of service, staff, technology and processes and then to wait and hope it pays off. But maybe it is not so risky. Research from American Express found that 61% of Americans report that quality customer service is more important to them in today’s economic environment, and will spend an average of 9 percent more when they believe a company provides excellent service. A few organizations are bravely marching forward carrying the ‘Superior Customer Service’ banner. Some of these organizations have achieved fame and success others are just quietly reaping the financial benefits. Zappos has defined itself as a Customer Service organization that just happens to sell shoes and has created a cult of believers. F&C has been recognized as the best call center in the UK by exceeding all service parameters. And American Express, well it is their research cited above that tells us that customers will pay more for better service, it appears that they are walking the talk. American express derives their customer satisfaction scores directly from their customers and this CSAT score has replaced the internally generated quality score that they used to rely on. Satisfaction is in the eye of the customer, it is as simple as that. So we are not forever doomed to suffer through endless IVR call trees, hours on hold only to speak with an ill-tempered and poorly trained agent. We needn’t abandon all hope when we enter the customer service queue. We must simply choose to patronize organizations that deliver superior service. Voting with our feet and our wallets is the best way to encourage lagging organizations to cease their policies of neglect and embrace the new maxim of better service equals more and happier customers. Hopefully and not to far in the future companies will no longer be able to provide poor customer service because they can get away with it, customer service laggards are going to be punished by the market and forced to change their ways. At least that’s what my crystal ball says.

Servant Leadership in your Call center

Colin Taylor

In the world of call centers, contact centers and customer service centers we are all servants to our customers. We exist to serve their needs and requirements. It is sad that some many centers do poorly at this. The attitude of the call center existing to serve our customers is foreign to some. The point of view that in our call center we are servants to our customers tends to be even more foreign and uncomfortable.





Perhaps the problem is tied to our lack of familiarity with providing service without being subservient.



We too often see those that serve as being inferior to those who are served. This is certainly not the case, ands we know this intellectually, yet our organizations often support this hierarchical, command and control, top down perspective.







The solution, well in my humble opinion it is to embrace the opportunity to serve, and to be servant leaders in our call center.



To be a servant leader, one needs the following qualities: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, growth and building community. Acquiring these qualities tend to give a person authority versus power.



This is a concept that is certainly not new. The term Servant Leadership was coined in 1970 by Robert Greenleaf and has since been supported and developed by authors such as Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, and Peter Block. But the ideas underlying servant leadership are far older. in the 4th century BC Chanakya wrote:

“The king [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects [followers]” “the king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people.”



Lao-Tzu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching lived in China sometime between 570 B.C. and 490 B.C.:

The best type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware of. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Last comes one whom they despise and defy. When you are lacking in faith, others will be unfaithful to you. The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, all the people say, ‘We have done it ourselves!’



Regardless of the antecedence the concept of Servant leadership is ideally suited to call and contact centers. I have espoused this approach for many years and have seen it succeed time and time again.

Servant leaders often share many of the following attributes: trustworthy, self-aware, humble, caring, visionary, empowering, relational, competent, good stewards, and community builders.



Think about your center, in some ways it could be characterized as a ship on a journey. You and your staff are moving through treacherous waters towards your goal. As we know there are many types of i and crafts that could make such a journey. But for the sake of this discussion I would like you to select from the following two choices:



A galley- this ship was popular with Romans, it utilized the power of the crew rowing in unison to the beat of a drum that established the pace.





A longship- this is a vessel of the type that were employed by Vikings as the explored and plundered throughout the North Sea and North Atlantic. This craft employed its crew to paddle or row.



In the case of the longship the crew were freemen they chose to be on the ship and to participate to the goal, their common goal. The crew of the galley on the other hand were chained into place and had no choice; input of option other than rowing to the goal that was established by others.



Now which is your center more like?



Servant leadership in a call center is much more aligned with the longship as those in charge are there to assist the crew in achieving and realizing the goal rather than beating them to try to attain it. Both vessels can get to their destination, but which on would you rather be on?



Call centers are a community of people with individual perspectives, points of view, goals, ambitions and levels of commitment. This hodgepodge lends itself very well to chaos and confusion. Many respond to the challenges of this environment by creating rules, policies and protocols simply to stifle and restrict the energies of this community. These rules can make the group more manageable, but the trade off is a loss of autonomy and independence, ideas and of original thought. Rather than harnessing the unique abilities of the community in this case we have repressed those abilities and forced those who don’t comply out. This leaves with a group malleable, manageable, but uninspired people. The analogy to sheep or zombies leaps to mind.



They are great at following, but do not lead. If this is an apt description of your call or contact centers then you only have one option for sea travel and that is the galley.



A servant leader in a call center on the other hand would see themselves as a servant to the group, whose role was to help the center get to its goal in the best way possible. This creates an environment much more akin to the longship as all members can have input, share their point of view. The role of the leader is to be a part of the crew, by steering the ship, not the master of the crew beating out the drum beat.



So again, I ask which better describes your call center: a galley or a longship?



Regardless of the answer today, you can change it in the future.



Regardless of which strategy you employ, we wish you luck and a bon voyage.

Building a Strategic Plan for your Contact Center

Building a Strategic Plan for your Contact Center


Colin Taylor

In our call center consulting engagements one recommendation comes up time and again and it is often the first one we tackle when working with our call center clients; the Strategic Call Center Plan. In a previous post we examined if a call center, contact center or customer service operation required a Strategic Plan and concluded that it is one of the most powerful tools to ensure alignment between what a company or organization is working to achieve and the support provided by the call center to realize these goals and objectives.



Of course if the company has defined their strategy then the exercise can be straightforward and can be completed as set out in our earlier post Is A Strategy For The Contact Center Necessary?



But what if no corporate strategy exists? Can we develop a call center strategic plan? The answer is that in some organizations you can and in others you likely cannot. In order to define the existing strategy you will access and active participation from the senior management and the company leadership team. Depending upon the size, industry and structure of the organization this may or may not be achievable. If the company however is of a size, structure, culture that could allow for the required participation and there is a willingness upon the senior management group to engage in this exercise then it is in fact possible to construct a call center strategic plan in the absence of a corporate strategic plan.



Of course, each organization is different as are the members of the leadership teams at any organization. Their individual experience with developing strategic plans will also vary, so our approach has been to employ pre-work for all of the participants and to set up facilitated meeting to work through the biggest strategic questions upon which the corporate and call center strategies depend. In these meetings we establish and gain agreement on a strategic framework upon which the call center strategic plan can be built.



So what are these questions? In our experience the answers to the following questions have been critical to establish that strategic framework:

1. Who is the Primary Customer? This question focuses the attention and efforts of the center against the customers deem most important to the business.

