Alberta Business Marketing

In this ever increasingly open and connected world of ours, many would argue that more choice is always better. But is it really? In some cases, maybe the answer is “yes.” But in a lot of cases, I think the answer is “no”, and you may be able to improve customer satisfaction, first contact resolution, and a host of operating metrics by revisiting the choices you offer to customers.

Contact centres are full of choices. Technology is full of choices. And in the business of serving customers, those of us who have responsibilities for contact centres understand that there are a lot of choices to be made. What are our overarching business objectives? What is our enterprise strategy? What is our customer service strategy? What’s our operating plan? It’s a long list, and even once we’ve made these decisions, there are even more choices to consider every day as we endeavour to bring our vision to life.

With the plethora of new and existing choices to be made by both contact centre leaders and customers, it is tempting to conclude that “more choice is always better.” Making this choice may lead to a mantra of “let customers interact with us in whatever way they want to.” Kinda hard to argue with what appears to be a relatively altruistic principle such as that. But making that choice also implies an underlying philosophy that whatever customers want we’ll offer. In a contact centre environment, that might translate into offering services in whatever channel customers choose (let alone implying in whatever language they may choose). But is this what we really want?

Shouldn’t our objective be to deliver value within the choices we have made even if the choices we’ve made do not represent the complete universe of possibilities that customers might want? It feels like sometimes we’re embracing and implementing anything that expands customer choice simply because it does.

I remember hearing a quote from Barry Schwartz (Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College), who authored The Paradox of Choice. He said, “It seems evident that if choice is good, more choice is better. The paradox is that this ‘obvious’ truth isn’t true. It turns out that a point can be reached where, with more choice, people are worse off.” I think this makes a lot of sense.

There are examples of this thinking outside of the contact centre industry. You’ll probably recall that a number of years ago the North American automotive industry offered options for vehicles that sometimes meant choosing from a menu of a hundred or more options. Ultimately, retailers realized that packaging these options required less effort consumers, simplified the ordering processes, simplified the manufacturing configurations, and clearly saved the manufacturers (and possibly the consumers) a great deal of money. I would argue that since this reduced customer effort, customers were happier too.

In the contact centre space, think about some of the channel choices we’ve offered to customers over the fullness of time: mail, fax, IVRs, phone, email, web, text, chat, click to call, co-browsing, social media, etc. Now think about the complexity this adds and the implications to delivering a great customer experience.

Now, I have no doubt that there are some companies and contact centres that have figured out how to offer all of this choice well, so I am certainly not saying it can’t be done … and maybe they can even do it all effectively and efficiently. What am I saying is that we need to take a step back and look at what choices have the most potential to help us achieve our business objectives and deliver a great customer experience … and more choice is not always better.

So, how much choice should we offer? I think it really does depend on your answers to the questions around business objectives and strategies mentioned above. If we consider contact centre channel choices as a focal point for a moment, I can tell you some of us are heartily engaging in this discussion within our own organization (in our AIR MILES® Reward Program) as we consider adding channels and associated capabilities like online chat, for example. We could, and may well offer chat, but when I think about the reasons that customers contact our centre for service, the vast majority have already utilized the web to access their account or redeem for a reward. So, if a customer has an issue at this point, it usually relates to some more complex issue or requires the conveyance of private information that is most effectively addressed with real dialogue, often necessitating the exchange of private or sensitive data. In these cases, I think offering chat will just create unrealistic expectations for first contact resolution and that the interaction will migrate to the phone channel anyway … definitely not a low effort experience for the customer nor a cost effective interaction for the organization. This has been our experience with a significant proportion of our emails, despite our attempts to bring clarity to these inquiries via our website and online “forms.” (I’ve chosen to take a pass on a discussion of “customer accountability” for choice here in the interest of brevity, and that could be a topic all on its own.)

I don’t think I’m alone on all of this either. Interestingly enough, I was on the American Express website the other day and noticed that they don’t appear to offer email as a channel for customer service. They probably had similar experiences to the ones I described, thought through the issues, and reached a similar conclusion. So, as fast as technology and marketing enable new choices for the customer experience, I’m inclined for the customer service side of the business to take a leadership role. Rather than rush into what may appear to be the addition of enticing choices for customers, invest the time with your teams to really think about your business objectives, your strategy, your brand, and of course, your customers.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts and experiences around all of this.

Dave Burns
SVP and Chief Operating Officer, LoyaltyOne | AIR MILES® Reward Program

Tags: Contact Centre, Customer Experience, Strategy
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For those of us that have been in the Contact Centre industry for any length of time, we all remember the infamous book Contact Centres for Dummies. Well, it’s back! The book has been re-written, republished and is back in the market with a facelift.

My blog today speaks to increasing performance via motivating your front-line workforce. Chapter 14 of Contact Centre for Dummies is dedicated to anecdotal and actual proof statements relating to this very topic. Hence, my title – Chapter 14.

Chapter 14 focuses on three key areas that ultimately drive success in Contact Centres: recognizing the importance of employee motivation; finding out about agents’ needs; and motivating and rewarding your agents.

