Bridgetti Lim Banda [
CIO Forum / EA Forum Social Network Co-ordinator, Co-ordinator Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) network
In-efficient call centres drive me crazy, how do we make this work?
Call centres are going to be here for a long, long time. We cannot wish them away but we all get annoyed when we get responses that don't make any sense and are not related to our questions and which we know are being read from a script. So what do you think companies should do to change this and make it more effective and user-friendly? More annoying is when they tell you that you cannot speak to a supervisor.
Good Answers (9)
Scott G
Software Development, IP Telephony, PBX Systems, Embedded Systems
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The answer is simple: don't use them.
What to do with the flood of incoming calls if of course an issue, but the solution is to be more efficient with your support offerings as a whole. Make sure that accurate information is available from all sources simultaneously: web and voice. If you use one set of data, with a tree structure, to feed both the web based and ivr based handling of people with problems, you can direct them to the most common answers (they can read the solution on the web, or have the synthesized voice read them the instructions on the phone).
When the user has selected enough options to narrow it down somewhat, but then selected that it's "none of the above", you then have to bite the bullet and send them (web chat or direct phone) to a _real_ engineer who knows the product. Not just some mamby pamby tech support flunkie that was just hired to the high turnover department and doesn't know what end is up and has to bother the engineer for the answer to the question anyway. You send it to the engineer. The engineer doesn't want to be continually interrupted, so he does his best - guess what - to prevent the problem from happening in the first place, or fix it ASAP, or at the very least update the database with a solution that people can try themselves.
The problem isn't really the call center. It's putting all the layers between the guy causing the problems and the customers dealing with the problems that keep problems from getting solved ASAP.
Hi Bridgetti, In order to improve the level of customer service provided by the call centre and the ease of use for the customer the organsation needs to be seriously committed to baselining, setting the correct KPIs and ongoing measurement. Some of the KPI's that need to be included are % of first time call resolution, % of escalations, call duration, average call handling time, quality scores, mystery shopper/caller scores broken down by agent and by team.
Also the KPI's exceptions need to be managed on a monthly basis and any gaps addressed.
If an agent cannot resolve your problem and they are just reading from a script they need to be empowered with the correct tools (IT systems, product/service training, customer empathy etc) to enable them to resolve your question on 1 call so it is not necessary to hand you off to a supervisor. Also his also adds unnecessary expense to the organisation by having to escalate a query.
Another way to address this is by improving the level of self-service or self care options available to customers via, web, IVR and virtual assistant.
That's my opinion for a starter. I'm sure you will get many more suggestions ;-)
I deal with Insurance company call centres every day.....sometimes I really lose the will to live when dealing with them.....But my over-riding thought is they are usually on minimum pay with minimum knowledge of the subject matter....if these issues are addressed and improved then the quality of service improves. As a regular customer I would like to have a dedicated contact instead of an anonymous voice....is that too old fashioned?....
Apologies I dont think I've helped....just moaned!!
Hehehhe, nice/good question. There is, unfortunately, not a simple answer/solution. What you see is companies that operate contact centres in-house and don't see them as profit centre, but merely as a cost-centre. Logical result is that the only focus is on reducing cost and very rigid KPI monitoring (Average Talk Time, Service Level, etc.) so a quantitative approach. Unless these companies will make a change and start focusing on customer satisfaction as their main KPI and regard them as a profit centre rather than a cost centre, things will not change. Also, in the same line of thinking, the management style should change. Contact centre staff is usually managed on exceptions (ATT too long, not enough sales, etc.) rather than managed by objectives. Again a quantitative apporach instead of a qualitative one. lastly, supporting tools (training, scripts, applications) should be in place to help the agent to serve the customer better, rather than the company. Not seldomly, an agent CAN solve the problem, but is not allowed because of the script/business rules. Or an agent has to work with 23 applicatoins (windows) open, thus making it impossible to really, really help the customer. Plenty of companies have done research on this, can't think of one in particular right now....
Interesting topic, however, let's put it the other way around. Why did one decide to pick up the phone and dial the number of a call center? Instead of focussing on quality and quantity measurements, performance management and HR effectivement diagnoses, now focus on the mindset of a customer, a client, or even a potential customer. Why did they call? What is the reason for calling, for waiting and for any annoyance?
