The Contact Center Blog

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.

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).

Smiling Over Live Chat

The one tip I really stress to new Call Center agents here at 24-7 INtouch is to remember to “smile” over the phone. Of course, no one on the other end can actually see the agent smiling, but they really can hear it in the tone of voice.

Which brings us to Live Chat. Almost every perspective client inevitably questions the human touch aspect of it. They’re right to ask. The truth is it’s much harder to communicate effectively via a written medium than it is verbally. Professor Albert Mehrabian theorized that in a face-to-face conversation, only 7% of the actual communication happening comes from the words.

So how do your create the right tone over Live Chat? These are some tips I offer to agents:

• Convey warmth by being extra polite throughout. Add a “please” or “thank-you” wherever possible to create the proper a tone.
• Always try to personalize pre-written or “canned” answers to make them feel spontaneous and to make the customer feel like you are talking to them. Stating the customer's name a few times during the chat might help.
• Pay close attention to the customer’s questions, ensure that they are not having to repeat themselves as this gives a highly impersonal feel.
• Skim the text you are about to send and avoid using statements that may be misunderstood or interpreted more than one way. Expressions or one-liners that may work in person or over the phone often fall into this category.

These are the ways we can “smile” over chat in the same way we “smile” on the phone. Well done Live Chat can be an extremely powerful tool in customer communications. It has emerged as what will probably be the future of website support and it has a number of advantages that a well organized contact center company could help you achieve.

-Jeff Fettes

Considering the Rising Canadian Dollar

Traditionally, the Canadian/US exchange rate has favored the American client. Recently this has changed due to the rising value of the Canadian dollar. Many people have asked me why U.S. clients are continuing to choose Canadian and other near-shore options for outsourcing? The answer is that Canada can still offer a few key advantages:

• Lower turnover. Comparing records on Statistics Canada and the U.S. Department of Labor sites, we can see that in spite of the healthy Canadian economy the U.S. still maintain an average lower unemployment rate then Canada, which leads to lower turnover of employees. This creates more stability of staff translating to better consistency in service quality.
• Better Education. When choosing an outsourcer, you are choosing their agents to speak with your contacts and represent your organizations. Canada statistically has a more highly educated workforce. According to a study done a few year ago by The Urban Institute, about 8% more of the Canadian workforce have obtained at least a high-school diploma.
• Pricing. Yes, that’s right, we’re still generally less expensive up here. How? According to jobfutures.ca it’s a generally higher standard of living at a lower wage. In the U.S. the national mean hourly wage for contact centers is $11.63, where as the average in Canada is only $10.60.

Outsourcing to near-shore centers has always worked well due to geographical proximities and cultural similarities. Canada has been the near-shore leader for over a decade now and there's more than one reason for that. If you’re considering outsourcing, I recommend calling on a few Canadian companies and let them give you their best shot.

I think you’ll be impressed.

-Jeff Fettes

Actions Speak Louder Than Messages

If you’re going to outsource…OUTSOURCE! Hiring a full-service professional call center to just take messages is sometimes a good temporary solution if you need a rapid set-up to cover a large number of calls and really don’t have a long term need to invest the money into getting your outsourcer trained on how to service your customers. However, if you plan to outsource calls long term, you have to be prepared to put in some effort.

Remember that even though you want to create the illusion of seamlessness to your contacts, there is a separation there. Outsourced agents will never be quite as familiar with your organization as your actual employees are. To create that illusion, information will have to be more carefully scripted and presented so that it’s easy for the agents to read and present to your contacts. To do this effectively, you may want to develop specific custom web-based tools to help the call center access information in a way that’s familiar to them.

Might this be expensive? Difficult to do? Yes, but it’s worth it. The old expression, “you get out what you put in” comes to mind. If you truly want your outsourcer to be a seamless extension of your organization, you have to empower them to be able to actually help your contacts. “First call resolution” is an expression in the contact center industry you may have heard. It means that when the caller phones in, their concerns are addressed and dealt with on that first single call, without further follow-up being necessary. According to a study done by the CFI Group, this is the most important issue in contact satisfaction. The major benefits to first call resolution include:

• Your callers will leave the call more satisfied if the reason for their call has been resolved (i.e. order placed, payment made, etc.)
• Your overall cost is diminished as you are paying for the time your outsourcer spends on the phone. 1 call is cheaper than 2 is cheaper than 3.
• Seamlessness between you and your provider. Nothing screams “outsourcer” like a call center agent who asks to take a message for what should be a very simple task (checking their account balance, placing an order, etc.)

All that being said, you have to be realistic at the same time. If you’re a small company and your main reason for outsourcing is that you don’t receive many calls but you still want the phones covered when customers call, then outsourcers may not be able to achieve a first call resolution for you on that scale. The important thing is to understand the importance of a first call resolution and to keep an eye on your process as you progress, looking for new ways to empower your call center to work better for you and your contacts.

-Jeff Fettes

On-Demand Pricing Vs. Traditional Hourly Pricing

I’ve been reading a lot lately about “on-demand pricing” in the outsourcing world and people keep asking me what it is. On-demand pricing basically means that you pay for what you use, usually at a bit of a premium with some kind of minimum. The concept is by paying a little more per transaction, you will ultimately save money by not having to constantly over-estimate your needs and pay for the wastage. Does that make sense? No? Let’s try an example:

My friend Mike throws business lunches at a trendy restaurant every Wednesday as a tool for attracting potential clients. He invites 40 people to the lunch every week, but really has no idea how many will show up. Sometimes as few as 15 come, but sometimes all 40 show up and a few times the 40 brought friends. The restaurant’s pricing options are:

1. The restaurant would cater a party of 40 for $35 per person with one weeks notice.
2. Guests can order off the menu which works out to an average of about $42 per person but Mike has to guarantee a minimum bill of $450.

Mike found that option 2, paying $7 more per person, was actually cheaper than constantly catering for 40 and throwing out the excess food. Even better, if 43 showed up, he didn’t have to worry about being short on chicken.

In the contact center outsourcing business we call this on-demand pricing. In a traditional contact center pricing model, you pay by agent per hour. This works out well if you get a large volume of contacts (phone calls, chats, e-mails) in a very predictable time frame. With on-demand pricing your usage can fluctuate up and down a little more comfortably. The outsourcer will charge you incrementally (for example 24-7INtouch has packages with per minute pricing) and you will end up paying a little more total for each call, but will save money overall if you need a bit more flexibility. So how do you know if on-demand or traditional hourly pricing is the way to go for your project? Here are a couple of small tips:

Traditional Hourly Pricing	On-Demand Pricing
Contacts come in during regular business hours	24 hour service is required
Contacts are steady and very predictable	Contacts can come in large spikes
Very large volume of contacts (more than 10,000 per month)	A smaller or unknown volume of contacts (small-medium sized businesses)
Volume of contacts is established and fairly stable	Volume of contacts may require some quick unanticipated scalability up or down

The best way to know which model will suit your project is to talk to a professional at an outsource contact center who can help you look at your campaign from both angles to make the best decision.

-Jeff Fettes