Showing posts with label colin taylor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colin taylor. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2012
Call Center Zen - Everything is Connected
Call Center Zen- Everything is Connected
By Colin Taylor
We have all heard that when a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon rain forest it can cause an avalanche in the Swiss Alps. This story reflects a belief and understanding that everything is connected to everything else. This is certainly true in a contact center environment. In continuing to assess call and contact centers it constantly amazes me the level of inter-connectedness that exists. Each and every process, procedure, technology or methodology impacts not only on the area of its focus, but on numerous other processes and procedures operating in the contact center.
In this article we examine some off this inter-connectedness. When establishing a contact center hiring and recruiting are among the first activities you plan and map. Now as illustrated by the ‘Poll of the Month’ question most organizations still employ a direct approach to sourcing staff as apposed to employing an agency.
How are you to know how many staff to recruit? Most center managers tell you that they base this number on the volume of calls/interactions expected, the average handle time (AHT) and the grade of service (GOS) desired. All of these key elements are input into an Erlang calculation and voila, how many staff is needed.
While this is correct, it fails to examine a number of interconnected aspects of the center operation such as: what is your desired staff compliment or mix between Full Time, Part Time and temporary/casual, what are the hours of operation of the center, what level of staff turnover and Churnover do you expect, what is your forecast for year and have you included time for vacations, sick days, on-going training, what is your budget based on…is it headcount or FTE etc.
Each of these points and processes are interconnected and interrelated. You cannot identify the number of staff until you know what the hours of operation will be. You cannot determine the number of staff required to meet your hours of operation until you determine the mix of staff. Similarly creating a staff base that doesn’t provide for vacation and sick days (which agents will take) leaves you short staffed or over budget. A staff plan that doesn’t allow for on-going training (this is a very common problem in most centers today) ensures the staff do not develop skills. This then manifests itself as poor morale and higher turnover.
It is essential that all of these issues are addressed in concert as you plan and assess your staffing needs. Now lets say that having done all of this; you know your operating hours, you have determined your staff compliment, you have estimated turnover and Churnover, set GOS and ASA targets and have made allowances for all of this plus sick days and vacations in your rolling 18 month forecast. From this you can extrapolate the Full Time Equivalents (FTE’s) required to meet the GOS and ASA through your Erlang calculator. The resulting FTE or total hours required number can then be broken down across you staff compliment to determine how many staff you need to meet service standards and when or how this staff count changes throughout the year.
Recognize the interconnectedness, interrelationships and inter-dependencies of a contact center environment. If you act with these in mind you create a foundation for an effective contact center that is significantly ahead of where the majority of contact centers are today.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Call Center Truth Stranger than Fiction
Originally posted by Tom Vander Well in Call Center Humor.
The following conversation was reported to (the customer is) Not Always Right from a telecommunications tech support agent who was setting up a work order on May 20th, one day before the predicted return of Jesus, the rapture of the saints, and the consequential end of the world:
Me: “Now, sir, I have appointments open for the 21st. Would that work at all?”
Caller: “Well, yes, we should be around, unless we get Raptured. In that case, we might want to cancel it. Or, if we don’t, we might not want to cancel it. Not sure which one is the bigger problem.”
Me: “Sir, I do assure you we are well prepared for either eventuality–return of Christ or not. Now, barring Rapture, I have a 1 – 3 pm and 3 – 5 pm. Which would you’d prefer?”
Caller: “1 – 3 pm. If we don’t get Raptured, we want time for looting.”
Colin
Follow mw on Twitter @colinsataylor
The following conversation was reported to (the customer is) Not Always Right from a telecommunications tech support agent who was setting up a work order on May 20th, one day before the predicted return of Jesus, the rapture of the saints, and the consequential end of the world:
Me: “Now, sir, I have appointments open for the 21st. Would that work at all?”
Caller: “Well, yes, we should be around, unless we get Raptured. In that case, we might want to cancel it. Or, if we don’t, we might not want to cancel it. Not sure which one is the bigger problem.”
Me: “Sir, I do assure you we are well prepared for either eventuality–return of Christ or not. Now, barring Rapture, I have a 1 – 3 pm and 3 – 5 pm. Which would you’d prefer?”
Caller: “1 – 3 pm. If we don’t get Raptured, we want time for looting.”
Colin
Follow mw on Twitter @colinsataylor
How Does Your Call center Stack Up?- Want to Know?
Call center audits or assessments generally cost $30,000 to $50,000 or more.
Today the Taylor Reach Group has partnered with Customer Services Audit to deliver the first and only SaaS based audit services called Snapshotz. More than 500 companies across all verticals have deployed Snapshotz and now you can to. Snapshotz recently won a Kiwi High Tech Award- this is a good product and you should check it out.
Measure your call center across 8 sections; Corporate Objectives/Business Processes, Customer Relationship Management, Health & Safety and Staff Wellbeing, Contact Center Structure, Recruiting/Career Development/Remuneration, Training, Internal Communications and Operational Metrics.