2. Who Comes First? The answer to this question establishes the hierarchy or priorities between Customers, Employees and Shareholders.

3. What are our Core Competencies? This question eliminates ambiguity surrounding what we are good at which provides and competitive advantage and what we may or may not be good at, without a competitive advantage.

4. What are our Core Values? Defining what we value and prize as an organization can help to prioritize call center and customer service decisions within the call center.

5. What will we not do? Establishing what we will not do as an organization is as important as what we will do. Strategic limits ensure that cycles and efforts are not wasted in areas that the organization has no interest in pursuing.

These five questions when combined with knowledgeable a facilitator with deep understanding of both strategic planning and call center operations can deliver a highly focused, and aligned call center strategic plan which better enables the call center operation to support the company and the brand.



For more information regarding Call Center Strategic Planning or The Taylor Reach Group call center consulting services, please contact the Colin Taylor.

IQPC Call Center Summit – Review

Colin Taylor


I spent last week at the IQPC Call Center Summit in Orlando Florida. The venue was quite nice, though there was some distance to travel to find the lundcheon rooms. The speakers convered the gamut for such events and the topic of Social Media was once again prominent. The presentation by Michael Biondo from Thumbplay was suggested by a number of other attendees as one of the best as was the one by Steve Riddell of Blinds.com.



The number of delegates was up from last year as were the number of exhibitors in the trade show and both of these points bode well for the burgeoning recovery. There seemed to be a lot more managers and line staff in attendance this year, however. So while the number of attendees increased it appears the quality and seniority of the attendees declined.



I had a number of great meetings during the event and and also completed a couple of interesting interviews: one with Barb Bleiler of WPS who was speaking at the event, she and I sat down to discuss self service in call centers in general and the WPS call center in particular. My second interview was with Michael Biondo of Thumbplay, we discussed social media and the opporunities of call centers to use these channels to get closer to their customers. Both of these videos are availab on our YouTube Call Center Channel .



I also enjoyed my tour of the CCA (Call Centers of America) facility in Orlando, it was both interesting and informative.



Overall I would rate the event a 6 out of 10 and look forward to the next IQPC event ‘Call Center Week’ in Las Vegas this June.

How Easy is Your Call Center to Deal With?

How Easy is Your Call Center to Deal With?


Colin Taylor

There is growing debate in call center and customer service circles as most organizations (89% in a recent study) strive to exceed customer expectations, that this has little value in increasing customer loyalty. Instead loyalty is more generally derived from ‘ease’ of interaction, that is to say making it easy and simple to interact with the company call center. This can mean offering more channels of communication, (57% of customers found the need to switch from the web to the phone to be an obstacle, that the presence of robust chat might have eliminated), offering extended service hours, accurately capturing customer information and nature of the problem or challenge (56% had to re-explain their issue), and resolving the inquiry on the first contact (FCR) opportunity (62% of customers had to repeatedly contact the company to resolve an issue).



“Simplify, simplify”, said David Thoreau and that is good advice for today’s call center and contact center operator. In our call center consulting practice we have seen many organizations that added too much complexity into the process that created barriers and obstacles for customers to overcome. These obstacles can include:

* Overly complicated IVR systems – remember humans cannot remember more than 7 things and 4 or 5 is really ideal,

* Limited hours of call center operation that force customers to contact us when it is convenient for us and not them,

* Not offering multiple communication channels. We want to be available to interact with our customers in whatever channel is convenient to them…not to us. So add chat, so customers don’t have to leave the web to phone us. Offer email from the website to allow this channel of communication.

* Ensure that the call flow is logical from a customer perspective (related to the IVR point above). Don’t mix sales and service options and queues unless this is what your customers want. If it is not logical you will drive transfers and dissatisfaction.

* Offer easy to use self service. Many customers would prefer to get the answer themselves than to sit in queue to speak to an agent.

* Ensure that your systems are integrated or at minimum that the caller information can be viewed by anyone who the customer has to speak to. There is little that is more frustrating than having to repeat yourself and explain a situation for the second or third time.

* Be proactive if there is a high correlation between a stated customer issue and a follow on issue occurring, share this with the customer, give them guidance or tell them where they can find. This can eliminate the ‘next’ call and preserve satisfaction.



Being easy to do business with is a key metric when examining overall customer satisfaction with and organization and it is critical when viewed from a customer service or contact center perspective. Never lose sight of the fact that once a customer is ‘sold’ and has to contact the call center the role of the center is to protect that customer from attrition. The call center protects the revenue stream that has already been secured, making it easy and effective to get what they need seem obvious, but as with common sense, it can be very uncommon.

Root Cause Analysis in the Call Center

Root Cause Analysis- Why You should be using it,

By Colin Taylor

It always amazes me how call center managers, their direct supports and their superiors often fail to use one of the best tools at their disposal, Root Cause Analysis. Of course if you are always fighting fires it is difficult to find time and or resources to

research what is causing the fires in the first place. As with any fire there is always a cause; a discarded cigarette, an ignition source, lightening etc. There is always an underlying cause for any event.

According to Wikipedia, “Root cause analysis (RCA) is a term used to denote a class of problem solving methods aimed at identifying the root causes of problems or events. The practice of RCA is predicated on the belief that problems are best solved

by attempting to correct or eliminate root causes, as opposed to merely addressing the immediately obvious symptoms. By directing corrective measures at root causes, it is hoped that the likelihood of problem recurrence will be minimized. However, it

is recognized that complete prevention of recurrence by a single intervention is not always possible. Thus, RCA is often considered to be an iterative process, and is frequently viewed as a tool of continuous improvement”.

If we go to see our doctor we would rather that he addressed the cause of our sickness and not just the symptoms. In our business lives, however, we can often fail to see or understand the causal events that are making our lives miserable. So how can we move

from fighting the fires to preventing them? How can we do this without investing in expensive technology, costly consultants and with no additional resource bandwidth? The phrase “out of the mouth of babes” comes to mind. You see I have been practicing

root cause analysis for many years and had developed a fairly robust approach of employing process maps, live call monitors and recording as well as stakeholder interviews. All of which I must say has worked quite well and has stood me in good stead with

my clients and customers. When babysitting my granddaughter recently I was reminded of another approach and one that is extremely effective for drilling down to a root or underlying cause. “Why is the sky blue?, Why do we have day and nights?,

Why doesn’t the sun go out? Why does the moon move around the sky?, Why do the tides move in and out? Of course anyone who is familiar with six sigma understands the ‘5 whys’. Following my most recent interaction with my granddaughter I gained a new appreciation for this approach. Again from Wikipedia, “The 5 Whys is a technique used in six sigma methodology to help determine the root cause of a defect or problem. Often it takes roughly five iterations of asking why to get to the real cause of a problem, although the real key is to just start asking why” The penny dropped, using the 5 whys could be a far simpler tool for quickly assessing the root cause.



