Moving Beyond the Queue – Focusing on the Real-Time Customer
Customers are now in control of business, and today’s call centers have the unenviable task of meeting and managing customer expectations that are moving at a lightning-fast pace. The shift in control began with companies’ increasing reliance on the Internet, which has given birth to a whole new host of customer complaint (and accolade) tools – e.g., blogs, audio files, YouTube videos, and customer-powered Web sites that focus on satisfaction and dissatisfaction with specific products and services.
Many companies lack the ability to keep up with the new pace of change, and the old ways of establishing yourself as a service leader are no longer effective. Companies now must be sure to establish a culture of customer-centricity, with everyone in the organization trained to understand and appreciate the value of great service – no small feat. In addition, world class companies of today include customers in determining their real-time service expectations, and realize that customers are their new marketing vehicle.
The shift to customer control is so well positioned that many companies have moved away from celebrating survey success to focusing more on critical real-time indicators, such as the customer blogs, Web sites, discussion forums, etc., already alluded to. By paying more attention to these forums, forward-thinking companies are connecting their processes with the ever-changing expectations of those they serve. Gone are the days where a 95% satisfaction rate is something to brag about – in fact, if you’re an eBay seller, anything below a 98% satisfaction rating will push people away. We’re in an era where consumers expect multimillion dollar companies to be able to provide service that is just as friendly and personalized as that provided by the small mom and pop shop down the street. Thus, the new challenge for call centers is getting everyone in the center to think of themselves as providing “mom and pop” type service. This may sound like an unrealistic endeavor, but the fact is, top companies are doing it and using it to create additional competitive advantage with every interaction.
What follows are ideas on ways companies can refocus themselves on the new “real-time” customer and use customers in new ways to provide the organization with valuable information on what’s really happening. By appreciating the real-time customer and understanding the right things on which to focus, companies can position themselves for success in this new era of service. Best of all, the call center is well positioned to be the key enabler of success in this new era of customer control.
Five Attributes of the Best “Real-Time Customer” Call Centers
1) They are proactive in providing resolutions – no complaint required.
Let’s face it, most customer service activities are not generated by a customer that just wants to commend you for providing a wonderful product or service. The call center is generally the place the customer looks to issue or problem resolution. Armed with this realization, the best call centers are finding new ways to get out in front of the issue – using real-time information to generate proactive resolutions.
Something we’ve all experienced at one time or another is the loss of a cable signal or a power outage. Our first reaction is to contact the company to let them know there is a problem, and most of the time scores of other people have already done so – the recording tells you so. Every call center can learn something from the utility companies – when you see trends from a certain customer profile, do something in advance. Don’t wait for an issue that impacts a small portion of your customers to become a problem for all of your customers. If you do, everyone will suffer because of the increase in volume.
2) They are focused on employee loyalty as much as on customer loyalty.
It’s amazing how many times the same story gets written – happier employees provide better service. Unfortunately, many call centers forget this and spend their time focused on increasing customer satisfaction scores while trying to control the agent efficiency metrics. This often results in a vicious cycle that features a lot of finger pointing with very little improvement in either customer satisfaction or agent efficiency; in fact both often move in a negative direction.
Let’s face it, the call center rep isn’t the most glamorous or desired job in the company. Our industry turnover rates prove this. Often agents’ plans involve “doing their time” then moving to a job off the phones.
The best companies treat the agent position with the respect it deserves – viewing agents as “voice of the company.” It’s no surprise that organizations that are known for providing great service have lower turnover rates and happier employees. You have to spend the time understanding what your employees want; you’ll find that call center reps are pretty simple. They’d love to come to work and have some expectation of their daily workload, be provided the tools to be successful and have more flexibility. All this can be accomplished by moving from managing the queues to managing the process. Every call center can do this, but the reality is, most make it a lot harder than it has to be.
3) They are visual in their dedication to customer service and the people that provide it.
Celebrating a win is normally reserved for a sports team, but it is also a key enabler to successful customer service. The reality is that call center agents have several “wins” every day that should be discussed, documented and rewarded. It starts with helping agents to see things from the customer’s perspective, then, empowering them to make decisions and make a difference. Let agents know that it is okay to make mistakes as long as the best interest of the customer is the root cause. Be sure to reward the effort, and to share successes with others.