The above 8 sections are broken down into 29 subsections and more than 600 datapoints in the form of questions like;
5.1.2 Is voice quality tested prior to employment for agents?
5.1.3 Is computer literacy tested prior to employment?
5.1.4 Are expected recruitment standards defined and documented?
5.1.6 Are recruitment process standards defined and documented?
5.1.5 Who conducts recruitment?
5.1.7 What is the average tenure in months within the center?
5.1.8 Is the average tenure considered the industry norm?
5.1.9 What is the turnover rate for new recruits in the last year?
5.1.10 Does the center conduct profiling of agents prior to recruitment?
5.1.11 Does the center conduct profiling of agents to understand what is the current and optimal profile?
5.1.12 If you answered ‘yes’ to 5.1.11, how often is this conducted?
5.2.1 Is there a coaching and mentoring system in place for new recruits?
5.2.2 Does an organisational career path exist for agents?
5.2.3 Are senior and frontline management staff given coaching and mentoring training?
5.2.4 Is the center promoted as a starting base for internal recruitment into other areas of the organization?
5.2.5 How often are performance appraisals conducted for frontline management staff?
5.2.6 How often are performance appraisals conducted for agents?
5.2.7 Are there specific key performance indicators (i.e. KPI’s) for agents?
5.2.8 Talk time – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.9 Wrap time – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.10 Adherence to schedule – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.11 Number of calls / contacts handled is this an Agent KPI
5.2.12 Attendance – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.13 Competence in use of systems – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.14 Sales achieved – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.15 Customer complaints against agents – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.16 Product knowledge – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.17 Initiative – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.18 Additional on the job skills acquired – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.19 Telephone skills – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.20 Teamwork – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.21 Attitude – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.22 Contribution to development of business processes and procedures – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.23 List any other KPI measures that have not been listed in questions 5.2.8 – 5.2.22
5.2.24 Are there specific key performance indicators for team leaders?
5.2.25 Coaching skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.26 Mentoring skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.27 Reporting skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.28 Agent turnover – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.29 Sales targets – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.30 Customer complaint resolution – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.31 Service level maintenance / breaches – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.32 Number of training hours / programmes delivered for the company / new recruits – Is this a team leader KPI? (key performance indicator)
5.2.33 Product knowledge – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.34 Initiative – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.35 Ability to delegate – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.36 Contribution to development of business processes and procedures – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.37 Involve team in decision making – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.38 List any other KPI measures used that have not been listed above 5.2.25 – 5.2.37
5.2.39 Is there currently a need in the business to track employee satisfaction?
5.2.40 If employee satisfaction is being tracked who conducts this?
5.2.41 Is contractor satisfaction being tracked?
5.2.42 How is contractor satisfaction tracked?
5.3.1 What is the average wage (Use local currency) for an agent per annum?
5.3.2 What is the highest wage paid per annum to an agent without the incentive component?
5.3.3 What is the average incentive paid per annum to an agent
5.3.4 What is the full or ‘on board’ cost for an agent (e.g. wages, recruitment, training, accident compensation insurance and other benefits)?
5.3.5 Excluding statutory holidays how much time away (annual leave) from work is granted? Please state the number of days.
Today, you can purchase this award winning solution for only $4,500 you can assess your center, allocate data input and assign work activities to your team. http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/snapshotz
By acting today you can also enter to win (some conditions apply) a complimentary Snapshotz audit http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/snapshotz/win-your-snapshotz-online-by-completing-the-form-below
If you have any questions just drop me a note or give me a call at 416-276-9068.
Today the Taylor Reach Group has partnered with Customer Services Audit to deliver the first and only SaaS based audit services called Snapshotz. More than 500 companies across all verticals have deployed Snapshotz and now you can to. Snapshotz recently won a Kiwi High Tech Award- this is a good product and you should check it out.
Measure your call center across 8 sections; Corporate Objectives/Business Processes, Customer Relationship Management, Health & Safety and Staff Wellbeing, Contact Center Structure, Recruiting/Career Development/Remuneration, Training, Internal Communications and Operational Metrics.
The above 8 sections are broken down into 29 subsections and more than 600 datapoints in the form of questions like;
5.1.2 Is voice quality tested prior to employment for agents?
5.1.3 Is computer literacy tested prior to employment?
5.1.4 Are expected recruitment standards defined and documented?
5.1.6 Are recruitment process standards defined and documented?
5.1.5 Who conducts recruitment?
5.1.7 What is the average tenure in months within the center?
5.1.8 Is the average tenure considered the industry norm?
5.1.9 What is the turnover rate for new recruits in the last year?
5.1.10 Does the center conduct profiling of agents prior to recruitment?
5.1.11 Does the center conduct profiling of agents to understand what is the current and optimal profile?
5.1.12 If you answered ‘yes’ to 5.1.11, how often is this conducted?
5.2.1 Is there a coaching and mentoring system in place for new recruits?
5.2.2 Does an organisational career path exist for agents?
5.2.3 Are senior and frontline management staff given coaching and mentoring training?
5.2.4 Is the center promoted as a starting base for internal recruitment into other areas of the organization?
5.2.5 How often are performance appraisals conducted for frontline management staff?
5.2.6 How often are performance appraisals conducted for agents?
5.2.7 Are there specific key performance indicators (i.e. KPI’s) for agents?
5.2.8 Talk time – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.9 Wrap time – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.10 Adherence to schedule – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.11 Number of calls / contacts handled is this an Agent KPI
5.2.12 Attendance – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.13 Competence in use of systems – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.14 Sales achieved – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.15 Customer complaints against agents – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.16 Product knowledge – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.17 Initiative – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.18 Additional on the job skills acquired – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.19 Telephone skills – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.20 Teamwork – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.21 Attitude – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.22 Contribution to development of business processes and procedures – Is this an agent KPI?
5.2.23 List any other KPI measures that have not been listed in questions 5.2.8 – 5.2.22
5.2.24 Are there specific key performance indicators for team leaders?
5.2.25 Coaching skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.26 Mentoring skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.27 Reporting skills – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.28 Agent turnover – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.29 Sales targets – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.30 Customer complaint resolution – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.31 Service level maintenance / breaches – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.32 Number of training hours / programmes delivered for the company / new recruits – Is this a team leader KPI? (key performance indicator)
5.2.33 Product knowledge – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.34 Initiative – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.35 Ability to delegate – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.36 Contribution to development of business processes and procedures – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.37 Involve team in decision making – Is this a team leader KPI?