So we tried it out on one of our clients;

“41% of all callers were complaining that the service promised was not delivered”,

Oh says I “why would the service not be provided?”

“The customer must complete some preparation in order for us to provide the service. A lot of times they don’t prepare and blame it on us”

“So what percentage of the complaints are real and what percent is the customers?” I asked.

“I don’t know came the response, we don’t measure that”

“Ok, so I’ll ask, why don’t we measure that?”

“We don’t have a mandate from corporate to measure it”

“You said you didn’t have a mandate from corporate. Aren’t there service standards in place?”

“Well yes, there are, but complaints aren’t really covered.”

“Why aren’t complaints covered?” I asked gamely.

“The operations staff doesn’t want us to measure complaints.”

“And why don’t they want to measure complaints?”

“Because since some of the customers are lying it will make the operations staff looks bad and they don’t wish to be seen as doing a bad job”



At this point I had to agree I could see that point of view. After all who wants to look like they are doing a bad job? The operations staff also completed ten of thousands of service deliveries successfully each month. Though not wanting to bail out of the process, I adjusted course and went back at it, “You said there were service standards in place. Is there not a standard for service complaints?”

“There actually is, but we don’t report on it, because it just gets the operations staff upset. They tell us it is only a goal.”

“Ah ha! So these are service goals rather than service standards for complaints. So you don’t track them because a percentage of your customers may be lying. Do I understand this now?”

“Yes, actually you have put it quite well.”

There we have it. Not quite done in the suggested 5 why questions; but the underlying cause for the high percent of complaint calls is the lack of service standards. While management claimed to employ service standards in the case of complaints, they were really just goals. Therefore they were untracked and unenforceable. But maybe I am congratulating myself too quickly. Let’s fast forward a bit through the process:

We met with the senior management team and reviewed the service standards.

We found that many standards were really goals and most were not tracked or met.

We secured agreement that in order to have any effectiveness a service standard had to be tracked, analyzed and managed,

We secured agreement on all standards fairly quickly based upon a 5 nines success rate 99.999% success.

Then we bumped back into the problem with those lying customers. In all fairness it was not me who had the epiphany, but rather one of the senior group.

“So tell me” he asked “is your lying population concentrated in just one sales territory?”

The answer as suspected was “No they are all over town”,

“Good then why can’t we just accept that a percentage of our customers will be less than truthful, because I’m sure the liar density in this town, like others is pretty equally distributed”

Well that did it. We agreed to a meaningful service standard for complaints; accepted the truth that liars don’t all live on the same block. We moved forward and implemented meaningful service standards across the organization.

There were more than a few missteps along the way but at the end of the day we saw the number and percentage of total calls represented by complaints drop from 41% to less than 7%. Of course like any improvement initiative it never comes to an end. I know that today we are still working to improve the success rate for the service standards and we are still looking for those customers who are less than truthful.

A final thought if you ask the question as to why things are done a certain way and get the answer because we have always done it that way; don’t despair. There is always a better mousetrap, a better way of doing things. We just need to discover them. Root

Cause Analysis can be a very valuable tool is helping you to understand why.

Originally Published in Customer Reach Volume 2 Issue 5

Toyota Just Doesn’t Understand: Poor Design Creates Poor Experience

Toyota Just Doesn’t Understand: Poor Design Creates Poor Experience
I like to think of myself as a patient person, though it has been said that I don't always suffer fools well. I was having a happy retail experience, well at least as happy as one can have when you leave $1200 with the dealer. I did need new front brakes, so all in all I was quite happy and content, when the service advisor choose to make me even happier. "Here" he said as he handed me a post card, "register on this site and you could win a thousand dollars". I joke that would only leave me $200 in the hole and he laughed as well.

Back at the office I went to the 'clubtoyota.ca' web site and attempted to register. I input my VIN # and all other requested information and hot enter. The first try is returned an incorrect postal code. I had added a space where none was required/accepted. It would have been nice if they told me this, but no biggie, I corrected and continued. Still got the 'correct your postal code' message two more times, before the website displayed the 'please phone our call centre' message. While I was getting frustrated, I thought a $1,000 is still a $1,000, so I dialled the phone.

After negotiating the auto attendant menu and holding for 35 seconds I was connected to an agent. After explaining my challenges on the site, she explained that I may have been entering the wrong address and it had to match my home address. I thought of my retweet yesterday of Seth Godin's post regarding frustration with poorly designed websites - HERE. If the site had mentioned that the address had to match my home address and not the one registered with the dealer, I could have navigated it. The agent then told me that if I had moved since I bought the vehicle, then my home address wouldn't have worked either and it had to be my home address when I bought the vehicle.

Now I know why Toyota is promoting this web site and giving away thousands of $$. They want to ensure that their database is accurate and current. Who knows Toyota may have a recall (sorry a low blow, but I couldn't resist). They also understand the concept of relationship management and want to be able to connect with me through as many touch-points as possible.

Of course by the end of the 4 minute call with my address corrected and verified by the agent, I said good-bye and attempted to login to the site. Once again an incorrect postal code message and after I verified that what I was entering was what the agent had said it should be i was once again asked to call the Toyota call centre.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the generosity and goodwill of the dealer by offering me a chance to win $1,000 had evaporated. I was out 30 minutes of my time, had seen my satisfaction with Toyota fall from a reasonable 8 out of 10 when first handed the card by the dealer to now a 2 out of 10 now. I wondered to myself was the company (Toyota) just dim when they created a site to register, reward and recognise customers or was their intention to demonstrate how to tick off customers who were relatively happy before receiving such a gift?

I suspect that their intentions were and are honourable. I suspect that no one paid attention to the website or web design. A few well placed instructions could have eliminated my call and frustration.
At the end of this process, my opinion of Toyota has taken a beating (and I now own my third consecutive Toyota vehicle), my respect for them as an organization has diminished (how many blindfolded monkeys does it take to make a website) and to make matters worse, it cost me time, but also cost Toyota money; 6 failed web interactions, one 4 minute call and the downstream damage done by one unhappy customer tweeting to the world.

I suspect that a better effort in building the website would have cost a whole lot less. This is the case with so many organizations that fail to extend their customer experience vision to all touch-points or fail to align all contact points to the vision.

