The Contact Center Is Your Competitive Weapon
Adrunk was searching at the base of a streetlight on his hands and knees. When a passerby asked what he was doing, the drunk said he was looking for his car keys. After joining the search to no avail, the passerby asked why the drunk thought his keys would be here. The drunk replied that he didnt but it is easier to search near the light than near his car where it is dark.
Nearly every student of research techniques or business has encountered this story or its cousin. Usually it is used to illustrate faulty tactics: dont look where it is convenient when the search should focus on the area of greatest probability. This story is as good an illustration of strategic error as it is of tactical error. After all, the goal should not be to find the car keys the man is drunk! Rather, getting home safely is the appropriate goal, and a taxi or designated driver are two possible tactics to reach that goal.
Efficiency Does Not Equal Customer Relationship Management
It is easy to laugh at the blatant stupidity of the drunk. But many organizations with customer contact centers are guilty of essentially the same thinking. How many calls does the center take and at what cost? The metrics for the customer relationship function are very easy to collect via technology: average talk time, percent abandoned, number of calls, schedule adherence, etc. These efficiency (convenience) metrics are automatically collected by the technology and compared to previous periods and to benchmarks in the industry. Efficiency metrics readily become the idol we worship.
Contact center management can point to the various efficiency metrics and claim an X percent reduction in time or cost and use these as verification to their bosses of a job well done. As such, this is not inherently bad. Cost and efficiency metrics have their place. But just because something is easy to collect and compare does not mean that other, possibly more difficult to quantify, data are not important. Focusing on costs alone obviates the relationship management aspect of contact centers. In essence, we accept the goal of locating keys simply because it is easy to look where there is light (technology-produced numbers).
We in the industry give lip service to the customer focus concept. We say we are customer-focused and want to help the customer, that The Contact Center Is Your Competitive Weapon Easy-to-collect metrics are often substituted for useful outcome measurements that will actually help companies gain and retain customers. Effective investments in the contact center and useful metrics are essential to CRM success. doing so is in the best interest of our company, and that we serve the customer because customer satisfaction leads to profits. We all talk the talk, but then merrily rely on easy-to-collect efficiency metrics and declare that we have done a good job. In large part this is understandable. A few years ago there was much talk of benchmarking contact center performance, and many of the self-proclaimed industry leaders were leading the charge. Industry benchmarks were the comparison for judgment, but customer satisfaction metrics were generally not included. Rather, efficiency metrics were the benchmarks and have rightfully fallen by the wayside.
However, those willing to forgo the comfort of easy metrics have the opportunity to walk the walk and create the customer contact center as a strategic weapon in our business arsenal.
The Value Proposition
As a strategic weapon, the contact center gives the company the kind of intelligence that can minimize customer dissatisfaction by sounding early warnings of product or service failures, for example, allowing for extra lead time for the development of proactive measures. It can aid in customizing the organizations interface to become more customer-friendly which can lead to fewer abandoned calls and less-testy customers among those who do hang on, and a willingness to provide information that may prove useful. The contact center as a strategic weapon is the customer relationship management channel for the company.
Position the contact center to actually listen to the voice of the customer to produce metrics that are statistically valid and more than just numbers of convenience. Management teams often recognize the contact center as the place to hear the voice of the customer but fail to gather valid metrics. The goal of metrics must be to quantify the customers assessment of quality. Quality of the service interaction is key, but so is quality of the company.
Make no mistake. Customer-centricity is not possible when costs are the primary focus. A sole focus on costs will not allow you to leverage the service center as a strategic weapon. This is not to argue that costs are irrelevant. Rather, you must find an appropriate balance and realize that effective customer service is not linear to cost. That is, each increment of improvement in better service does not require a proportionate incremental increase in cost. The customer service center that is run solely on cost efficiency cannot be effective. But an effective center need not be exceptionally high-cost. Effectiveness yields higher-level efficiencies: information vital to strategic decision making, timely notice of problems, first-contact resolution, etc.
The value of the contact center is proven with general financial models. The customer relationship is managed via this channel and the asset to the company is protected. As products become commoditized, the pre- and post-sale service is the only differentiator from the competition.
A 250-seat contact center is easily responsible for a $2.75 million asset each month. When 60 percent of its callers are delighted (and 5 percent at risk), the contribution to the organization is proven (see Figure 1). The percentage of customers that are just satisfied (not delighted) are not claimed on the P&L.
The Front-Line Relationship Managers
Customer service reps (CSRs) are your most important interface with customers and deserve to be treated as such. They need to be trained to actively listen, ask probing questions when it appears they may be productive, and to take responsibility for the customer relationship. The voice of the customer (VOC) measurement results should permeate the training and coaching processes. The efficiency metrics are not sufficient to change behavior to become customer-centric.