5.2.38 List any other KPI measures used that have not been listed above 5.2.25 – 5.2.37
5.2.39 Is there currently a need in the business to track employee satisfaction?
5.2.40 If employee satisfaction is being tracked who conducts this?
5.2.41 Is contractor satisfaction being tracked?
5.2.42 How is contractor satisfaction tracked?
5.3.1 What is the average wage (Use local currency) for an agent per annum?
5.3.2 What is the highest wage paid per annum to an agent without the incentive component?
5.3.3 What is the average incentive paid per annum to an agent
5.3.4 What is the full or ‘on board’ cost for an agent (e.g. wages, recruitment, training, accident compensation insurance and other benefits)?
5.3.5 Excluding statutory holidays how much time away (annual leave) from work is granted? Please state the number of days.
Today, you can purchase this award winning solution for only $4,500 you can assess your center, allocate data input and assign work activities to your team. http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/snapshotz
By acting today you can also enter to win (some conditions apply) a complimentary Snapshotz audit http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/snapshotz/win-your-snapshotz-online-by-completing-the-form-below
If you have any questions just drop me a note or give me a call at 416-276-9068.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, September 20, 2010
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.
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.
The Customer Experience and the Call Center
The Customer Experience and the Call Center Part 1
By Colin Taylor
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 call center deliver the promised Customer Experience? Does your company 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.
In our next post we will examine how we can define our desired customer experience.
By Colin Taylor
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 call center deliver the promised Customer Experience? Does your company 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.
In our next post we will examine how we can define our desired customer experience.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Holy Twitterfeed Batman- How do we manage Social Media in our Call Center?
Social media exposure doesn’t equal success. I know this may sound like heresy to some, but the facts speak for themselves. One of the most successful ads in recent history; Old Spices’ “The Man, Your Man could Smell Like” has racked up impressive social media numbers 94 million YouTube views. 630,000 fans on Facebook and an estimated 1 billion aggregate impressions in one week according to Fast Company. However sales of the product the ad promotes is actually down 7% according to SymphonyIRI . So as Carla Peller said in the most famous ad of its time “Where’s the Beef”? It is interesting to note that while the campaign was very popular “Where’s the Beef” didn’t equate to more sales for Wendy’s either.
So we have a dichotomy, popularity doesn’t equal success in either the current social media age any better than it did thirty-five years ago in the pre-social (anti-social?) media age. The inverse is also similarly true; being unpopular doesn’t mean you will fail. Often there is a small cadre of unhappy folks who can and frequently do spend all their time blogging, tweeting and posting about the object of their hearts distain (can you say wireless or cable providers?) The simple mass of negative POV doesn’t in and of itself doesn’t cause a company to fail. Observers will quickly note that it is the same individuals making the disparaging remarks. There is likely some version of the Pareto principle at work here, where 80% or some other similar number of total complaints originates with 20% of customers or users.
Being popular or liked isn’t the same as being trusted or respected. This difference will drive the next generation of social media overlaying trust and respect on top being known, liked or popular. It will be interesting to see the results of the Fast Company Influence Project which is underway now to see who the most influential person is on the Internet. This project is still underway but to date there are almost 20,000 people registered for the project. I am curious to see if this really does inform us as to who is influential or if it simply becomes a popularity contest.
Regardless of whether we are talking about influence, trust or popularity there is a lot of content flowing by us in social media channels and some of it will mention our company name and our products and services. There will be kudos and many more complaints and critiques.
So what does this mean to the operator of a call or contact center? At minimum it may be time to take your head out of the sand...social media is real and your customers are using it. Where your choices are to ignore what they are saying or trying to figure out how to monitor it, there really isn’t a choice. We must listen. The first task in integrating social media into your contact center is to define your role and mission. We have to concede that there is no way we can look, listen to or respond to all social media channels for mentions of our companies, there are simply too many channels and too much content. Sturgeons Law which says that “90% of everything is crap” (or crud, if you prefer) is in play here. Much of what passes for content is self promotion.
Given the volume of content and the inability to respond to all of it an organization must limit themselves to what they can do consistently. The most common model is to establish a ‘listening post’ to ‘listen’ to the social media dialogue. This involves searching on Facebook, Twitter and Google for references to you company and products and on-going monitoring for future references. Some companies endeavour to try to respond to each individual post, tweet or comment. While this is a noble ambition it is often doomed by the speed of growth of social media channels and users and the absence of tools. We recommend that in place of 100% individual response to each comment or post you strive to ensure that you have visibility to those who have complained...follow them on Twitter, add them to a customer list and send list messages with the call center toll free number and/or send an direct response asking them to phone the call center, post a response to the question or comment if it is found in forum, LinkedIn or similar, send them a friend request and write on their wall on Facebook. In addition by developing tweets, posts and links that address frequent customer service questions and that include the call center toll free number the time to complete each response can be significantly reduced.
Simply by doing the above you will gain so valuable knowledge regarding the number of negative statements that are distributed through social media, they types and nature of the complaints, insight into your own 80/20 of complainants, and you will have established a presence within the social media milieu.
So we have a dichotomy, popularity doesn’t equal success in either the current social media age any better than it did thirty-five years ago in the pre-social (anti-social?) media age. The inverse is also similarly true; being unpopular doesn’t mean you will fail. Often there is a small cadre of unhappy folks who can and frequently do spend all their time blogging, tweeting and posting about the object of their hearts distain (can you say wireless or cable providers?) The simple mass of negative POV doesn’t in and of itself doesn’t cause a company to fail. Observers will quickly note that it is the same individuals making the disparaging remarks. There is likely some version of the Pareto principle at work here, where 80% or some other similar number of total complaints originates with 20% of customers or users.