Unmotivated agents are less productive and have a higher turnover ratio. Meaning, unmotivated staff cost you money (negative ROI) being there and cost you money to replace them when they leave. There are many different formulas used to calculate “true cost of attrition”. One widely accepted conservative ratio is 3-1. Meaning, it costs 3X more to replace staff versus developing, upgrading skills and motivating your existing staff. If that is true, why do many organizations allow the attrition ratio to be so high? One theory involves not seeing what is deemed as “soft costs” to the organization. Hence, we sometimes fall into that trap of, “If I pay $100 to upgrade the skills of a particular agent, I have to get that cost approved”. Fact is, to replace that agent it will cost you at least $300.

The challenge is not only learning what motivates staff, but also how to accomplish that motivation. In my experience, often most difficult for leaders is actually taking action on the how on a consistent, daily basis. Somehow, things get in the way. Not to mention, some front-line leaders take for granted that “their staff are happier when left alone”. That is myth 101!

Do leaders do enough? When was the last time you or your leadership team conducted a verbal or written (public or anonymous) survey of your agents, asking them basic questions such as: what motivates you? what would make you leave? what one thing would you change here? how do you feel about our culture? While I am certain everyone could come up a variety of this type of question, don’t forget that if you are going to take the time to ask, be sure not only to communicate WHY you are asking, but also to TAKE ACTION as a result of the findings. Surveys create expectations and failing to deliver on expectations can create credibility issues, negating any value derived from surveying your team in the first place.

Another lesson I have learned regarding successfully motivating agents regards the collection of metrics and linking metrics to performance. Far too often, I see contact centres compiling an enormous amount of metrics measured at the rep level. Measuring is critical to success but I have found that basing performance on a multitude of metrics at the agent level more often than not confuses agents. That in turn can de-motivate staff, as well as drive productivity down. My theory on metrics is this: measure the input metrics (in the background) in detail, but give accountability at the agent level on a very limited number of output metrics (visual for agents). Show agents “how-to” achieve the targets set on the output metrics, as all targets should be 100% controllable by the agent.

My final tip: reward, reward, reward. Not all rewards cost money. Encouraging Post-it notes, emails, personal calls, coffee, etc. are all little to no cost but go a long way in motivating agents and making them feel more connected to senior leaders in the organization.

In conclusion, I do not believe creating an engaged work-force is complicated. However, it does take a concentrated effort from many levels of the organization, on a consistent basis. The net returns are high in value and very rewarding for the staff and the organization.

By Amar Sidhu, Director - National Contact Centres, Trader Corporation and Chair of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Tags: Contact Centre, Customer Experience
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My wife recently had an interesting customer experience that, although she categorized as positive, I am sure the service provider would categorize as negative. My wife was trying to redeem points from a loyalty program toward an airfare. Her first stop was online where her options would have required eight times the number of points she had anticipated. Dissuaded by what she saw, she called the loyalty contact centre. By talking to an agent she was able to obtain an upgraded ticket at one-fifth the number of points as was required by the sel-serve option presented on the internet.

My wife was delighted with the service and results that she received from the contact centre, but as a contact centre guy myself, I was haunted by the unnecessary call that was driven into the contact centre. At the core of the issue for me was the inability for two customer-touching channels to harmonize their servicing strategy. The internet, a channel used to improve customer experiences and reduce costly calls to the contact centre, had in fact driven an additional call into the contact centre.

This experience is not unique to loyalty programs or an online contact centre strategy. We see this type of unintended end result frequently caused by organizations with multiple customer touch points. When you consider all the potential ways in which you touch a customer (inbound calls, outbound calls, marketing solicitations, statements and invoices, applications, letters and so on), its easy to understand how difficult it becomes to maintain consistency within a customer touch point communication strategy.

I have seen organizations where customers question that company’s price competitiveness not because of the outside competitive market, but rather because different channels are offering different rates for the same product suite. I have seen organizations where statement inserts have not been communicated to the contact centre and thus resulted in frustrating customer experiences and lower than anticipated take-up rates. All of theses types of issues, and many more similar ones, drive both customer dissatisfaction and increased cost.

The overriding issue seems to be that the larger an organization grows, the more touch points and channels it has to communicate with customers. As the number of customer touch points grow, the control over the consistency and sharing of information internally seems to weaken.

What is missing is a customer contact guru: an individual or a team who does not own a specific customer contact channel, but rather is empowered to ensure that all information sent or accessible to a customer is appropriately disseminated within the corporate organization. A group that is tasked for identifying and eliminating conflicting information between channels. Effectively, a group that makes sure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. Until such time that we recognize that all of our touch points with our customers need to be zealously guarded, we will continue to be our own worst enemies.

Richard Litvack, Vice President, Operations, Citi Cards Canada Inc.
& member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Tags: Contact Centre, Customer Experience, Get it off your chest
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Agents often manage it best.

Most companies have a renewed focus on their business plans for 2010 and are considering strategies and overall customer centric processes that might not have been a significant part of their thinking in the past.