Now think, and think again. Why do YOU call the number of your favourite call centre? Most probably because you couldn't find the information anywhere else on the net, or the information was - according to you - nowhere to be found, and I'm not stating that it wasn't there. Key to customer service is finding the customer's reason to call, covering a customer focused approach by a customer driven information supply. This may very well begin by analyzing why customer's don't find the information on your website, in any received brochure, letter, etc. Research found that a majority of inbound phone calls can be very well reduced by putting the information in another way within reach of the customer. This involves and requires a flexible, agile and effective information supply which is fed by optimal information processes. In short: Make sure that customers call only when they really need to do so. Make sure your website is organised in such a way that it promotes reading answers of FAQ's, actively supports blogs and any other way of quick access to information. It then attracts people that need answers to their questions. And at least, make sure that any piece of information spread by your company is vivid, open and 100% understandible for a wide range of people, from young adults to those who may be your grandparents. This is where end-to-end customer care starts. Now you...
In general main question here is people. Because people without necessary training may kill any service but trained people may save any tech omission in CC work. I fully believe in it because we checked it in our company.
Here is the answer: train your people believe in them and you will see result very soon.
Of course I’m not talking about tech constituent and etc.
Krista K
Account Executive-Media Sales at Marquis Who's Who-National Register Publishing/P.J. Kenedy & Sons
I love this question.
First, the company's need to stop outsourcing thier call centers to non-reputable company's with agents who get paid practically nothing, and don't care, and don't speak English.
Keep your own call centers and invest in a great IVR! I don't have time to list all the benefits. Enough said.
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Colin T
Contact Center Visionary and Ardent practitioner
Best Answers in: Customer Service (3), Business Development (3), Sales Techniques (2), Occupational Training (1), Customer Relationship Management (1)
Briggetti,
I think that you have voiced a frustration that all of us have felt at some time or another. As someone with 32 years experience in the call and contact center industry let me share my opinion and point of view.
I have seen a huge range in the quality and sophistication of call center operations from small firms that will "do anything for a buck", to very sophisticated highly complex data driven solution providers and a thousand players in between these two points. Companies and the market allow and support the full range of these operations to continue to exist.
The 'cost is King' perception allows many companies to intentionally (or ignorantly) provide sub-par services even though they would never think of doing so in any other area of their business. These companies continue to try to reduce expenses beyond reasonable levels and when they have squeezed out all they can internally, they they look to outsource in the hopes of saving more money still.
The newest spin on the 'cost is king' mindset is that customer service is a commodity and that everyone provides the same service (well at least they say they do).
The above fallacies mask what we already know...you often times get what you pay for. Higher costs don't always equate to better service, but it often does. The exception would be where the management or the outsourcing client knows very little about the industry and what they are really wanting to achieve. In this case an uneducated consumer is like a lamb led to the slaughter, they don't stand a chance.
The number of times I have been asked why a Service Level is important or pointed out that an SLA can be meaningless if trunk blocking isn't included would easily run into the hundreds if not thousands of times.
At the end of the day it is each of us as consumers that must communicate our satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction with any organization who we feel has provided poor customer service. All organizations will state that customer service is important and many will even embed this in their mission statements, but all too often this is just lip service. Until companies and organizations see that they could lose customers over poor service or retain them through superior service they will not lose the 'its a cost center' perspective. What the CEO's and senior executives of these firms need to appreciate is that they have spent millions and millions of dollars building and securing their customer base and yet today they are entrusting protecting and defending this investment to the lowest cost provider or to their understaffed and overworked internal entry level staff.
I hope that I have something of value to this discussion. Please feel free to contact me directly if I can be of any assistance.
Regards,
Colin
Ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com
One of few things I learned when managing call center/help desk type teams (insource/outsource) were that they can never be efficient but they can be more effective and provide better services.
With cost and high turn-over in BPO industry, script can never be avoided. But I learned from Dell, good customer service is not necessary about having all answers but having the right attitude (service personnel) and right company culture (customer focus policies, eliminate grey areas on support model...) to resolve customer's problems.