Being popular or liked isn’t the same as being trusted or respected. This difference will drive the next generation of social media overlaying trust and respect on top being known, liked or popular. It will be interesting to see the results of the Fast Company Influence Project which is underway now to see who the most influential person is on the Internet. This project is still underway but to date there are almost 20,000 people registered for the project. I am curious to see if this really does inform us as to who is influential or if it simply becomes a popularity contest.
Regardless of whether we are talking about influence, trust or popularity there is a lot of content flowing by us in social media channels and some of it will mention our company name and our products and services. There will be kudos and many more complaints and critiques.
So what does this mean to the operator of a call or contact center? At minimum it may be time to take your head out of the sand...social media is real and your customers are using it. Where your choices are to ignore what they are saying or trying to figure out how to monitor it, there really isn’t a choice. We must listen. The first task in integrating social media into your contact center is to define your role and mission. We have to concede that there is no way we can look, listen to or respond to all social media channels for mentions of our companies, there are simply too many channels and too much content. Sturgeons Law which says that “90% of everything is crap” (or crud, if you prefer) is in play here. Much of what passes for content is self promotion.
Given the volume of content and the inability to respond to all of it an organization must limit themselves to what they can do consistently. The most common model is to establish a ‘listening post’ to ‘listen’ to the social media dialogue. This involves searching on Facebook, Twitter and Google for references to you company and products and on-going monitoring for future references. Some companies endeavour to try to respond to each individual post, tweet or comment. While this is a noble ambition it is often doomed by the speed of growth of social media channels and users and the absence of tools. We recommend that in place of 100% individual response to each comment or post you strive to ensure that you have visibility to those who have complained...follow them on Twitter, add them to a customer list and send list messages with the call center toll free number and/or send an direct response asking them to phone the call center, post a response to the question or comment if it is found in forum, LinkedIn or similar, send them a friend request and write on their wall on Facebook. In addition by developing tweets, posts and links that address frequent customer service questions and that include the call center toll free number the time to complete each response can be significantly reduced.
Simply by doing the above you will gain so valuable knowledge regarding the number of negative statements that are distributed through social media, they types and nature of the complaints, insight into your own 80/20 of complainants, and you will have established a presence within the social media milieu.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
First 30 days for new Call Center Manager
As a call center consultant when I meet or speak to somone who has just been given the job of Call Center Manager, my response is always the same, "Congratulations or condolenses on your promotion, whichever you feel is more appropriate". Seriously, managing a call center can be one of the hardest jobs in the world.
So what can the new manager do in the first month to dramatically improve their chances for success? In this post we examine the critical steps in brief.
Many centers were not designed, but rather evolved over time without a masterplan or a strategy. Often these same centers have not applied rigor to the process of staff selection nor staff promotion. The result can be a center where the single biggest asset and indicator of operational success, the ability to manage, being absent. This can make the job of the manager very difficult indeed.
So job one is to assess your supervisory and leadership staff compare their skills and capabilities and contrast these with the job functions and activities. Once you have completed the assessment and know which or your line staff can complete their duties, you can look at the actual operation of the center.
Once you have completed the above you can then begin to examine the operations. This is done by examining the 'thousand moving parts' of any call or contact center and 'bucketing' these elements under:
People.- Recruiting, hiring, career path, quality, rewards & Recognition
Process- Map all processes in the center as well as those that begin or end elsewhere
Technology- Assess the capabilities of the technology to optimize processes- are there better technology fits
Methodology- what you measure, KPI's etc as well as what you do with them.
With your results in hand ask yourself-Are our proceses causing us to fail and Is the call center aligned to support our corporate objectives. The answers to these questions will help you to focus your attention over the next weeks and months.
If you complete the above exercises you will be well equipped to manage you center moving forward.
So what can the new manager do in the first month to dramatically improve their chances for success? In this post we examine the critical steps in brief.
Many centers were not designed, but rather evolved over time without a masterplan or a strategy. Often these same centers have not applied rigor to the process of staff selection nor staff promotion. The result can be a center where the single biggest asset and indicator of operational success, the ability to manage, being absent. This can make the job of the manager very difficult indeed.
So job one is to assess your supervisory and leadership staff compare their skills and capabilities and contrast these with the job functions and activities. Once you have completed the assessment and know which or your line staff can complete their duties, you can look at the actual operation of the center.
Once you have completed the above you can then begin to examine the operations. This is done by examining the 'thousand moving parts' of any call or contact center and 'bucketing' these elements under:
People.- Recruiting, hiring, career path, quality, rewards & Recognition
Process- Map all processes in the center as well as those that begin or end elsewhere
Technology- Assess the capabilities of the technology to optimize processes- are there better technology fits
Methodology- what you measure, KPI's etc as well as what you do with them.
With your results in hand ask yourself-Are our proceses causing us to fail and Is the call center aligned to support our corporate objectives. The answers to these questions will help you to focus your attention over the next weeks and months.
If you complete the above exercises you will be well equipped to manage you center moving forward.
Monday, July 26, 2010
New Center Manager - toughest job there is
Congratulations or condolenses on your promotion, whichever you feel is more appropriate. Seriously managing a call center can be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Many centers were not designed, but rather evolved over time without a masterplan or a strategy. Often these same centers have not applied rigor to the process of staff selection nor staff promotion. The result can be a center where the single biggest asset and indicator of operational success, the ability to manage, being absent. This can make the job of the manager very difficult indeed.
