The Contact Center Blog

Are You Ready for the US Hispanic Market?

Is your call center ready to service the growing US Hispanic market?

In a recent report by NACC (National Association of Call Centers) written by Tony Malaghan (CEO of Arial International), the US Census Bureau recently put the US Hispanic demographic at 14.4% of the total US population. This is 1 out of every 7 people in the US is of Hispanic decent. By 2050, this is estimate to grow to 1 in 4 or 25% of the total US population.

It is not a surprise that the growth rate of this population is increasing each year with 60% being native born. But what is the impact on business and what is the buying power of this population? Stated in the article, the economic impact of the Hispanic population has grown 307% from 1990 to 2007, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth (University of Georgia). By 2012, it is forecasted to be over $1.2 Trillion with a growth rate of 495% from 1990 - 2012. To put it in perspective, the non-Hispanic buying power is growing at a rate of 189% over the same period. Due to this quick growth, this population was forecasted to exceed the buying power of the US African American population over 2007.

So, why are not more call centers strategically serving this growing market?

The article states some distinct challenges many customer service managers may be facing. One is the fact the population is not homogeneous. Hispanic refers to people of Spanish speaking descent, despite where they are originally from - Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Latin America, etc. Also, although Hispanics share a common language, as with all languages there are regional differences in vocabulary, accents, and cultural traits. These challenges are good examples of risks that may impact the ability to successfully target this market. Even just the magnitude of the marketing investment alone can be a deterrent. Companies must create culturally relevant products and services, language specific marketing material, communication, websites, and also invest in bilingual agents and technology features (IVR), etc.

However, as the numbers continue to rise, businesses must make a strategic decision to research and service this market. They may even be first movers in their industry and able to gain loyalty with this customer base. However, with every new business initiative, there must be strong commitment and a reasonable budget allocated to make the initiative a success.

- MK

Is There Room To Take Benchmarking Metrics In A Call Center Outside Of Operational KPI's?

Benchmarking in a call center is something that is traditionally viewed as client driven, for example 80/30 (80 percent of the calls answered in 30 seconds) service levels are recommended or in some cases expected with very little discussion on the important question Why?   Should we assume the client knows best?  Shouldn't we ask what the impacts are to cost, service and customer experience?  Has anyone had these conversations as part of the sales process?

Moving the traditional call center thinking from price to value and overall return related to all metrics is often an intimidating conversation, the familiarity leads towards price per minute, average handle time and number of quality coaching sessions.

The idea of customer service focused companies in collaboration with clients and call centers may be a way to optimize core-competencies and bring a new benchmark metrics to the call center industry that are perhaps longer-term focused. These may include average length of customer, increase in average order size and repeat purchases.

I believe strategic alliances focused on the right areas will enhance any end customer and client experience. Has anyone had a successful experience with this approach?

The "PEOPLE" Only a Piece of the Puzzle

For my first contribution to this Blog, I wanted to share my opinion on one of the strengths of the contact center outsourcing industry - the PEOPLE. Many call center outsourcers refer to their “people” as their agents when marketing/selling their services. They’re portrayed as friendly down to earth people who build relationships with customers. You’ll notice this just by visiting some outsourcers’ websites, like Hamilton, Global Response, AnswerConnect, and even 24-7 INtouch.

I came across an older blog entry talking about automated answering attendants and the real value of people. I agree that there’s a common focus on training call center agents, allowing them to be knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. As much as this is true, it doesn’t guarantee service being delivered the way it’s intended to be.

The “people” can be great, but they still need the tools and support to deliver. I think this can be sometimes overlooked. Call centers need to further support their agents by providing them with the right technology or system that’s user friendly, giving them quick access to the information they need. In addition to that there are many other things, such as a solid procedure and process of routing calls to appropriate agents, proper staffing, and workforce management, just to name a few. All of these factors affect the “people” and what they can really do.

Overall, the “people” are important but not the only thing customers should look out for. It’s the other things that support and work together with the people that distinguishes call centers from each other. Like a Ford Mustang, the power of it’s engine is impressive, but it needs many other functions working in sync to operate at maximum level. For call centers, the people also need other things working with them to deliver true quality service.

- JU

NCOF 08 - An Exhibitor's Perspective

The 24-7 INtouch team just got back from NCOF 2008 in Orlando last week and overall I think the show was pretty successful. We can never really define success from an ROI perspective until our sales team has the time to follow up on the leads generated from the show. But overall, here is my critique for the main elements we look for in a tradeshow (out of 5 star rating):

1) General Traffic -  2.5/5

The traffic in the exhibit hall was very low this year, which was surprising to us and also many of the other exhibitors. We definitely expected to see more people at the show which was a little disappointing. The attendee to exhibitor ratio seemed very low. There were several reasons that could explain the slow traffic, one being the American Airlines flight cancellations. AA canceled 3,300 flights over 5 days last week effecting travel for over a quarter million people. I guarantee some of those where destined to Orlando for the show. But a few things that could be controlled by the show management was the amount of breaks in the hall. There were very few traffic drivers into the hall (the "Food Factor" discussed in a previous posting) and also they closed the hall for 3 hours in the middle of the day! Last, the Exhibit hall was pretty far (downstairs) from the attendee tracks which made it easy for attendees to miss the hall.

2) Show Location - 4/5

The Gaylord Palms Resort was a very nice venue and since it was a little secluded it ensured many of the attendees would stay at the resort. This allowed for additional meetings with clients and also no one was in a rush to leave.

3) Attendees - 3.5/5

Out of the people we did speak to, many of them were very receptive of our services. They seemed interested and many were decision makers. Again, we have to wait for 6 months to see how interested they really were but, overall we were satisfied with who we were speaking to.

