Regularly Scheduled Reminder: Back to Basics

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at a regional gathering of the Contact Center Networking Group (www.ccng.com) in Phoenix, AZ..

I love CCNG meetings because I am always inspired by the common force and unity that Contact Center Professional feel for their craft. They are inherently united and willing to help each other.

I ran out of time at the presentation (not unusual), and could not touch on these basics, so I thought I would cover a couple of them here.

1. Contact Centers Are About People
Although technology, statistics, quality sheets and accuracy are important, contact centers are about people.
- People buy your products
- People call you for assistance
- People deliver the service.

The proper management of contact center is the creation of a conduit that facilitates the efficient servicing of people (customers and employees). Our goal is to exceed both of their expectations in a manner that the human-touch can be noticed. Ultimately, we are transforming transactions into positively emotional events that create the possibility for loyalty.

2. Listen to Customers – Understand Their Expectations.
It is very difficult to exceed expectations we don’t understand.
I often find contact center managers making assumptions about what customers want. Many times we are wrong. The result can be an unnecessary over-extension of resources, or the blatant mis-aiming of our efforts. “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else”

Ask your customer what they expect? Build policies and procedures to exceed those expectations.

3. The Customer Wants Only Two Things:
a. Answer the phone Now!
b. Solve my problem Today!

This may sound too basic, but it isn’t.
As we concentrate in areas we know to be deficient, we risk loosing focus. Although ASA, training, calibration, AHT, processes, attrition or any of the hundreds of variables that call our attention play a key role in achieving success, we must make sure we consider and prioritize our activities in the context of how they help us achieve the customer’s expectations.
When deciding on any aspect of our business, we would do well to ask ourselves: “How does this help me answer the phone more efficiently and/or increase First Call Resolution for my customers?”

Which brings me to,

4. Choose the Right Key Performance Indicators

There are two types of KPIs – Leading and Lagging.
A Lagging KPIs point to the past. For example, Customer Satisfaction Results is a lagging KPI. It tells you the level of Customer Satisfaction you’ve achieved. But it doesn’t provide insight on how to improve it.

A leading KPI measures activity that impacts the achievement of the desired result. For example, abandon rate is a leading indicator of Customer Satisfaction. In this case, I would say, make sure you put more weight on Abandon Rate in your balanced KPI set.

Although, abandon rate is leading, and that’s good, it is also passive and that’s not so good. It does not measure actual actions that create the desired goal, and therefore, is a weak leading indicator.

The best leading indicators are active in that they measure actions that lead to the desired results. Here is the perfect example:

McDonald’s needed to increase their average purchase per visit. Naturally, they chose average ticket sales as their KPI. After a year, they saw only marginal improvement. The reason was that their attention was placed on the lagging KPI. So they changed their focus from the lagging indicator to a new and active leading indicator – The percentage of times the host or hostess asked the question: “would you like that super-sized?”. By measuring the percentage of times the host or hostess offers super-sized meals, they are managing action that creates results.

Although Leading vs. Lagging is simple to understand, finding great active leading KPIs is not so easy. One can spend weeks looking for the right leading KPIs, but, they will be weeks well spent.

Keep it simple, keep it basic.

RudyV
Committed to XCS!