The Contact Center Blog

Is it Possible To Reduce The Cost of Customer Service and Enhance The Consumer Experience?

Is there really a way to "Do More With Less" and increase customer satisfaction?  This is a popular theme within all business verticals in today's economic climate.

We have all experienced the frustrating scenario as a consumer where we seek information for products and services on-line, do not find the answer we need and then call a contact center agent only to be "transferred" and have to repeat the same set of questions with a new customer service channel to find the answer we are looking for. 

This leads to a negative experience, reduced satisfaction and higher cost for the company that is providing the customer service. 

By now we are all familiar with the options to enable multi-channel customer service via email, voice (live agents), live web chat  and self service via on-line search tools or IVR options; but how many companies provide consumers with consistency across all these channels? 

The key to increasing CSAT and reducing service cost is to enable a seamless escalation path across all channels and enable multiple communication channels for consumers to find the answer they are looking for.

How is this accomplished?  First it is important to understand where your consumers typically begin the process of searching for information when making a buying decision or customer service inquiry.

Let's take the example of a traditional company web site.  A typical consumer will start their search for information on the web.  By providing easy to use self service options on-line  the company is able to take the first step in handling the majority of questions via basic FAQ's or key word searches, this is also the most cost effective way to handle these contacts and reduce calls into the contact center. 

But what happens when the consumer does not find the information there are looking for?  Unfortunately for many businesses the consumer is then forced to call into the contact center which results in a higher cost to handle the contact with live agents and results in lost opportunity for those consumers that abandon because they do not want to call for help.

The most overlooked avenue to bridge the communication gap, provide your consumer with increased choice and reduce site abandonment is live web chat.  By providing consumers with the ability escalate from self service to chat companies are able to handle a larger portion of consumer contacts in a cost effective manner and further deflect costly phone calls into the contact center.

In addition, enabling this channel allows companies to collect valuable information on the web site by evaluating chat transcripts to make self service and web site enhancements that increase overall satisfaction and further reduce costly phone calls.

While there are some consumers that would prefer to call the contact center directly, a growing majority prefer to get answers while on the web, providing all three communication channels allows businesses to provide choice to the consumer for how they would prefer to interact with your business.

So what are the keys to a successful multi-channel strategy for your customer service? Aside from providing multiple communication channels that include web self service, live web chat and phone support the most overlooked component is consistent content across all these channels. 

Too often the information at the finger tips of the contact center agent is inconsistent with the content on the website, creating confusion for the consumer.  Consolidating content and answers to questions that is consistent across all channels ensures brand consistency, lower cost and increased customer satisfaction.

This is only part of the customer service optimization process. By tracking the questions that you do not have prepared answers for when customers escalate to a live web chat or a voice agent creates an immediate feedback loop where on-line self service tools can be enhanced to provide more useful and relevant information for your consumers. 

The reason most consumers escalate to an agent is because they did not find the answer they were looking for via self service. 

Thus, the key to reducing the cost of providing customer service and increasing CSAT for your consumers is to utilize the data collected at the agent level and then feed the missing content back into the self service or live web chat response library.  This creates an ongoing commitment to brand consistency, a more satisfied consumer and most importantly reduced cost to provide the service.

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?

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?

What Are You Good At?

In life and business those that do everything generally do nothing really well, is this reality or myth?  Hard to say for sure but one thing that does hold true is that by doing everything you are bound to get lost and not stand out in the crowd.  In my professional life I am tasked with aligning companies together that might best complement each other and add value to each other and the end customer.  When a company makes a decision to focus on a core service offering and leave the external services to experts it is very important to ensure that you are aligned with partners that have a targeted approach in their market niche; this will ensure the value ad offered is a true differentiator and stands out from the competition.  Aligning with a customer that believes they are experts in everything is a recipe for a mediocre value ad service for your customer.

Is 50,000 feet to high for a first call?

Over the last number of months I have had the good fortune to meet and discuss outsourcing relationships with a number of direct and indirect contact center related companies.  These include fulfillment houses, software companies, training consultants and of course contact centers.  When meeting potential business partners I am always amazed at the variety of ways companies communicate there “ pitch”.  Some are from as high as 50,000 feet and others as low as 15,000.  Regardless of the message the introductions that have the biggest impact for me are the companies that have the confidence to communicate early on what they can and cannot deliver.  While some may feel that it is unnecessary to disclose strengths and weaknesses on a first call I am always motivated to work with a company that knows who they are and what they can deliver.  In my view the purpose of developing external relationships is to add value to the overall service offering.  The only way this can occur is if both parties are honest when identifying what they are good at and where they need help.

The next time you are developing a new business relationship try a lower altitude on a first call and dive into strengths and weaknesses; you may be surprised to quickly learn how much value can be added from both parties, which is the staple for any long lasting partnership.

-MC