So job one is to assess your supervisory and leadership staff compare their skills and capabilities and contrast these with the job functions and activities. Once you have completed the assessment and know which or your line staff can complete their duties, you can look at the actual operation of the center.
So job one is to assess your supervisory and leadership staff compare their skills and capabilities and contrast these with the job functions and activities. Once you have completed the assessment and know which or your line staff can complete their duties, you can look at the actual operation of the center.
Monday, July 19, 2010
What is Poor Service Costing your Call Center?
Anyone that operates as a call center consulting firm has heard this question before: what is the cost of poor service to my organization? According to recent research the answer may be $243. Is one call, email or chat in your center worth $243? That’s the cost that a Greenfield/Ovum study found in a 16 country survey completed last December. $243 is the average value of a lost relationship based upon the 8,800 consumers surveyed. Where do these lost relationships go you might ask? According to the survey 63% of relationships are lost to competitors while 37% are abandoned completely.
We know inherently that there is a cost to poor service, but it has been difficult to pin down. Of course this is a survey and is still not specific enough to each of our businesses or companies, but it is yet another data point. To get a sense of how appropriate this figure is to your organization, look at this figure ($243) and compare it to your own estimate of Lifetime Value (the amount of money a customer is expected to spend with your company over his/her life), if your Lifetime Value is higher than $243, then the $243 figure may be on the low side. Regardless of your actual cost and whether or not you can pin it down to the penny, it is a significant figure.
You as a call center operator can influence this cost. In fact you can look at the call center’s role as protecting hundreds of thousands or even millions of these $243 relationships. The call center is the front line. This is where the rubber meets the road. Customers call and email and chat and write letters because they want and or need your help. On each and every contact your agents are the company to the customers. These agents are the individuals who are guarding the bank $243 at a time. Are you treating each call or contact with center as if it could be worth $243 to the company?
Probably not, few organizations are. Call centers are designed to efficiently manage a number of call and contact types that are recurring and similar. When handling these types of contacts the center generally does well and meets the customers’ expectations. For many center the problems do not lie with the 95% of calls or contacts that reflect their common contact types, but is with the 5% that are infrequent, unusual or complex. We know customers can be fickle and we know that even if the `customer isn`t always right, they are always the customer`. We cannot please 100% of any population. We inherently know this but if the majority of our customer churn occurs in 5% of our contacts then the price we need to attach to these calls/contacts maybe far higher than the $243 price tag. While I do not have empirical data to support this point of view I do have 30 plus years experience in operating and managing contact centers.
The key to addressing this 5% problem is to fully understand the problem or situation or in the absence of experience with any particular problem to have the processes in place to ensure that these inquiries are addressed rapidly, completely and communicated to the customer. These processes include escalation and root cause analysis. By ensuring that a defined escalation process is in place the company gains an opportunity to listen to the customer, confirm that their situation is not simply another retelling of an existing call type told from a different perspective and to probe to fully understand the situation. Once the situation or problem is completely understood a solution can be sought. This solution often is found through a detailed root cause analysis to drill down through the customer’s experience of the product or service to identify the underlying issue(s) that have created or allowed this situation to be created.
Of course poor service costs companies millions of dollars annually, by ensuring that your center has ‘bullet-proof’ escalation processes and employs root cause analysis you can go a long way to protect your customer relationships and succeed on those $243 calls.
We know inherently that there is a cost to poor service, but it has been difficult to pin down. Of course this is a survey and is still not specific enough to each of our businesses or companies, but it is yet another data point. To get a sense of how appropriate this figure is to your organization, look at this figure ($243) and compare it to your own estimate of Lifetime Value (the amount of money a customer is expected to spend with your company over his/her life), if your Lifetime Value is higher than $243, then the $243 figure may be on the low side. Regardless of your actual cost and whether or not you can pin it down to the penny, it is a significant figure.
You as a call center operator can influence this cost. In fact you can look at the call center’s role as protecting hundreds of thousands or even millions of these $243 relationships. The call center is the front line. This is where the rubber meets the road. Customers call and email and chat and write letters because they want and or need your help. On each and every contact your agents are the company to the customers. These agents are the individuals who are guarding the bank $243 at a time. Are you treating each call or contact with center as if it could be worth $243 to the company?
Probably not, few organizations are. Call centers are designed to efficiently manage a number of call and contact types that are recurring and similar. When handling these types of contacts the center generally does well and meets the customers’ expectations. For many center the problems do not lie with the 95% of calls or contacts that reflect their common contact types, but is with the 5% that are infrequent, unusual or complex. We know customers can be fickle and we know that even if the `customer isn`t always right, they are always the customer`. We cannot please 100% of any population. We inherently know this but if the majority of our customer churn occurs in 5% of our contacts then the price we need to attach to these calls/contacts maybe far higher than the $243 price tag. While I do not have empirical data to support this point of view I do have 30 plus years experience in operating and managing contact centers.
The key to addressing this 5% problem is to fully understand the problem or situation or in the absence of experience with any particular problem to have the processes in place to ensure that these inquiries are addressed rapidly, completely and communicated to the customer. These processes include escalation and root cause analysis. By ensuring that a defined escalation process is in place the company gains an opportunity to listen to the customer, confirm that their situation is not simply another retelling of an existing call type told from a different perspective and to probe to fully understand the situation. Once the situation or problem is completely understood a solution can be sought. This solution often is found through a detailed root cause analysis to drill down through the customer’s experience of the product or service to identify the underlying issue(s) that have created or allowed this situation to be created.