10 Relatively Serious Predictions for 2011

10 Relatively Serious Predictions for 2011
Guest Blogger John Cockerill
1. There will be a future however bleak or rosy, it will still be. Take off the rose colored glasses and stop forecasting historical plus 5%. That is what a demand forecast is for. Get one now.
2. Politicians will still get elected; and we all will complain regardless of who is elected and their policies. Now is a great time to examine your own policies, are they complete, are they up to date are they relevant to the way your center operates today?
3. Calls will still likely be the large percentage of contact traffic types in your centers. People like to talk with people. It is organizations that generally push for self-service and non voice channel (chat and email) and all of these can add value to you center. But don’t forget to pay attention to voice it is likely to be you largest channel for the near future.
4. Mondays will continue to be the busiest day of the week for most centers, so don’t schedule the same number of staff on Monday as on Friday or even on Tuesday for that matter.
5. Finding and keeping good staff will remain the secret to contact center success. Oops, didn’t mean to let that one out.
6. Friday and Monday will account for 40% of all absences and illness on in centers working standard business hours and days. For most centers this does far more damage to your service levels on Mondays, so try asking your staff to be ill and absent on Friday…or at least to start their weekend one day earlier, so they are recovered by Monday.
7. Agent training in contact center will for the next year in many centers to remain thought of as a ‘nice to do’ not a ‘must do’. Here’s a thought…what if we hire good people and ensure that they have the training and knowledge to assist our customer over the phone. Would that improve our CSAT and perhaps our ESAT as well?
8. Fault calls will remain the largest segment of calls for most centers. Who’s fault? It’s your fault…well maybe not you personally, but your organization. What are you doing in your center to reduce fault calls?
9. Marketing may talk to the center regularly and let them know what campaigns, and programs will be run and associated volume expected and likely to impact the center. I don’t believe that is all that likely; but it could happen. I have faith that it should have one of these years. Let me know when it does.
10. Predictions for the future like demand forecasts are prone to have a margin of error (50%) regardless of the authority and foresight. Pick a point and go for the future with belief that you can and will figure it out and it will be rosy. If you can conceive it, believe it, you can achieve it.

Talking Call Center Videos

Call Center experts from New York City 311, Philly311, Unity Health, Scotiabank, Preferred Health Partners, speak on industry trends, how the trends are impacting their contact centers, the role and impact of social media on their centres and customers.
These videos are available on the Taylor Reach Group YouTube video channel and is available via this link

Is A Strategy For The Contact Center Necessary?

By Colin Taylor
In our call center and contact center consulting practice, we are often asked this question.

Johnson and Scholes (Exploring Corporate Strategy) define strategy as follows:

"Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations".

All businesses have a strategy, many by definition and constructed to reflect their own business realities, customers and markets. Some strategies are undocumented and driven by entrepreneurial zeal, but every bit as much of a strategy as those defined. In short a strategy provides the organization with a goal and direction towards that goal that it aspires to realize through the conscious and determined efforts of its staff and stakeholders.

So is a strategy required for elements within the organization such as customer service or contact centers? I would suggest that yes. A strategy or strategic plan is essential for the contact center to support the organization as it works to realize the corporate goal.

Companies in developing their strategic plans define who their customers are; and their primary audience focus on how to create value that underpins the strategy: The Customers come first or the Employees come first or their shareholders come first. If the focus is on the customer then the contact center will be critical to interacting and serving customers needs and requirements. If the focus is on employees, it is often extrapolated to explain that happy employees will work harder and deliver superior service to customers. Even in the cost conscious shareholder value creation model customers must be serviced. The reality is the contact centers are the most common communications channel between customers/consumers and the organization. The contact center plays a critical role in supporting the corporate strategy and influencing customer satisfaction.

So how to develop a strategy or strategic plan for the contact center? First acknowledge that as contact center leaders we do not have a ‘blank canvas’ to work with. The corporate strategy has already been defined and is evident in the Mission Statement, Vision and Values documents. In reviewing these documents we can gain an insight into the strategy, the customers served, the manner in which value is created, the goal and objectives of the strategy and the values which are the touchstone for making difficult decisions. So the development of contact center strategy is completed in the context of the corporate direction.

Second we know that our role is to interact with the customers in a manner that supports the corporate strategy. Lastly we know what the Vision for the future is. We know where the company is going. Our challenge as contact center operators is develop a roadmap and plan to support the evolution of the contact center in lock-step with the evolution of the company towards its Vision.

The key of an effective call or contact center strategic plan is to support and align with the overall strategy for the business. Implementing this sounds fairly straightforward but can be fraught with challenges and problems. For example what is the appropriate service level target for the defined primary customer group versus a secondary customer group, who, while not primary is still a significant source of revenue? How can you reduce the costs to serve one customer segment while increasing resource allocation and delivering superior value to another? How does your agent or representative model map to these distinct groups? Can everyone serve both customer segments? Can they do it well? How do you embrace new Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) goals to support the strategy? Are you even sure that your current metrics, such as internal quality are providing accurate customer satisfaction data?

The first undertaking that the center operator must complete is to ensure that they understand fully and in detail the corporate strategy. Too often contact centers launch initiatives to improve customer satisfaction, or reduce costs only to discover later that the corporate goal wasn’t an across the board CSAT improvement; or that the cost reduction initiatives undermine revenues and repurchase from the primary customer segment. Sit down with the management and review the mission, vision, values statements and any additional detail and specifics that the manager can provide.

In the context of the two examples cited above what is meant by customer satisfaction? In which segments of the customer base should satisfaction be improved, why and how? What is the intention for the remaining customer segments? How will the segmentation of customers to allow a focus on the primary customer group? What is the impact for example on the queuing structure and methodology? Is the CSAT of the remaining segments to remain unchanged, decline or increase? What is the budgetary impact anticipated with these changes?

Regarding cost reduction what are the boundaries associated with this change? Is this change really desired to improve the profitability of customer transaction? If profitability is the real goal then the actions taken to reduce costs cannot at the same time reduce sales conversion (the percentage of the customers who buy), nor reduce average order size or frequency. The establishment of boundaries limits the range of options open to the operator and also supports alignment between the two strategic plans.

Alignment is critical. Without both strategic plans being in synch, they can be working in opposite directions, and the attainment of both of the plans objectives and goals can be compromised. As the primary communication channel between customers and the organization the call or contact center can have a disproportional impact on the overall performance of the company in attaining its stated goals and objectives.

Alignment goes beyond the Vision statement and the future state end goals of the organization. The center must be aligned with the core Values established as well. If the company has determined that its value creation model focuses on an Employee First strategy then the contact center must ‘walk the talk’. In an Employee First strategy, the premise is that happy employees will create happy customers who will continue to patronize the company and buy its products and services.

How can an operator embrace an Employee First strategy in an ‘always on’, high change and structured contact center environment? What do we do with our existing metrics? Is Average Handle Time (AHT) an effective or even an appropriate metric in this environment; or does it simply encourage representatives to feel conflicted. For example “Does the company want me to satisfy the customer or get off the phone quickly?” Such conflicts are not aligned to employee satisfaction (ESAT). Where there is conflict there will also be confusion and frustration. This hardly sounds like a successful Employee First strategy. So examine the metrics and KPI’s to ensure that what is measured is what you want to attain.