Those are my overall thoughts. I think I would give it a 3/5 using other shows we attend as a benchmark. We are attending next year again, so I still believe in the value of NCOF. If anyone would like to share their experience at the show I would love to hear from you! All comments welcome! Most of our competitors at the show were pretty forthcoming on how they thought the show was going, which is nice to see. There is nothing like a little friendly competition!

- MK

Music On Hold

Someone asked me recently how call centers decide what sort of on-hold music to play. For us, it’s been trial and error but I decided to do a little poking around to see if this has been researched. It has been and that this is a surprisingly loaded topic.

Some feel that on-hold music is a wasted marketing opportunity. Others have opted for actual on-hold entertainment, and a few have even developed ‘choose your own music’ options for their callers. If you have to choose just one, Science Daily reported that alternative music is the best crowd pleaser overall.

Perhaps most significantly, these studies show that callers on hold almost always overestimate how long they actually waited but most callers perceive their wait to be shorter when there is music (or something) playing.

The one thing everyone can agree on is that nobody likes dead air. Who knows? If you choose carefully you might actually have callers looking forward to holding.

"On Hold" Video

Here's a great video from RightNow Technologies...

Voice, Chat, Email… Video?

When I first started in this industry a few years ago, one of the first questions that came to mind was the plausibility of outsourced support that featured a live video feed between consumer and agent.

One service delivery model I envisioned at the time had to do with paid search. I thought it would be revolutionary if, as a consumer, you were to scroll over a paid search engine advertisement- and there to assist you was a live person via a video window pop up. This person could invite you into their ecommerce store and could help with placing an order or provide customer service.

I had not given this idea much thought recently until the beginning of the month when in the New York Times I discovered that Google was about to begin testing video ads on search results pages. Now this is not a live link to customer service agents, but I would argue it is definitely a step in that direction.

After reading the Times article, I decided to research ‘video support’ further and it turns out there is a formal term for this technology/service: ‘Interactive Voice and Video Response’. CosmoCom, a provider of contact center technology provides a video demonstration of this type of support here.

IVVR is apart of what industry experts are calling Call Center 2.0.

According to Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) President Rich Tehrani ‘video will play a huge part of call center 2.0. Call centers will video-enable themselves to increase the customer service of phone calls. In some cases conversations will be 2-way video enabled in other cases the benefits of having video calls will be so obvious that all call centers will scramble to show their agent’s faces.’

We have seen call centers become contact centers, and service offerings grow from simple phone support to email and live chat assistance options being available; I wonder if IVVR will be the next big step forward, and I look forward to hearing other people’s thoughts on the matter.

How Do You Maximize Existing Customer Revenue Potential?

One of the most valuable ways to increase your bottom line is by expanding the services of existing customers.  In the call center industry there are a number of ways to accomplish this via technology enhancements, quality assurance improvements, up sell marketing offers, chat, email utilization, fulfillment and IVR. 

At my company we utilize a wide network of partner experts to provide non-core call center services to enhance value, grow the customer and deepen the relationship.  On example is in the area of servicing  fulfillment.  Through strategic relationships we are able to service our customers enhanced needs with one contact person and one contract.  In addition we are able to offer preferred pricing that the customer would not be able to find on their own. 

What best practices has your company used to maintain an operational focus and still have a focus on program enhancements for customers once they are on service?

Top 50 Largest Call Centers

Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) just announced this week Customer Interaction Solutions® Magazine's 23rd annual Top 50 Inbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking.

This Top 50 Ranking recognizes the top inbound and outbound call center outsourcing agencies, both domestic and international, as well as interactive inbound and global aggregate ranking, as measured by the amount of billable teleservices minutes companies completed during the past year.

“The Top 50 Teleservices Agencies list offers our readers the most honest and reliable ranking of companies.  It is truly the benchmark for choosing large-size, large-capacity teleservices agencies,” said Nadji Tehrani, Executive Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Customer Interaction Solutions.

The list includes various large scale public call center outsources such as Convergys, Sitel, APAC, and Teleperformance, as well as medium size centers such as Hamilton, Archway, Telerx, OKS Ameridial, The Connection, and 24-7 INtouch contact centers. Click here to view the full list and rankings.

Congratulations to all of this year's winners!

- MK

Learning to Speak Contact Center-ese

While getting familiar with the contact center industry, one of the most challenging things is familiarizing yourself with all the terminology and acronyms. In hunting around I found a call center “dictionary” of sorts which you can find here. I thought it might also be useful to briefly summarize some of the key terms which you might encounter and explain how they could impact you if you were selecting an outsourcer.

Talk Time – This includes the total time spent on a call when an agent is talking to a contact. It’s the time from when the phone is answered and the agent says “hello” right to when the caller hangs up.

Wrap Time – This is the time at the conclusion of the call when the agent is still working on something to assist the contact, however the actual call itself is over. This might include data entry, etc.

HT – This is an acronym for “Handle Time”. Basically this includes the entire length of time required for dealing with one customer contact. The HT includes the talk time of the call plus the wrap time.

AHT - You might also hear AHT which stands for “Average Handle Time”. You can get this by taking the total of all the HT’s for a particular group of calls divided by the number of calls in that group to get the average.

When shopping for an outsource contact center AHT can have a strong influence on the price. Most outsourcers charge a price per agent minute or per agent hour. While a potential service provider that offers a cheaper rate per minute might seem like the obvious choice, shaving a few seconds off the AHT – for example a shorter wrap time – can result in significant savings when multiplied times your total number of calls.

When you’re shopping around, ask what techniques each center has for reducing the AHT.  If they don’t know what an AHT is, refer them to this blog (and choose a different provider).