Meetings with agents are often driven by a new initiative or a desire to “educate” them on everything that has happened since the last meeting. A great way to create a “visual” dedication to service is to schedule quick daily or weekly “win” meetings, where the entire team can tell others about the wonderful things they did for customers since the last meeting. Everyone learns and starts to see the value of going above and beyond. The leadership team can reinforce this by making wins a part of their daily discussions – followed by rewards and celebrations. The best part for agents is that they’ll quickly realize they are in control of their own wins and that they have several opportunities to win every day. Everyone benefits – the agents, the organization and, most importantly, the customer.
4) They are in-touch with their customer’s real feelings and involve them in products and solutions.
As mentioned earlier, top call centers pay more attention to what their customers are saying on blogs, YouTube, discussion forums, etc. These customers used to be dismissed as “complainers” and not the “target” audience; today, however, they are now viewed as the real influencers. Their postings often point out the real problems and opportunities that don’t show up in customer satisfaction survey results.
One of the best ways to really understand how your customers feel is to send them a three-question survey: 1. What did you like about the last interaction; 2. What didn’t you like; 3. What can we do better next time. Then, once you hear back from customers, follow-up and do something….real-time.
5) They are fanatical about leadership and provide the tools for success.
A common mistake in call centers is not investing in the growth of the leaders. Call centers do a significant amount of internal promotion – moving agents into supervisor or management positions, but few call centers have the luxury of formal one-on-one development or mentoring programs to grow new supervisors. Most call centers often find themselves at the lower end of the maturity model -- few people in the organization with a formal understanding of the foundational requirements of call center leadership. This knowledge gap makes it harder for new and upcoming leaders to gain a full appreciation of what it takes to effectively navigate the call center waters.
You would never expect a fireman to be able to do their job without spending a significant amount of time training, learning and practicing. While call centers don’t put leaders in life or death situations, several managers say they spend a significant amount of time putting out fires. Every organization should develop a formal on-boarding program for new leaders -- a plan that outlines the training programs, policies and evaluation criteria. By documenting the expected activities and holding monthly progress meetings, your new leaders will be engaged in the activity that makes every person (and organization) better – continuous improvement. Once you’ve done it just a few times, you’ll create the internal mentors with the expertise to transfer the right knowledge to your upcoming leaders.
Communicating the “Real” Value of the Call Center
Don’t just measure – create action.
The majority of call centers are very metrics-oriented – measuring everything because they can. Metrics reporting is one of the fasting growing segments of the call center technology industry. Many times we overload call center agents and leaders with numbers to the point that no one really knows where they are or what to improve. Call centers need to make it easy for everyone to understand what’s really happening now and what needs to change, and to provide such information on a real-time basis along with the required actions. Given the number of disparate systems, pulling everything together is no easy task. However, the best companies are findings ways to make this happen.
Clearly defining the desired behaviors is especially important at the agent level, as their behaviors are what the customers’ experience. Metrics are simply indicators of opportunities that something needs to change. Leaders in the best call centers know they must connect with agents on a level that makes them want to change their behavior, not just the metrics. Often the hardest part of making this transition isn’t getting the agents onboard, but changing the mindset and behaviors of the leadership team. The entire leadership team must have a complete understanding of the basics of call center management activities that drive results – queuing theory, forecasting, planning, staffing, occupancy, quality and adherence. And, they have to know this like the back of their hand -- it’s the price of admission to becoming world class.
Focus on First-contact resolution
Improvements in first-contact resolution (FCR) rates can be directly correlated to improvements in customer loyalty, employee delight, operational efficiencies and sales growth. In other words, FCR hits both the top and bottom line. Some companies struggle with this because they say it’s hard to get the real numbers – not so, just ask your customers that have called. This can be done via post-contact IVR surveys, email surveys or phone surveys. Make it simple by just asking them if they got what they needed the first time they requested it.
More important than the FCR metric itself is understanding the success drivers and foundational elements that must be in place. If you’re not meeting your service level on a regular basis (by interval), you’ll never see improvements in FCR, as frustrated callers will hang up and call back later. They’ll rate you low because you didn’t solve the issue on their first call to you. Even if you get the service level part right, if you’re not providing quality, customers will be forced to call back because they don’t feel comfortable with the resolution, or because what was promised didn’t happen. Ultimately, the lack of quality will negatively impact service level and vice versa – resulting in no actual FCR improvement.
Look beyond up-selling and cross-selling to create enterprise wide value.