Empower your CSRs. Give them real authority to take remedial measures. Often the dissatisfied customer needs to be heard and a minor amelioration instituted to satisfy the customer. With proper training, CSRs can be trusted to handle the vast majority of complaints such that the customer is willing to try the products or services again. Early rescue is the key.
It is important to note that costs in the call center are investments in the future of the organization. Your customer base is likely the greatest asset possessed by the firm. Next may be the people who service that asset base. (It could be usefully argued that these should be in reverse order, but either way, no firm can survive without both!) Investments in those front-line people and the assets they are supposed to nurture are investments in the survival of the firm. Properly trained people can cross-sell, up-sell, calm customer fears and anxiety, salvage the relationship when it is at risk, and build loyalty for the firm.
The investment in relationship managers is not an argument that automated calls have no place in the contact center. Indeed there are many routine calls best handled by technology. Automated menus allow the technologically savvy to efficiently deal with oft-made requests. That 20 percent of customers who are loyal and frequently use your automated systems to handle routine transactions may actually praise them. But those who are not technologically savvy or seldom have a need to contact your company may find the automated systems intimidating. The strategy comes from the balance of calls between the automated solution and the relationship managers. Some types of calls and some types of customers can only be leveraged by the CSR.
The Key Customer Metrics
The relationship management team must look beyond efficiency metrics to customer metrics. The customers perception is the reality we live with and it must be measured continuously.
The best method for an accurate and reliable VOC measurement is through immediate post-call surveys. The evaluations are completed immediately after the interaction with the agent and allow the caller to answer both qualitative and quantitative questions about their interaction. According to scientific research, analysis from evaluations that are delayed has several biases (errors) and is, therefore, not as reliable. Using a delayed evaluation program for a service interaction is based on the callers recall of the interaction. Anything other than real-time measurement inherently introduces this recall bias (error).
One of the key advantages to surveys taken immediately following the interaction is that all the customer information, including qualitative and quantitative feedback, can be directly and accurately linked to the CSR who handled the interaction. Accuracy is possible if you properly review and scrub the data. This powerful tool allows direct access to specific details about the interaction with the customer and pinpoints, better than any other tool, specific customer-centric behaviors that agents can be trained and coached upon. It is here where the value proposition is proven.
Customers often call when it is not truly necessary so the contact center as a strategic weapon has the opportunity to quantify a misperceived need, and via the relationship management practice, turn the call into direct value for the company. Some calls may be made because marketings collateral materials left room for interpretation and questions. Or the sales departments promises for performance are being misunderstood (or overstated). Or accountings statements to customers may be unnecessarily confusing resulting in billing questions from customers and the necessity to alter the statements. All real possibilities and all real customer dissatisfiers can be captured via the post-call survey, and the customer-centric metrics will be used as a competitive advantage.
The Culture Change
Contact center management must lead the way to position the center as a strategic weapon. We must put less emphasis on efficiency metrics that focus on cost, and redesign our centers to collect and to manage customer metrics. CSRs live the role of relationship manager. They are the conduit between our all important customers and the company. Lines of communication upward and outward from the contact center are necessary. High-level people in sales, marketing, billing, etc., need to get regular reports on problems detected via the customer metrics.
So how do we transform our cost-based contact centers into strategic weapons?
- Reposition the efficiency (cost) metrics. Stop talking about them as the only performance evaluation. Use them in combination with customer quality measures.
- Educate management upward and laterally as to the strategic importance of the contact center. Management cooperation is vital to success. What good is it to collect valuable data if it goes unnoticed? In addition to submitting intelligence, what about following up on some of the more promising information to see what action occurred? Make it a team effort with information traveling up, down and laterally within the organization.
- Refocus CSRs to be relationship managers (active listeners, sellers, closers, rescuers).
- Restructure the reward system to be balanced with customer metrics.
- Add an automated survey at the end of customer calls to mine customer intelligence. Gather data rapidly at the time the customer has it firmly in mind. The customer need take no extra steps. The cost is reasonable per survey with real-time alerts, quantitative and qualitative data. The data quality is high, and the reward potential is unlimited.
The relationship management channel should sit at the heart of vibrant firms rather than on the periphery. Its job is to collect intelligence, follow up on leads and aid in redesign of the companys communications to consumers whether it be in technology, programming or paper documents. Moving away from a cost-based contact center will require a shift in focus, but doing so has rewards for the firm, call center managers, CSRs and customers. Do not allow your company to look for keys to hand to a drunk. Instead call a taxi. See the big picture and take your contact center to the next level.