The steps outlined so far focus on immediate operations in the center: how the center has to change on a call by call basis. But what about a long range view. How do these changes impact on the incoming demand in terms of volumes of calls, emails, chats and self service? The operator needs to make and challenge assumptions regarding how these changes affect and impact demand. This is important. It is the forecasted demand, along with service level and AHT that determine the labor costs and budgets.

In concert with reviewing the demand the operator also needs to revisit other key aspects of the center operational model: people, process, technology and methodology. Aligning to the corporate strategy impact requires changes in how the center operates. The wise operator looks at how the operations of the center can be changed to improve overall alignment. How can we change the processes to align better with the strategic goals? Is there a technology available that better manages demand or facilitates better segmentation and cost management? These could be structural changes in terms of how the contact center operates today, who it serves and how it serves those customers.

Structural change is almost certainly required to align and support the attainment of the results set out in the corporate strategic plan. Albert Einstein said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If what the contact center was doing today delivered the results sought by the strategic plan then the strategic plan would not have been created.

To review, there are 7 steps that must be completed before a contact center strategic plan can be developed. Complete each step fully before articulating the contact center strategic plan
7 Steps to a Contact Center Strategic Plan
1- Understand fully the corporate Strategy,
2- Understand customer segmentation and priorities,
3- Identify the impact of customer segments and priorities on queuing management,
4- Understand applicable boundaries,
5- Examine your metrics and KPI’s
6- Review and revise your demand forecast
7- Examine you operational methodology for structural changes
With the 7 steps created you can articulate a contact center strategy with the knowledge that it will support the business goals; and move the organization one step closer to the realization of the corporate strategic plan.
For more information on developing a contact center strategic plan visit our website at http://www.thetaylorreachgroup.com or contact the author.

Financial Metrics in your call center

Post by Turaj Seyrafiaan
In this post, we will look at some of the financial indicators and metrics that are a part of call and contact center operations.
As more and more contact centres are treated as a separate business unit, it becomes necessary for contact centre management to deliver expected services while improving their bottom line financial results. Failing to provide services within a given budgets or financial targets puts pressure on the management team to reduce services, offer lower quality service or both! Even without such financial pressure, providing services at a high cost creates opportunities for other centres (outsourcers) to offer better financial results (i.e. profit) to the organization and as a result, make the internal contact centre redundant. As contact centres evolve, it is the responsibility of the contact centre management to understand their financial results (cost of providing services) and continuously improve it.
While overall financial requirements and results are indicated and discussed as either Capital or Operating Expenditure, a more granular, detailed and specific indicators are required to understand and measure the improvement in the efficiency of the contact centre. The most common indicators are Cost per Call and Cost per Minute.
Cost per Call
This is an overall indicator representing an average cost for each call (this indicator can be expanded to Cost per Contact to include all types of contacts including emails and chat). This indicator can be calculated based on historical data or for the current year. What is included in the cost varies from centre to centre depending on what items have been included in the Operating Expenditures (We will talk more about Operating vs. Capital Expenditure later in this article). In majority of cases, the costs include salaries (Agents, Supervisory, Management and support staff), technology (software licensing and maintenance) and telecommunications. Other organizations may include less evident costs such as benefits, Real Estate/rent and utilities to provide the total (and more complete) cost of delivering / receiving a contact.
Cost per Call provides a valuable piece of information as well as providing a reality check about the operation. As this indicator provides the average cost for each and every call, it brings the focus not only to how that money is spent and how to improve the service delivered (combination of AHT and service level), but also how many contacts are being made and if they can be reduced. Analyzing the numbers could also point to a less costly method or channel that can provide the same (or similar) level of service with the same customer satisfaction. As an example it is widely accepted that Self Serve contacts (automated) are less costly than a live contact and hence typical push to provide more and more automated services. (When doing such comparisons, one must consider the potential negative impact on customer satisfaction and eventually on customer loyalty).
Cost per Minute
As mentioned before, Cost per Call provides an average cost for each and every call or contact. This number can be broken down for different channels (if present) to provide a more accurate data, but what about different types of contacts within the same channel? For example one call might be a simple update of address while the next call has to do with obtaining a mortgage or car insurance! In these cases, calculating and presenting the average cost may not offer meaningful data as average handle time for each call will be greatly different. In these situations Cost per Minute would be a much better indicator as it provides a common base for comparison and operational improvement. By definition, Cost per Minute is not dependant on AHT and only provides data with regard to cost structure of the centre (people, technology and telecommunication) and the impact of the occupancy rate (the higher the rate, the lower the cost per minute).
Which one of these two indicators should be calculated, reported and used? The answer depends on the variety of the calls at the centre and the desired details and accuracy. If AHT is consistent across different call types (minimum variance), then Cost per Call can provide complete information while easier to calculate. On the other hand, for centres with a full range of call types (simple to complex) and call lengths (short to long) it is better to use Cost per Minute. (One can always calculate costs for each specific type of calls based on its AHT).
The issue of the Cost per Call vs. Cost per Minute becomes more important when dealing with outsourcers as it may become the main cost parameter in the contract. It has been said that Outsourcers typically prefer Cost per Call, as this framework allows them to concentrate their improvements on AHT, and as a result increase their profit margin. Cost per minute (along with an agreed Service Level) does not provide the same framework for outsourcers to improve on the profit margins by reducing the AHT. However a Cost per Minute model could encourage the unscrupulous outsourcers to increase Handle time to increase profit margins.
Operating vs. Capital Expenditures
Traditionally, in any organization, a business unit must handle two different set of expenses. The larger and infrequent items such as purchase of Real Estate, furniture, desktop computers and major software are treated differently both in terms of P&L (Profit and Loss) reporting and for taxation purposes. These expenses are considered and reported as Capital Expenditure. The ongoing and recurring expenses such as salary and benefits, utilities and smaller infrequent items are categorized and reported as Operating Expenses. What is the difference between the two? Well, the answer lies at how each of these is treated. By default, majority of the larger items are one time or perhaps infrequent expenses and are for physical items that have an expected life longer than a year (such as a desktop computer). In effect, even though an organization may have incurred the total cost at the beginning (incurring the cost should not be mistaken with payment options), the benefit from the item lasts much longer. For that reason, such costs are amortized or spread over the expected life of the item and only certain portion of the cost (depreciation) is included in the Profit and Loss statement.
Operating Expenditures, on the other hand are those expenses that occur on a regular basis (on-going) for the services (and products) that are consumed regularly (such as agents salary). These types of expenses do not have an expected life and are directly related to the operation of the business unit.
In simple term, Capital Expenditures, are the money that is invested in creating a business entity (be it a contact centre or a manufacturing unit), while Operating Expenditures are the cost of operating that entity day in and day out. The overall cost used in calculating the Cost per Call or Cost per Minute is usually based on the Operating Expenditures and does not include the Capital Expenditures, the exception to this treatment would be where outsourcing or a ‘carve out’ where assets would be purchased by the outsourcer.
In today’s call center environment there is less clarity between Capital and Operating Expenses due to the rise of cloud computing, SaaS and hosted solutions. All of these developments allow companies and call centers to forgo capital expenditures to secure and employ a vendor’s solution and instead pay a fixed monthly rate per user. Heretofore these costs would have been Capital purchases, but today become Operating Expenses.

Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
One last operational indicator, although not specifically financial, is the Full Time Equivalent or FTE for short. As discussed in previous issues, many contact centres hire part time employees to complement their full time work force. Although having part time employees provides flexibility in work force management, counting the number of agents directly as a head count does not provide an accurate picture (especially in terms of salary). For this reason, and for the purpose of planning and financial reporting, majority of centres use the working hours to convert the number of part-time staff into equivalent of a full-time employee (for example if two agents each work half the time, for the year, they would be considered as one Full Time Equivalent or FTE). In these cases, the operating budget is based on the total FTE for the year and the contact centre management can decide how and when to utilize the total budget. It should be noted that typically in a contact centre, staffing (salary, payroll expenses and benefits) can account for up to 75% of total operating expenses.
The Bottom Line
The overall operation of any business is dependant on its ability to successfully manage its limited financial resources. The above indicators are used to assist contact centre management to understand and improve the final financial results. It is important to understand the costs the center incurs and what choices and options the center and organization have in relation to reducing these costs. Poor service isn’t always less expensive than superior service. A best-in-class organization can provide excellent customer service while operating within reasonable and sustainable financial results.

Report- The Customer Experience & The Call Center

Like culture, all companies deliver a Customer Experience. Also like culture, it isn’t always what the company intended. It is often a poor customer experience.

Does your company deliver the promised customer experience? Do you have a document outlining what the Customer Experience is supposed to be?, No, Thats not surprising, few companies do. And all of us who don’t have a Customer Experience model in place are in good company. According to a recent Forresters’ report while 90% of executives said that the customer experience was very important or critical, only 11% consider themselves to be very disciplined in their approach to customer experience.
Let’s look at an interaction with a call center from the customers’ perspective



As you can see from the above illustration the customer expectations and emotions rise and fall as the call progresses. All of us who have listened, monitored or taken live calls know this to be true. What are the ‘pain points’ on the call we looked at earlier?
• Service Level – waiting too long to get the call answered,
• “Unexpectedly high call volume” – unexpected volume or poor forecasting/scheduling,
• Policies etc.

At all of the key points during the call the agent has an opportunity to support the brand messages and to meet the customer expectations or not. Of course it is far simple to suggest that the agent could have done x or y. The truth of the matter is that it is the company that makes the decisions that impact the service delivery.

The agent can really only work within the parameters the company sets out. It is the company that determines the grade of service that they want the call center to meet. It is the company through the center management that forecasts the calls and contact volumes and sets the schedules for the number of agents on shift. It is the company that establishes policies and procedures that the agents must adhere too.

Now let’s not place on the blame on the call center and its management solely. It is the marketing group that creates and sends the messages that create the customer expectations which leads the customer to place calls into the call center with these expectations.

So how can we ensure that your customers receive the experience we would like them to have? An experience that builds loyalty; An experience that supports repurchase; An experience that reduces customer churn and attrition.
Before starting to architect the Customer Experience, let’s start by defining it
The key elements of any Customer Experience related to the contact center has to include:

1. The ease of access – to information, to purchase, to inquire, to complain or to fix a problem,
2. The speed of access – Service level, hoops customers have to jump through – how many times do they have to enter their account number etc. time to return an email or resolve a trouble ticket?
3. The quality of interaction- Where they able to get done what they wanted too? Was it easy, was it efficient, logical?
Customer Experience is the experience that a customer has when interacting with a company. This includes how they chose to interact with us and how easy it is for them to complete the interaction.

IBM defines Customer Experience as “The designed interaction between a customer and your organization”. The key element of this definition is the design element. The message here is regardless what your customer experience is and regardless whether it is good or bad, it is what you have designed through your actions, processes and procedures.

Before starting to architect the Customer Experience, let’s start by defining it
The key elements of any Customer Experience related to the contact center has to include:

1. The ease of access – to information, to purchase, to inquire, to complain or to fix a problem,
2. The speed of access – Service level, hoops customers have to jump through – how many times do they have to enter their account number etc. time to return an email or resolve a trouble ticket?
3. The quality of interaction- Where they able to get done what they wanted too? Was it easy, was it efficient, logical?
Customer Experience is the experience that a customer has when interacting with a company. This includes how they chose to interact with us and how easy it is for them to complete the interaction.

IBM defines Customer Experience as “The designed interaction between a customer and your organization”. The key element of this definition is the design element. The message here is regardless what your customer experience is and regardless whether it is good or bad, it is what you have designed through your actions, processes and procedures.
With this definition in hand can now look at how we can design our desired customer experience.

To do this we need to start at the beginning. Few companies today are looking at the customer experience holistically. For those that do consider the question of Customer Experience, it is often only a marketing concept…how should our stores, marketing and advertising look and feel to support the brand.
The call centre is generally not connected organizationally to Marketing and most often resides under Operations or Sales. This distance between silos can mean that the Marketing group has little understanding of what takes place in the call center. This despite the fact that centers are the single most common communications channel an organization can have with its customers. Purdue University found that 92% of customers judge an organization based upon the interactions they have with a company’s call center.

So how can we as call center executives join the dots between the desired customer experience and customer satisfaction to deliver the result through our call centers? Like with any travel, once you have a destination in mind you can then develop a roadmap to get you to where you are going.
But we have a few challenges in developing a roadmap…For one thing we do not know where we are starting from.
We know that most companies have not defined and documented their customer experience. So how can we expect to know where we are at now and how we are doing?

The first step in our process is to assess and determine where we are now; we need to understand what the customer experience is today.

First, we need an inventory of the channels, methods and touch-points through which our customers interact with us: phone, email, chat, mail, in-store etc. Do all of the touch-points end in a common single CRM that tracks each ’touch’ the company has with their customers? What about marketing initiatives: email blasts, SMS, print media, daily specials, white mail, etc.
Second, we need to analyze the customer satisfaction metrics (CSAT) and reports we have in place for each of these channels. You are not alone if you don’t have metrics to report on all of these channels; – this is the first step you will need to complete! On what channels do you measure CSAT, and where is it not measured?