Of course poor service costs companies millions of dollars annually, by ensuring that your center has ‘bullet-proof’ escalation processes and employs root cause analysis you can go a long way to protect your customer relationships and succeed on those $243 calls.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Measuring FCR in your Call Center
FCR is a popular topic we see on our call center consulting engagements.
Yesterday’s post dealt with the cost of ineffective call or contact resolution, citing an 80% First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate will add 25% to your average cost per contact and the importance of budgeting accurately to reflect the actual costs. In today’s post I wanted to examine a number of ways that FCR is measured in call centers and risks, benefits and various ‘gremlins’ that can influence the accuracy of your FCR statistics and present some ideas to help address or mitigate these issues.
Increasingly pundits and call center consultants like ourselves are promoting the use of FCR as the most valuable metrics for call center operations. It is difficult to argue against FCR as the perfect measure. On the surface it looks easy. We know customers and prospects are calling us to do something (pay a bill, order a product, get technical help etc.). Studies have consistently shown that when people get what they want, they are happier than when they do not.
For the time being let’s put aside the fact that successfully resolving an inquiry may not give the customer what they want: I want a refund says the customer and we quote David Spade in those old Capital One TV ads and say ‘No’. But FCR should be measuring whether the contact; call, inquiry was resolved, not whether the customer liked the resolution.
It can be challenging to measure FCR in a contact center environment. If you ask ten people how they do it you will hear a number of different responses. Some of the measurement approaches we have heard of include:
• Telephone Call Detail based – If the customer calls back within ‘X’ hours/days (48 hours, 72 hours 1 week), so the theory goes then we did not resolve the customers issue.
• IVR Survey based – What could be better than offering customers the ability to tell us how we did by offering them a post call survey.
• Agent based – The agent asks the customer if they have resolved the customers issue and this is then entered into the CRM or similar system.
Each of these approaches has benefits and potential risks or shortcomings. For example the Telephone Call Detail approach has the benefit of presenting a black and white picture of FCR. Once you have accepted the time window associated and accept the premise that the customer could have no other reason for calling again then the results have a good level of consistency.
Of course there may be reasons for the customer to call back: they ordered the wrong size, provided the wrong ship to address, received a new bill in the mail, have a second account with different issues etc. In the absence of robust analytics to provide a high level of data interrogation most centers will end up with a level of ‘false negatives’. That is to say that they will identify calls as not resolved when in fact the subsequent contact could be unrelated. This will mean a lower FCR score than they may actually be the case.
In contrast the Agent based approach of asking the customer if their inquiry was resolved before ending the original call, can also result in “false positives’. All of us who have worked as agents or with agents knows that there is a different perspective when speaking with a customer versus listening to the call or being the customer. The agents may ask the customer the question “Have I fully resolved your Inquiry” or something similar or they may not. The agent may simply check the box thinking that they asked the question or because they provided the appropriate response from the knowledgebase, so it must be resolved, right? Of course if the customer sounds unhappy or rushed the agent may choose to answer on the customers behalf etc. All of these scenarios will result in ‘false positives’ that is to say reporting that will indicate a higher FCR rate than likely exists.
One of the most prevalent solutions these days is the IVR survey, which in most cases 3 to 5 questions dealing with the call, as well as with overall satisfaction or net promoter etc. On the surface it appears to be a valid approach. What could be better than asking the customer? But depending on how it is deployed: by the agent seeking consent or before the agent answers the call by the IVR, you can have significant problems.
First as we looked at above the agents will not always offer the survey…in short they will or could play a triage role in limiting who gets into the IVR. Second if the caller agrees to participate before the call is directed to an agent, they may change their mind based on what happens with the call. Consumers and customers will ‘self-select’ whether or not to participate in any survey. If they believe it will help them they often participate, if there is little perceived value then they often will not participate. In consulting projects we have seen customers who ‘believe’ that their problem was resolved and are satisfied with the resolution they participate at a far lower rate than those who feel it was not resolved or who did not like the resolution. This illustration of ‘vested self interest’ can skew the results and reflect a lower FCR than actually exists.
Regardless of which of the above solutions is employed there are some other relevant issues that will influence the FCR reported. For example the customer believes or is promised that they will receive a credit, but that doesn’t appear on their next bill. In this case the customer and even the agent may believe the original contact was fully resolved, but it wasn’t. The same will be true if the product doesn’t arrive when expected (consumers hear 4 to 6 weeks and will expect it in exactly 4 weeks). The service isn’t restored when expected (told it would be back by 5 pm and at 5:01 they will call again); or the tech support routine they are told to run, doesn’t solve the problem. These are all examples of the customer not receiving what they expected, when they expected it. Of course the customers also contribute to FCR failures by not executing what they were to do (not following instructions) or providing inaccurate information of the original call (wrong size, incorrect address, an over limit credit card etc.) which will require a subsequent call.
As you can see effectively managing FCR is not easy and whatever approach you choose to employ, you will need to expect that it will take time for you to work out all of the exceptions, bugs and kinks. Remember that at the end of the day even if your model drives false positive or false negatives if you employ it consistently you will be able to chart improvement and declines period over period.
Let me know if you would like more information on this topic please email me directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com or visit our website at http://thetaylorreachgroup.com as we have a number of resources which may assist you in the process of implementing effective FCR measurement and reporting in your call center.
Yesterday’s post dealt with the cost of ineffective call or contact resolution, citing an 80% First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate will add 25% to your average cost per contact and the importance of budgeting accurately to reflect the actual costs. In today’s post I wanted to examine a number of ways that FCR is measured in call centers and risks, benefits and various ‘gremlins’ that can influence the accuracy of your FCR statistics and present some ideas to help address or mitigate these issues.