On the other hand, one common BPO problem is that the BPO's customers are not proactively updating the scripts and let the BPO to handle their customers which is where the nightmare starts. With limited knowledge transfer after initial engagement and lack of on-going collaboration in improving the scripts (knowledgebase), the BPO will first tend to "buy time" from end users to escalate issues to their customers for help, if response is consistently slow and not resolving, BPO will then move to "denial' stage where either they try to deflect the issue as other non-related component/device issues (rather than theirs) or some BPO will just straight away "plan" to let the 'bad service' rating explode to get their customer's attention or waiting their contract to be terminate.
Call Centers can only provide good service with good process management and knowledge management. ITIL is one of the framework share some good knowledge on managing call centers (Service Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management to name a few...) and others like COPC offers structured trainings for managing call centers more effectively.
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More Answers (12)
Hagai E
Sales Solutions Architect at Nice Systems, Experienced Product Manager and System Engineer
The solution is at the hands of the company operating the call center..
This issue is one of the main businesses of the company i work for now, we provide call centers with recording equipment (to record the customer interactions) and with quality management tools that run on top of it (i.e. the supervisor listen to recordings from each of his team members, say 8 times per month) and review his conversation with the customer. This usually effect the call center employee monthly bonus (i.e. his mark on the customer interaction) and at the end of the process the entire call center quality rises (this is the basic, there are more advanced solutions on top of this)
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Thomas H
Strategic Account Director at Acision
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A lot of companies have outsourced their call centre function to a remote location. Your unpleasant experience arises because they do have enough knowledge to service you adequately.
Being a victim of poor customer service like you, I thought more can be done to improve the situation.
• Proper training to be given to call centre
• Building a knowledge management system and logged in all unique customers experience so that there are good references for special customer enquiries
• Introduce performance based payments tied to the service rating of the customer service office. E.g. when ending the call, a IVR message can be played where customer can rate the service experience by pressing the keypad. 1 for excellent and 9 for poor. The outsource CS centre will then be paid based on a pre-agreed payment table. That will encourage the call centre to put in more effort to provide a better service as their revenue is tied to the service level its staff
Hello,
Calll-centre performance is very much linked to the human factor component: so I completely agree with Mr. Hoon's answer.
Motivation & KPI play a relevant role in this case. But improvement can only come out of a perfomance measurement. This entails that evidence of poor performance should be given to the operators. A good manager-employee communication, also in this case, can do a lot.
David E
COO at Ace Wireless Network Philippines Inc.
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Outsourcing is usually done to save money. Call centers in remote locations are hired. These call centers have a high turnover in personal. And they usually never refuse a client even if they know they can not handle the account efficiently.
Solution: Write to the company about your experience with their call centre. Companies who are big enough should open their own call centre and not outsource. The company knows their business best. If the company can not open their own remote call centre they should have at least one person present on the premises of the call centre to help with difficult questions that can not be answered with the help of a script.
Calls into a call centre are triggered by a specific event. Some of these are predictable (bill payment, delivery query etc) some are not (sales orders or insurance claims). Call centres need to be able to predict the types of calls that they are getting and use an effective automated out bound strategy to avoid them.
Messages can be recorded and delivered to a set of customers which allows them to interact with the message providing them with very specific information and actions.
This means customers get information when it is available not when they are annoyed. As the reasons for contact have been identified, callers can be transferred to a specifically trained group of operators that are able to handle their call quickly and efficiently. As call centres can control the flow of calls staffing level can be set to handle them and reduce waiting times to practically zero.
This is so much better than speaking to a general agent that does not have the right information and just frustrates you.
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Great question Bridgetti,
As many people have pointed out, several factors influence call center efficiency and more importantly effectiveness. Key performance indicators can help drive performance in the call center operation, however, these performance metrics can create challenges in managing performance of individual agents. Having worked in multiple call centers I have found that often times the KPI’s that managers are measured against can be counter to the ultimate goal of providing a quality customer experience that the call center and the parent company have. The key to creating a successful customer experience in the call center is managing the KPI performance with the human interaction between managers and front line employees.
If you visit call centers that have won awards for the service they provide, the atmosphere is open and positive. This creates excitement and commitment amongst employees who maybe making close to minimum wage, and all invest in the goal of taking care of the customer.
Combine this environment with the metrics listed in other posts and you have the recipe to develop award winning call centers, where customers enjoy doing business with your organization.