Let’s examine the channels where no CSAT measurement is taking place. Is this because a conscious decision has been made not to measure it? Have we determined that we can’t measure it? Has it been determined to be unimportant or has the idea of measuring CSAT on this channel not been considered? Remember that old management tenet, “you can manage what you can’t measure’.
With your CSAT data in-hand, ask yourself is the data comparable? Are you asking the same question for each channel or do you ask different or somewhat different questions? If you are asking about satisfaction with the company or brand on one survey and asking if they were satisfied with their last call center interaction or agent, you are asking two separate and distinct questions. Unless the questions are the same you can’t aggregate the results. So if you are not asking the same questions then you have your second take away.

With comparable data you can chart the CSAT across all communication channels. Look at the results and what do you see…If you are like the majority of organizations you see a much lower level of satisfaction than we would like to see… almost two thirds of 15 verticals surveyed had a customer experience average scores of 70% or less.

The CSAT score is the customers’ opinion of the service interaction quality for the interaction they have just completed. In the same way our internal quality assessment scores are our satisfaction with our agents being able to address all of the elements that we think should be important to both the customer and the company. In the vast majority of organizations these two assessments measure two distinct elements. They are not the same.

Sad or not the scores that our customers have given us are their opinions of the service we provide. This is the customer experience we have now. This is the result of the service model we have designed and put into place.

The last step in defining the current customer experience is to look at what messages we are providing to our customers and prospects. To gain an understanding of what these messages are look at the company Mission Statement and Company Values…are you speaking of ‘World Class Customer Service’ or ‘Committed to quality’ or satisfaction or customers are a priority etc.
Keep in mind that it has been said that the accuracy of a Mission Statement is inversely proportional to its length. That is to say that the longer the mission statement the less likely it is to be true, or realised to be true. It has also been said that “If the mission statement doesn’t fit on a T shirt, it’s too long.”

Next meet with the Marketing people and review their current marketing campaigns and messages…do the company mission/value/vision statement and the marketing messages match the customer experience we are delivering?

It is important that when examining the marketing and brand messages that we see the emotional aspect to most messages. People make decisions on emotion – then rationalize with intellect. What this means is how the messages make them feel has a great deal to do with how a customer will feel about a brand, a product or a service interaction. In call and contact centers we often focus narrowly on what can and can’t be said. Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This can be a two edged sword. If our advertising and marketing make them feel warm and fuzzy about our brand and products. This is good and will be remembered. Many centers employ scripts or provide little latitude to empower the agents to make decisions to satisfy customers. Customers are also likely to remember how angry, frustrated, stressed and unhappy interacting with the call center made them feel. In too many organizations the Marketing department and the call center are working in opposite directions even though the success of the company is their shared objective.



In the diagram above we can see the shift from the promise that Marketing makes to product delivery and the service supported by the call center. When considered in terms of how a customer perception is shaped the excitement or anticipation starts high and often degrades with the reality of delivery and after sales service.

Let’s look at a hypothetical organization with the following Mission Statement;
“To deliver World Class Customer Service to our Customers, by providing access to our products and services the way our customers want them, when they want them, while providing a positive, enjoyable and productive environment to our employees and delivering superior returns to our Shareholders”

From this Mission Statement we can see what the company values:
• World Class Customer Service,
• Unfettered access to products/services- based on time and based on channel,
• A productive, enjoyable and positive environment for staff,
• Superior returns for Shareholders

As we continue down the process we have set out a few minutes ago we would then meet with Marketing to discover the attributes of the Brand. The following is a reasonable set of attributes associated with our hypothetical brand;
Accessible,
Cares about Customers,
Daring,
Different,
Energy,
Fun,
Glamorous,
Stylish,
Trendy,
Youthful,

By looking again at the original emotional call flow we reviewed earlier we can now match the experience to the desired Brand attributes



With the ‘current state’ of our Customer Experience picture in hand, we can next look to the experience we wish to create.
Do the Mission/Vision/Value and Marketing messages support the Customer Experience we want to create?

What descriptions and phases would we use to define this experience?

What descriptions would our customers use to define this experience?

Now describe how we want a customer to feel following an interaction?

The answers to these questions become the starting point of aligning the contact center with the brand message.
We are now equipped with a number of building blocks that we will need to develop our customer experience roadmap.
Look at complaints. Map the processes required to support delivery of desire customer experiences. Identify policies and procedures that are in opposition to the identified customer experience descriptors? Identify all processes, policies and procedures that are not aligned with the desired Customer Experience and raise these with management for discussion, review and revision.

To summarize the steps in designing a Customer Experience Roadmap are as follows;
1. Know what the current experience is,
2. Know how you are measuring the experience,
3. Understand your policies, processes and any negative customer impacts,
4. Plan changes and tests,
5. Measure improvements/reductions as a result of tests,
6. Roll out positive changes and continue other tests,
Or displayed graphically



About The Taylor Reach Group, Inc.
The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. takes a ‘hands-on’ holistic approach to improving customer interaction, customer experience and call/contact center strategies. Our consulting services examine every aspect of the call/contact center interaction process. 150+ years of award winning contact center industry experience. Proven results, guaranteed ROI. 14,000+ agent positions globally employ TRG designed operational models.

For more information on our Customer Experience and Call Center consulting services pleaqse email info@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Terasen Gas announces new Call Center

Taylor Reach client Terasen Gas announces new Call Center

Terasen Gas has announced their new call center in Burnaby BC.

Taylor Reach executed a site selection project Terasen Gas and other projects including technology acquistion, and multi-channel strategy. Read the In-Sourcing Case Sudy here

The Customer Experience and the Call Center Part 3

In our call center consulting practice we often assist call centers understand and rationaize their Customer Experience strategy. This includes aligning the call center operational model with the desired Customer Experience.

In this third article in our Customer Experience (click to view Part 1 and Part 2 )and the Call Center series we examine how that alignment process can actually operate.



In the diagram above we can see the shift from the promise that Marketing makes to product delivery and the service supported by the call center. When considered in terms of how a customer perception is shaped the excitement or anticipation starts high and often degrades with the reality of delivery and after sales service.
Let’s look at a hypothetical organization with the following Mission Statement;
“To deliver World Class Customer Service to our Customers, by providing access to our products and services the way our customers want them, when they want them, while providing a positive, enjoyable and productive environment to our employees and delivering superior returns to our Shareholders”
From this Mission Statement we can see what the company values:
• World Class Customer Service,
• Unfettered access to products/services- based on time and based on channel,
• A productive, enjoyable and positive environment for staff,
• Superior returns for Shareholders
As we continue down the process we have set out a few minutes ago we would then meet with Marketing to discover the attributes of the Brand. The following is a reasonable set of attributes associated with our hypothetical brand;
Accessible,
Cares about Customers,
Daring,
Different,
Energy,
Fun,
Glamorous,
Stylish,
Trendy,
Youthful,

By looking again at the original emotional call flow we reviewed earlier we can now match the experience to the desired Brand attributes



With the ‘current state’ of our Customer Experience picture in hand, we can next look to the experience we wish to create.
Do the Mission/Vision/Value and Marketing messages support the Customer Experience we want to create?