Increasingly pundits and call center consultants like ourselves are promoting the use of FCR as the most valuable metrics for call center operations. It is difficult to argue against FCR as the perfect measure. On the surface it looks easy. We know customers and prospects are calling us to do something (pay a bill, order a product, get technical help etc.). Studies have consistently shown that when people get what they want, they are happier than when they do not.
For the time being let’s put aside the fact that successfully resolving an inquiry may not give the customer what they want: I want a refund says the customer and we quote David Spade in those old Capital One TV ads and say ‘No’. But FCR should be measuring whether the contact; call, inquiry was resolved, not whether the customer liked the resolution.
It can be challenging to measure FCR in a contact center environment. If you ask ten people how they do it you will hear a number of different responses. Some of the measurement approaches we have heard of include:
• Telephone Call Detail based – If the customer calls back within ‘X’ hours/days (48 hours, 72 hours 1 week), so the theory goes then we did not resolve the customers issue.
• IVR Survey based – What could be better than offering customers the ability to tell us how we did by offering them a post call survey.
• Agent based – The agent asks the customer if they have resolved the customers issue and this is then entered into the CRM or similar system.
Each of these approaches has benefits and potential risks or shortcomings. For example the Telephone Call Detail approach has the benefit of presenting a black and white picture of FCR. Once you have accepted the time window associated and accept the premise that the customer could have no other reason for calling again then the results have a good level of consistency.
Of course there may be reasons for the customer to call back: they ordered the wrong size, provided the wrong ship to address, received a new bill in the mail, have a second account with different issues etc. In the absence of robust analytics to provide a high level of data interrogation most centers will end up with a level of ‘false negatives’. That is to say that they will identify calls as not resolved when in fact the subsequent contact could be unrelated. This will mean a lower FCR score than they may actually be the case.
In contrast the Agent based approach of asking the customer if their inquiry was resolved before ending the original call, can also result in “false positives’. All of us who have worked as agents or with agents knows that there is a different perspective when speaking with a customer versus listening to the call or being the customer. The agents may ask the customer the question “Have I fully resolved your Inquiry” or something similar or they may not. The agent may simply check the box thinking that they asked the question or because they provided the appropriate response from the knowledgebase, so it must be resolved, right? Of course if the customer sounds unhappy or rushed the agent may choose to answer on the customers behalf etc. All of these scenarios will result in ‘false positives’ that is to say reporting that will indicate a higher FCR rate than likely exists.
One of the most prevalent solutions these days is the IVR survey, which in most cases 3 to 5 questions dealing with the call, as well as with overall satisfaction or net promoter etc. On the surface it appears to be a valid approach. What could be better than asking the customer? But depending on how it is deployed: by the agent seeking consent or before the agent answers the call by the IVR, you can have significant problems.
First as we looked at above the agents will not always offer the survey…in short they will or could play a triage role in limiting who gets into the IVR. Second if the caller agrees to participate before the call is directed to an agent, they may change their mind based on what happens with the call. Consumers and customers will ‘self-select’ whether or not to participate in any survey. If they believe it will help them they often participate, if there is little perceived value then they often will not participate. In consulting projects we have seen customers who ‘believe’ that their problem was resolved and are satisfied with the resolution they participate at a far lower rate than those who feel it was not resolved or who did not like the resolution. This illustration of ‘vested self interest’ can skew the results and reflect a lower FCR than actually exists.
Regardless of which of the above solutions is employed there are some other relevant issues that will influence the FCR reported. For example the customer believes or is promised that they will receive a credit, but that doesn’t appear on their next bill. In this case the customer and even the agent may believe the original contact was fully resolved, but it wasn’t. The same will be true if the product doesn’t arrive when expected (consumers hear 4 to 6 weeks and will expect it in exactly 4 weeks). The service isn’t restored when expected (told it would be back by 5 pm and at 5:01 they will call again); or the tech support routine they are told to run, doesn’t solve the problem. These are all examples of the customer not receiving what they expected, when they expected it. Of course the customers also contribute to FCR failures by not executing what they were to do (not following instructions) or providing inaccurate information of the original call (wrong size, incorrect address, an over limit credit card etc.) which will require a subsequent call.
As you can see effectively managing FCR is not easy and whatever approach you choose to employ, you will need to expect that it will take time for you to work out all of the exceptions, bugs and kinks. Remember that at the end of the day even if your model drives false positive or false negatives if you employ it consistently you will be able to chart improvement and declines period over period.
Let me know if you would like more information on this topic please email me directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com or visit our website at http://thetaylorreachgroup.com as we have a number of resources which may assist you in the process of implementing effective FCR measurement and reporting in your call center.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Calculating the Cost of FCR
As a Call Center Consulting firm we have access to numerous studies and interesting research articles. A recent study by the CFI Group suggested that one in five customers come away from a contact centre interaction with unresolved issues. This would suggest to me that the issues in question were not resolved and the First Contact Resolution (FCR) can be no higher than 80%. This will lead to additional contacts and additional cost to the call center operator. But what will this cost really be?
I like to walk through the following process to help clients gain some insight into this hidden cost. I say hidden because most centers do not effectively track resolution. Instead they ask customers through the agent of an IVR survey or worse based upon the agents judgment if the issue was resolved. Of course the customer may not even know if the issue is truly resolved...will the billing credit appear on the next bill? Will the promised gift card be received? Will their service be restored by 5 pm today? None of these issues can be truly labelled as resolved until the required processes and activities are completed. But that is fodder for another post.