Bridgetti,
Some of the issues you mentioned will eventually be handled through better self-service technology. I'm not talking speech-rec systems. I mean interactive video, blended reality, and virtual world technologies, where you and the agent will share a common context. These bleeding edge approach are not really that far off--maybe a few years before it starts impacting consumers. Closer at at at hand: companies are getting better and better at turning their in-house knowledge into searchable knowledge-bases, which can be accessed on the web.
And ... check out Paul English's www.gethuman.com. The sites gives you the touch-tone sequences that let you to get past the clunky IVR systems of many companies.
Hope this helps,
Andy Green
www.avayablog.com
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From my experience, training is the most important thing to get the thing working. (remember, call center turn over rate is HIGH)
Recording review is always good too.
You need to monitor the service smartly. For example, do not KPI on calls handled or average minutes used. But on return calls and # of transfers to get the answer.
If cost is not an issue, which is probably totally false, bring it in house. Otherwise, have tier-ed system, such as big accounts go to local team, small accounts go to remote call center.
There are many good and many poor call centres out there, so it is hard to make a genaralisation.
The problems seems to be.
1. Lack of training and career delvelopment that leads to a poor skill levels among employees.
2. Ineffective use of technology - particularly touch tone menus (IVR)
Perhaps we all need to do a better job of complaining (maybe writing to their senior management) to highlight that there is a real problem
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The thing about Call centers i find most ofthen is that their employees lack pride in their work, the call center focus on quantity over quality and the comany hiering them just push for more sales in faster pace.
we we can get a focus back to quality in all parts of all sales then i think we will see call centers become more "user friendly"
Ajay M
Senior Manager - Branch Head
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For me, shooting an e-mail would work better than calling in for two main reasons : -
(1) I can have a written record of my complaint/grievance/feedback/suggestion which makes it easier for future references and to follow up in case I don't get a response or for that matter a satisfactory response the first time. Thus, I can save time and energy (on thinking and typing) by either forwarding the same mail to the "higher authorities" in an organisation, or even sending them a reminder if I have already tried to contact them earlier. This is made very convenient all thanks to a dedicated 24*7 high-powered (54 Mbps) broadband wifi service network at my home and office.
One can even track down top management contact information on the net and directly shoot them e-mails to, hopefully, get faster and more appropriate responses.
(2) E-mailing would generally help me avoid, firstly, waiting in a queue for my call to be answered/picked up, secondly, avoid being put on hold after my call is answered and having to listen to unmelodious tunes, and thirdly, the discomfort of having to be kicked around like a football between concerned officers and/or various departments while having to repeat the 'same old story' over and over again to their entire staff at that organisation until I get my solution, and that too, all this at my cost (phone bills) and time !
There is no major problem in ascertaining mail ids of top management in a company nowadays, one can always google the name of the person, and to get a name one needs good amount of patience and persuasion skills to get it out of the junior / down the line staff... Threats to escalate the issue normally work very well.
This does not go to say that call centres do not work responsibly or that they do not have to adhere to basic quality and professional standards.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with clients (B2B) are in place to maintain quality standards and ensure no deviations from the business plan or call transactions of the call centre staff.
The relatively bad experience is usually the exception and not the norm !
There are very strict staff training programmes and disciplinary (internal) action in the event of repeated errors / mistakes committed by the staff as observed and reported by clients or customers alike...
The introduction and implementation of ISO or Six Sigma business practices, guidelines and recognition as inculcated as a habit with call centre staff, has put, customer service quality and process standards on a 'major' focus with negligible failure rates to the processes ever acceptable.
The ability to have IP call centers opens the door to have employees throughout the US/world manning call centers. This opens up the pool of available skilled call center agents to employ instead of just interviewing/hiring local to the call center. The call center staff shouldn't be an entry level position.
The design of the call center is still very critical to having a successful call center. The latest technology helps you to design a call center that will give your callers more options, thereby making their experience a more pleasant one. You can even give them the ability to select what style of music on hold they want to listen to, thereby improving their mood while they are holding.
I'm sure there are several vendors that would love to meet with you to discuss ways you can improve your call center. Avaya and Siemens are two of the products we support and although we are only in the US, they are worldwide. www.avaya.com