What descriptions and phases would we use to define this experience?

What descriptions would our customers use to define this experience?

Now describe how we want a customer to feel following an interaction?

The answers to these questions become the starting point of aligning the contact center with the brand message.
We are now equipped with a number of building blocks that we will need to develop our customer experience roadmap.
Look at complaints. Map the processes required to support delivery of desire customer experiences. Identify policies and procedures that are in opposition to the identified customer experience descriptors? Identify all processes, policies and procedures that are not aligned with the desired Customer Experience and raise these with management for discussion, review and revision.

To summarize the steps in designing a Customer Experience Roadmap are as follows;
1. Know what the current experience is,
2. Know how you are measuring the experience,
3. Understand your policies, processes and any negative customer impacts,
4. Plan changes and tests,
5. Measure improvements/reductions as a result of tests,
6. Roll out positive changes and continue other tests,
Or displayed graphically



We would welcome your comments, suggestions or questions regarding this post, Please share

The Customer Experience and the Call Center Part 2

This is the second post on delivering the Customer Expereience through the call center. You can find the first installment here
Before starting to architect the Customer Experience, let’s start by defining it
The key elements of any Customer Experience related to the contact center has to include:
1. The ease of access – to information, to purchase, to inquire, to complain or to fix a problem,
2. The speed of access – Service level, hoops customers have to jump through – how many times do they have to enter their account number etc. time to return an email or resolve a trouble ticket?
3. The quality of interaction- Where they able to get done what they wanted too? Was it easy, was it efficient, logical?
Customer Experience is the experience that a customer has when interacting with a company. This includes how they chose to interact with us and how easy it is for them to complete the interaction.
IBM defines Customer Experience as “The designed interaction between a customer and your organization”. The key element of this definition is the design element. The message here is regardless what your customer experience is and regardless whether it is good or bad, it is what you have designed through your actions, processes and procedures.
With this definition in hand can now look at how we can design our desired customer experience.
To do this we need to start at the beginning. Few companies today are looking at the customer experience holistically. For those that do consider the question of Customer Experience, it is often only a marketing concept...how should our stores, marketing and advertising look and feel to support the brand.
The call centre is generally not connected organizationally to Marketing and most often resides under Operations or Sales. This distance between silos can mean that the Marketing group has little understanding of what takes place in the call center. This despite the fact that centers are the single most common communications channel an organization can have with its customers. Purdue University found that 92% of customers judge an organization based upon the interactions they have with a company’s call center.
So how can we as call center executives join the dots between the desired customer experience and customer satisfaction to deliver the result through our call centers? Like with any travel, once you have a destination in mind you can then develop a roadmap to get you to where you are going.
But we have a few challenges in developing a roadmap...For one thing we do not know where we are starting from.
We know that most companies have not defined and documented their customer experience. So how can we expect to know where we are at now and how we are doing?
The first step in our process is to assess and determine where we are now; we need to understand what the customer experience is today.
First, we need an inventory of the channels, methods and touch-points through which our customers interact with us: phone, email, chat, mail, in-store etc. Do all of the touch-points end in a common single CRM that tracks each ’touch’ the company has with their customers? What about marketing initiatives: email blasts, SMS, print media, daily specials, white mail, etc.
Second, we need to analyze the customer satisfaction metrics (CSAT) and reports we have in place for each of these channels. You are not alone if you don’t have metrics to report on all of these channels; - this is the first step you will need to complete! On what channels do you measure CSAT, and where is it not measured?
Let’s examine the channels where no CSAT measurement is taking place. Is this because a conscious decision has been made not to measure it? Have we determined that we can’t measure it? Has it been determined to be unimportant or has the idea of measuring CSAT on this channel not been considered? Remember that old management tenet, “you can manage what you can’t measure’.
With your CSAT data in-hand, ask yourself is the data comparable? Are you asking the same question for each channel or do you ask different or somewhat different questions? If you are asking about satisfaction with the company or brand on one survey and asking if they were satisfied with their last call center interaction or agent, you are asking two separate and distinct questions. Unless the questions are the same you can’t aggregate the results. So if you are not asking the same questions then you have your second take away.
With comparable data you can chart the CSAT across all communication channels. Look at the results and what do you see...If you are like the majority of organizations you see a much lower level of satisfaction than we would like to see... almost two thirds of 15 verticals surveyed had a customer experience average scores of 70% or less.
The CSAT score is the customers’ opinion of the service interaction quality for the interaction they have just completed. In the same way our internal quality assessment scores are our satisfaction with our agents being able to address all of the elements that we think should be important to both the customer and the company. In the vast majority of organizations these two assessments measure two distinct elements. They are not the same.
Sad or not the scores that our customers have given us are their opinions of the service we provide. This is the customer experience we have now. This is the result of the service model we have designed and put into place.
The last step in defining the current customer experience is to look at what messages we are providing to our customers and prospects. To gain an understanding of what these messages are look at the company Mission Statement and Company Values...are you speaking of ‘World Class Customer Service’ or ‘Committed to quality’ or satisfaction or customers are a priority etc.
Keep in mind that it has been said that the accuracy of a Mission Statement is inversely proportional to its length. That is to say that the longer the mission statement the less likely it is to be true, or realised to be true. It has also been said that “If the mission statement doesn't fit on a T shirt, it's too long.”
Next meet with the Marketing people and review their current marketing campaigns and messages...do the company mission/value/vision statement and the marketing messages match the customer experience we are delivering?
It is important that when examining the marketing and brand messages that we see the emotional aspect to most messages. People make decisions on emotion – then rationalize with intellect. What this means is how the messages make them feel has a great deal to do with how a customer will feel about a brand, a product or a service interaction. In call and contact centers we often focus narrowly on what can and can’t be said. Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
This can be a two edged sword. If our advertising and marketing make them feel warm and fuzzy about our brand and products. This is good and will be remembered. Many centers employ scripts or provide little latitude to empower the agents to make decisions to satisfy customers. Customers are also likely to remember how angry, frustrated, stressed and unhappy interacting with the call center made them feel. In too many organizations the Marketing department and the call center are working in opposite directions even though the success of the company is their shared objective.