Back to the financial costs for an 80% FCR rate: if your average call (or contact) is $5 at an 80% FCR your average resolved contact on first call will cost you $6.25 or 25% more than your cost per contact. Of course those whose issues were not resolved will call back and once again they will receive an 80% FCR and those callers will only receive at best an 80% FCR and so on and so on. After the second call your overall cumulative FCR will be 96% and after three cumulative calls over 99%. But your costs for resolved calls will be $6.25 each and not the $5.00 that is likely in the budget. If you had 10,000 calls/month the annualized savings associated with just a 5% improvement in FCR would be more than $44,000.
This calculation does not factor in the likelihood that the call types that go unresolved are often the more complicated or difficult ones, that will by virtue of their nature represent a significantly larger percentage of Wave 2 and beyond calls than they represented in Wave 1. Nor have we factored in the fact that when the unresolved calls are received they will increase the volumes and adversely affect the scheduled agent hours and by extension the ability of the center to meet its service level and other KPI's such as schedule adherence.
So the costs are far greater than just the cost of repeat callers. Keep this in mind when you are setting your goals and targets and when you establishing you budgets.
I like to walk through the following process to help clients gain some insight into this hidden cost. I say hidden because most centers do not effectively track resolution. Instead they ask customers through the agent of an IVR survey or worse based upon the agents judgment if the issue was resolved. Of course the customer may not even know if the issue is truly resolved...will the billing credit appear on the next bill? Will the promised gift card be received? Will their service be restored by 5 pm today? None of these issues can be truly labelled as resolved until the required processes and activities are completed. But that is fodder for another post.
Back to the financial costs for an 80% FCR rate: if your average call (or contact) is $5 at an 80% FCR your average resolved contact on first call will cost you $6.25 or 25% more than your cost per contact. Of course those whose issues were not resolved will call back and once again they will receive an 80% FCR and those callers will only receive at best an 80% FCR and so on and so on. After the second call your overall cumulative FCR will be 96% and after three cumulative calls over 99%. But your costs for resolved calls will be $6.25 each and not the $5.00 that is likely in the budget. If you had 10,000 calls/month the annualized savings associated with just a 5% improvement in FCR would be more than $44,000.
This calculation does not factor in the likelihood that the call types that go unresolved are often the more complicated or difficult ones, that will by virtue of their nature represent a significantly larger percentage of Wave 2 and beyond calls than they represented in Wave 1. Nor have we factored in the fact that when the unresolved calls are received they will increase the volumes and adversely affect the scheduled agent hours and by extension the ability of the center to meet its service level and other KPI's such as schedule adherence.
So the costs are far greater than just the cost of repeat callers. Keep this in mind when you are setting your goals and targets and when you establishing you budgets.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Free Agent Retention eBook Available.
Labor represents two thirds of the operating costs in most call centers.Managing Attrition, staff retention,turnover is an essential to all centers.
Created by; The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. the new eBook “How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center” is the result of thirty plus years of hands on Operational management experience by its author Colin Taylor. Similar content has been delivered at countless workshops Colin has completed around the globe. The average price for these workshops is over $1,000 per attendee. You can gain the same insights today for zero cost.
In the eBook you will discover;
• The reasons why turnover and attrition are never-ending processes,
• The significant impact turnover can have on your agent productivity,
• How to calculate the ‘real’ cost of attrition in your center,
• The impact of turnover on Wages, Morale, Quality, and the Customer Experience,
• How to assess you centers’ agent career process,
• Leadership strategies that lead to reduced attrition,
• How to employ Rewards and Recognition to gain the best result,
• How to motivate Gen X versus Gen Y,
• How to Align your hiring and training process to deliver the desired results,
To receive your complimentary copy of “How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center” please register here
About the Publisher: The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (Taylor Reach) is a contact and call center consulting firm. All we do is Call Center consulting. With four offices and consultants who each possess more than 20 years of hands-on operational experience, we do not sell the pyramid. At Taylor Reach we sell the knowledge and experience of our consultants who have faced similar issues as our clients. Through our proprietary methodology we assist our clients to develop strategies and processes to overcome their challenges.
How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center | The Taylor Reach... thetaylorreachgroup.com
Staffing represents approximately two thirds of the operating budget for an average call center. Reducing attrition and staff turnover is essential for any call
Labor represents two thirds of the operating costs in most call centers.Managing Attrition, staff retention,turnover is an essential to all centers.
Created by; The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. the new eBook “How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center” is the result of thirty plus years of hands on Operational management experience by its author Colin Taylor. Similar content has been delivered at countless workshops Colin has completed around the globe. The average price for these workshops is over $1,000 per attendee. You can gain the same insights today for zero cost.
In the eBook you will discover;
• The reasons why turnover and attrition are never-ending processes,
• The significant impact turnover can have on your agent productivity,
• How to calculate the ‘real’ cost of attrition in your center,
• The impact of turnover on Wages, Morale, Quality, and the Customer Experience,
• How to assess you centers’ agent career process,
• Leadership strategies that lead to reduced attrition,
• How to employ Rewards and Recognition to gain the best result,
• How to motivate Gen X versus Gen Y,
• How to Align your hiring and training process to deliver the desired results,
To receive your complimentary copy of “How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center” please register here
About the Publisher: The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (Taylor Reach) is a contact and call center consulting firm. All we do is Call Center consulting. With four offices and consultants who each possess more than 20 years of hands-on operational experience, we do not sell the pyramid. At Taylor Reach we sell the knowledge and experience of our consultants who have faced similar issues as our clients. Through our proprietary methodology we assist our clients to develop strategies and processes to overcome their challenges.
How to Improve Staff Retention in Your Call Center | The Taylor Reach... thetaylorreachgroup.com
Staffing represents approximately two thirds of the operating budget for an average call center. Reducing attrition and staff turnover is essential for any call
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