In the world of customer service, retention is an active buzz word. The focus appears to have switched slightly from that of sell sell sell, to one of nurturing and keeping that valued customer of yesterday.

Amidst all of the latest and greatest technology and the various ways that call centers are positioning themselves for success, one fundamental element continues to reappear in the language of what a customer is looking for: The ability to have an intelligent conversation with an agent who is able to assess and resolve their issue on that first call.

While the notion of First Call Resolution (FCR) is not new, nor has it lost its importance in the world of call center metrics, what is getting more attention today is the whole notion of Employee Empowerment. In a true call center space, what this means is arming an agent with the right training and support to be able to make decisions. It seems simple enough, however in the past, agent tasks were seen as more transactional in nature, and void of the ability to truly communicate with the customer in a meaningful and productive way.

There is a common thread throughout the call center space these days, beckoning the agent to have a true “conversation” with the customer, and not worry so much about Average Handle Time (AHT). Call centers traditionally have more metrics and an abundance of measurements that will supposedly, at the end of the long mathematical equation, tell companies how the overall service delivery was and what improvements can be made.

Steering away from these metrics and empowering the agent was historically, not an option. I recently attended a Call Center Conference wherein two very large corporations spoke of the challenges of transitioning the belief that their respective call centers were not cost centers but in fact revenue generating centers. They both highlighted the adaptation of structured Employee Empowerment strategies as keys to their recent successes in this area.

Today, with the implementation of solid Employee Empowerment initiatives, many call centers have transitioned from being viewed as true cost centers, to powerful centers of service delivery with the potential to generate substantial revenue.

Effective service delivery = retention, recommendations and a willingness on behalf of the customer to purchase additional product. Therefore with an enhanced focus on just the service piece alone, call centers now have front line customer service agents who are also skilled at retention and sales if they are able to deliver effective service.

If given the proper training and support, empowered agents, for the most part, are trustworthy, effective and happier at their daily task. They make better decisions and show a more genuine interest in a customer concern when armed with the ability to make a difference without the need to escalate the issue. It bodes well for a company to demonstrate as much trust, faith and empowerment to their own employees as they do with their direct customer base.

For the most part, front line agents want to succeed in their function, and when given the ability to make decisions, take that very seriously and don’t give away the farm. For example, when a huge appliance company decided to make the policy shift to empower their front line agents, internally some feared that the company could lose millions of dollars through agents giving away free product. Of course, the total opposite occurred. Metrics showed that empowering their front line contact centre agents resulted in large savings and improved customer retention. Improved call centre experiences gave customers a whole new reason to remain loyal to the brand.

The message needs to be clear: Employee Empowerment isn’t about “giving up power” but more about “sharing power” with those who have the ability to make a difference in the organization. Agents will feel that a bigger investment is being made and that their contributions really do matter. The end result is a more motivated and skilled front line, and no doubt both the company and the customer will benefit from that!

Customer service most often is the differentiator in this highly competitive market. Companies need to re-engineer their service platform in such as a way as to consistently exceed customer expectations. No doubt adopting, training and continually supporting employee empowerment initiatives will be a key component in this planning effort.

Jennifer McLeod, VP, Business Development at VOXDATA Solutions Inc.
& member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Tags: Contact Centre
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Customer Service Week is a nationally recognized event in the United States that runs the first week of October every year. Many Canadian companies have adopted this event within their own corporate culture as a means to formally recognize how critical a customer contact centre is within an organization. The ICSA-Toronto Chapter sent out a newsletter to various companies providing tips on how to celebrate this event. The Toronto Chapter went as far as to hold a Staff Appreciation night so that companies could recognize their staff in a more formal setting. This alone shows how serious some companies are about recognizing and celebrating the importance of contact centres and the people within them.

How is the contact centre relevant to the marketing world? Marketers have long sought the services of the call centre to boost their sales via direct marketing initiatives, lead generation or cold calling. Not only can representatives assist customers with questions about a piece they have just received in the mail but can also provide callers with a needs analysis to ensure they are purchasing the product that best suits their needs, making a customer feel at ease with a potential purchase decision.

Marketers have come to realize that the contact centre is also a retention tool to keep the customers they have, as well as an additional revenue source, especially if more than one product is offered within an existing portfolio. By supporting the contact centre in terms of motivation, incentives, and thorough product training, it ensures the team is well-equipped to deal with any type of situation a caller may present. Marketers know that when customers are satisfied, it opens and paves the way to introduce other sales opportunities.

How can marketers support their contact centre teams not only during Customer Service Week but throughout the year?

• appreciate the amount of knowledge the contact centre is expected to retain
• pass along praise when you hear it from a customer
• be there to provide explanation if needed on product details
• provide incentives or treats to thank the team for well-launched campaigns and strong sales results

Keeping the contact centre engaged and well-informed of all marketing initiatives simply makes good business sense.

By Patricia Palumbo, Director, Customer Service, Manulife Financial-Affinity Markets and a member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Tags: Contact Centre
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