Conversations about creating value in a call center are often limited to the amount of new revenue opportunities the center can create. Centers then start to focus on cross-selling or up-selling activities. It’s true that call centers can become sources of additional revenue, but not without getting the foundational things right. Many companies have invested heavily in agent training to give them skills to “sell”, but fail on creating an environment where the customer will be receptive to the offering. If the customer doesn’t feel valued, offering them new opportunities will just drive them further from the organization.
The best call centers know that the real value of the call center is in every interaction. . After each call, train agents to ask such questions as “How can we avoid making customers call us about this issue in the future?” and “Who else in the organization would benefit from hearing the real voice of the customer?” These two simple questions will unlock a tremendous amount of value for your call center. Your customers are telling you what they really want hundreds of times a day. The key is to create a way for your agents to pass along critical information that can lead to quick and meaningful action.
Create a roadmap for everyone.
One thing call centers don’t have is a way to overcome the mathematical inefficiency that actually requires a portion of the center’s agents to always be “sitting around”. While we can do things to help fill some of the gaps with other types of work, there is nothing we can do to make everyone take a call when senior management ventures through the center. Management is often left with an unsettling feeling that money is being wasted because some of the people aren’t on the phone. Overcoming this mindset starts with educating yourself in queuing theory and using this knowledge to explain things in laymen terms to senior management. Spending a couple of hours creating some what-if scenarios in an Erlang calculator will provide you with several new ways to engage executives in appreciating the real complexity of running a call center.
Numbers alone won’t get you all of the support you need to move your center forward. Spend some time creating an understanding and appreciation for the role you play in the organization’s success. In every business there is a critical path to profit or fulfillment - - simply put, the most efficient way for the organization to reach its goal. For example, in the case of an online retailer, the most profitable path would be the customer placing the order online, paying online, receiving the exact product when promised and being happy with it. Any deviation from this self-service path (i.e., phone calls) costs the company more money in support. . This is true, but if every one of those phone calls is viewed as a way to help improve the path for future customers, it’s not all money wasted. Being able to connect the value of every interaction with the organization’s critical path is key to getting additional support and investments.
How to Make Others Want to Move Forward
“Senior management just doesn’t understand.” That’s a battle cry heard time and again from call center managers who are struggling with issues such as staffing, getting support for new technology or obtaining respect for their department. The recommended response is always the same: It’s the job of call center leaders to get them to understand, and you can’t stop until everyone appreciates the value and dynamics of our real-time inbound environment. The easiest solution is making it happen in targeted, digestible chunks. I’ve worked with many smart people who, for one reason or another, have adopted a “keeping your head above water” approach to call center management.
The truth is that many senior executives with call center responsibilities have never run a call center. In many cases, they’re focused on other organizational issues that pull them away from gaining a true understanding of our challenges. But that’s not a bad thing – it actually makes it a lot easier to transform their opinions.
First and foremost, you need to be on top of your game. Make sure that you are able to intelligently describe the tactical stuff, and make the connection between the call center and the value it brings to the company. Yes, to get buy-in from others, you have to become a student of call centers and continually look for ways to sharpen your own skills.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel – chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re looking for new ideas, which is a great first step. Make sure that your knowledge of call centers is not only accurate, but current as well. Attend conferences, seminars and training courses that focus on the basics of call center management, or more advanced courses on strategy and technology. (There are several organizations that offer these types of programs) Another way to keep abreast of the latest trends is to subscribe to – and actually read – as many industry publications as you can. There are lots of free ones available and most provide weekly email updates.
While you’re getting yourself up to speed, try to get a feel for what your senior management is reading. Many times, their ideas and strategies are derived from popular business books and non-call center periodicals. The next time you’re in a senior manager’s office, look to see what newspapers, magazines and books are laying around – and then get a copy for yourself. You’d be surprised at how many ideas and theories from mainstream articles and books can be applied to the call center environment. The best part is, you can use it as point of reference the next time you have an opportunity to “talk call centers” with the boss.
Once you get senior management onboard, everything else becomes easy. Keep focusing on the value of the call center and pointing everyone back to the customer as the driver of all improvements. Anyone, at any level, has the ability to drive change in a call center – the key is to never give up and to keep putting everyone in the shoes of the customer. The best call centers know that you’ll never grow until every agent knows what it really feels like to be on the other side of a call. And, every organization has several ways to make this happen – you’re only limited by your imagination and creativity.
