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Improving Call Center Operational
Efficiency
By France
Constantino
John Clements Consultants, together
with Brandt International, started June with a BPO Breakfast Forum
at Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The theme of the forum was Improving
Call Center Operational Efficiency. And no other than the CEO of
Brandt International, Munirah Looi, facilitated the event.
Representatives from organizations including ICT, Alorica, JP Morgan
Chase, Winsource and A.M. Yu and Associates participated the
forum.
At the start of the business forum,
Ms. Looi asked the attendees to identify the challenges that they
are currently experiencing in their company. The participants
identified the following:
- Meeting the metrics
- Absenteeism
- Quality of calls
- Attrition
- Leadership development
- Learning curves
Apart from the above identified
challenges, Ms. Looi added demanding clients, intense competition
and intense market growth. All these challenges, if not properly
addressed, will eventually give unintended results like margin
erosion, customer churn, sunken costs and most of all it will affect
the bottom-line, thus, declining profits. One asks the question,
"How do we deal with these issues?" And the answer is, "It's all
about having a unified contact center."
A unified contact center can be
described as an organization that meets both efficiency metrics and
cost efficiency metrics. Efficiency metrics include considerations
like the speed of answers, the speed of resolution, number of calls
made and conversion, security levels, staff occupancy, staffing
cost, and activity measures. Meanwhile, cost efficiency metrics
consider things like cost per transaction, cost per agent, revenue
per agent.
Given that a contact center meets
these metrics, how does it differentiate itself from other contact
centers? Ms. Looi shared 11 Best Practices Criteria that create
value for the clients. These are the following:
- Customer feedback
- Customer Relations Management
- Performance Metrics
- Training Programs
- People Programs
- Corporate Commitment and Strategic Direction
- Productivity Tools
- Electronic Service Delivery
- Total Quality Management
- Research and Development Interface; and
- Sales Interface
According to Ms. Looi, the first five
criteria give major impact in the contact center performance.
Ms. Looi also recently wrote about the
Program Criteria developed by the Service and Support Professionals
Association, which is the standard by which contact centers are
assessed. In a previous issue of Wazzup@JohnClements, Ms. Looi
wrote:
The Service Centre Practices
Certification program was designed to address service quality issues
that affect the rapidly-growing contact centre and technology and
service support marketplace. SCP Certification quantifies the
effectiveness of customer support based upon a stringent set of
performance standards and represents best practices in the industry.
The program is guided by a body of sponsoring companies who
represent core members of the Service & Support Professionals
Association (SSPA), and is managed by Service Strategies Corporation
(SSC) in the USA. The SCP Certification program establishes the
standard for measuring quality customer service support. The program
focuses customer service support organizations on processes and
results and defines hard measurements where possible that apply
across the customer service support industry. It provides a standard
for the industry that describes world-class customer service
support. The criteria sections defined within the SCP Certification
program represent the broad scope of business practices necessary to
deliver top quality customer service support. The Assessment covers
11 criteria are:
Customer Feedback
Customer
Feedback involves all the activities associated with collecting,
analyzing and acting on feedback provided by the customer. Feedback
from customers is a vital tool that the management team can use to
drive change and improvement in their service delivery process.
Customer Relationship
Management
Customer Relationship Management centers on
managing interactions with customers. Setting customer expectations
and proactively communicating with customers are key aspects on
managing the relationships.
Performance
Metrics
Measuring performance is a key aspect of managing
any customer service support operation. Without quantitative
measures for the key performance metrics, it is difficult to
determine how well a customer service support centre is meeting
customer requirements. Service Centres should establish clear goals,
and then track their performance against those goals.
Training Programs
Training
is a critical part of any customer service support operation.
Properly-trained support personnel can have a significant impact on
how customers perceive the quality of support provided by a company.
If representatives are not adequately trained, customer issues may
take longer to resolve, thereby leading to customer dissatisfaction.
Therefore, managing the development of the support staff is critical
to the success of the organization.
People Programs
People are
the single biggest resource in any customer service support
operation. The business of delivering service is all about people,
and the support staff represents the “service product” delivered by
the company. Personnel costs also typically represent the single
largest expense for most customer service support operations. It is
critical that the staff feel that they are contributing to the
success of the company and that they are respected for the role they
play within the company. Customer support is a very people-intensive
business and the quality of life for the people that work in support
is critical to the success of the organization.
Corporate Commitment &
Strategic Direction
In today’s competitive marketplace, it
is critical that companies demonstrate a strong commitment to
deliver top quality service and support to customers. In many
instances, service and support can be a differentiator in the
product purchasing decision. Therefore, companies must ensure that
they provide the highest levels of support possible and maintain a
strong commitment to satisfying their customers. The strength of
commitment to deliver exceptional customer service support must
begin at the executive level.
Productivity Tools
Over
the past ten years, customer service support Centers have made good
use of automation tools to assist in delivering services to
customers. These tools are now essential to managing customer
interactions. They provide the necessary automation to streamline
access to qualified support staff, record critical customer
information and provide resources to speed the problem resolution
process for support personnel. The result of implementing
productivity tools is a more effective and efficient support Centre
with higher customer satisfaction levels.
Electronic Service
Delivery
In today’s marketplace, companies need to provide
service options for their customers that allow them to interact
electronically. Establishing an integrated electronic service
delivery offering is becoming increasingly more important to the
success of companies operating in a fast paced business
environment.
Total Quality
Management
The quality of the support services delivered by
a company can significantly influence its ability to acquire and
retain customers. Support has become a differentiator in the current
service-oriented marketplace. Companies need to implement processes
and procedures that ensure that every customer interaction is a
quality one that leaves the customer feeling good about the company
they are dealing with. By implementing processes and procedures to
monitor and improve support quality, companies can drive higher
performance from the support Centre and generate greater customer
loyalty.
Research & Development
Interface
The relationship between Customer Service Support
and Research & Development organizations is a key factor to the
success of any company. The relationship should be one of open
communication and provide for knowledge transfer between the two
groups. By having clear lines of communication and strong working
relationships between these two groups, customer identified issues
can be addressed rapidly and changes incorporated into product
updates and future releases.
Sales
Interface
The relationship between the Customer Service
Support and Sales organizations is a key factor in the success of
any company. Sales and Customer Service Support are typically the
most customer-facing organizations in a company. Since the Sales
organization sets initial customer expectations, it is critical that
they have a full understanding of the services that will be
delivered by the Support organization. By having clear lines of
communication and strong working relationships between these two
groups, customer expectations can be set properly, and the number of
customer complaints reduced.
* * *
For more
information, please contact Jon Pineda of John Clements at 845-2093
or email him at jon.pineda@johnclements.com.
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