By Dick Bucci, Senior Consultant,The PELORUS Group
All contact centers have four basic goals, although the emphasis will change with the type of organization:
1. To delight customers
2. To increase revenue
3. To minimize operating costs
4. To provide valuable business insights
To delight customers
Simply “satisfying” callers is not enough. One study reported that 80% of defecting customers were “satisfied.” Delivering memorable service quality means exceeding expectations. If your organization tells the public to expect superior service – they will. You have set the bar higher. Customer delight should be measured from the caller’s perspective, not inferred based on the agent’s or the supervisor’s opinions. Only the caller knows if the interaction met or exceeded expectations. There are more options available today than ever before to incorporate a “voice of the customer” feedback program into the quality assessment program.
To increase revenue
Agents contribute to revenue growth by identifying sales leads in the CRM system, probing for up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, collecting overdue accounts, direct sales through outbound calls and by improving customer retention. Independent research shows that it costs five to ten times as much to replace a customer than to take actions to prevent their defection. Management can empower agents to take actions to retain a customer like granting free minutes or waiving shipping charges. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a new concept that recognizes the aggregate contribution of a consumer over the period of time they remain customers. As the first line of defense, agents can have a significant impact on customer loyalty and consequently CLV.
To minimize operating costs
Call centers contain operating costs through optimal scheduling, efficient call handling, use of part-time or remote agents, deploying modern technology, streamlining business processes, reducing turnover, and tightly monitoring attendance and time-off requests, negotiating favorable rates from telecom carriers, and taking other actions. Compliance is also a very important part of the equation. Full recording of all voice and data interactions helps avoid situations that could result in fines or costly litigation. In sales transactions and collections there are mandatory disclosures. Agents must refrain from making commitments (delivery dates, claims settlements, financing terms, and concessions) unless they are fully authorized to make the promise. Some organizations require specific opening and closing statements and strongly encourage probing questions to identify sales prospects. Similarly, there are certain things agents should never say. No contact center has enough people or time to listen to all calls. Fortunately, there are speech engines that can quickly and accurately interrogate thousands of hours of recordings by searching for the key words and phrases that confirm the agents said what they were supposed to say.
To provide valuable business insights
From senior management’s perspective a heads-up about potential quality problems, insights about the causes of customer defections, or fresh information about competitor actions could well be the most valuable “KPIs” to flow from the contact center. It is up to contact center management to make sure the information is shared with senior management and appropriate department heads. Too often contact canters focus on the interactions process rather than what was actually said. A 2004 study revealed that only 54% of call centers regularly shared monitoring feedback with other departments. If your company produces consumer goods or is a major provider of financial services, insurance, or communications services the marketing department is probably spending millions conducting market research trying to get data you already have. And call center data is better than the sterile one-dimensional tables generated by consumer surveys. You have the richness and intensity of the actual voice of the customer! One way to secure senior management’s attention is to distribute periodic “business intelligence” report with both quantitative and qualitative information that addressees the key questions of the day from the customer’s perspective.
Relating contact center goals to enterprise goals
The relative importance of each of these broad goals varies with the nature and orientation of the enterprise. Businesses that sell commodity products and services based largely on price will want the contact center to operate at the lowest possible cost, even is that means some concessions in service quality. Businesses that seek to differentiate their products and services will be more supportive of contact centers that excel at service delivery and the collection of valuable business intelligence. All businesses (and nonprofits) seek to increase revenues.
Understanding the key goals of the contact center and their relative importance to the broader mission of the enterprise is essential in determining the most appropriate metrics to gauge contact center performance and evaluate agents
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