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

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.

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?

First Call Resolution Article

I came across this article in Operations & Fulfillment section of Multichannel Merchant Magazine. As a major KPI for many call center clients, first call resolution is always being discussed during our management meetings. By investing time and energy into resolving callers issues on that first call, your clients will not only save money but greatly increase customer satisfaction.

The first step is to measure it. The article offers this calculation used by Seta Corp; "Total number of calls, less the calls requiring escalation = the number of calls answered on the first call.  Divide by total calls to get the percentage of calls resolved on the first call." The Q4 results for the company were "83,386 total calls less 5,818 calls that were escalated = 77,568 calls with first-call resolution. 77,568 divided by 83,386 = 93.02% first-call resolution."

The second point the article makes is the importance of defining what type of calls need to be escalated. By giving your call center reps the authority to deal with certain types calls this will increase first call resolution. For example, the article notes, "Give the first-line reps an appropriate level of authority to deal with customers. Our reps have been empowered to give the customer up to $25 in money back or $50 in merchandise just to resolve any customer situation/complaint."

For an outsourced center, this authority level will vary from client to client depending on their product/service offering and their level of comfortability. As a company using an outsourced vendor, talk with your account manager to decide on what is reasonable and review after a defined period with your results. You might be surprised that a small change up or down can really help drive your first call resolution statistics.

To read "First Call Should Do it All ", please visit:

http://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/advisor/first_call_0129/

- MK

Happy Holidays!

Here is a fun video from found from Tamer Parnters ideal for the holiday season. Happy holidays and best in 2008!

- MK

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

Chat and Email Poll - Taylor Research Group

I came across this poll from Taylor Research Group: "How much has the percentage of emails and web (text) chats has has increased in the past year?". The results are interesting as ~ 87% of respondents all saw an increase, ~13% saw no increase, and not one respondent experienced a decrease. As shown in the industry, chat and email use is on the rise. For 24-7 INtouch we expect to see an increase in both chats and emails as our clients ramp up for the holiday season - as much as 20%.

Image source: http://www.thetaylorreachgroup.com/data/newsletters/200710_Newsletter.pdf

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

Welcome to the Contact Center Blog!

Well folks, here it is, finally, at long last, the contact center blog has arrived.  What is the contact center blog you ask?  The general idea was to create a blog where people who are stakeholders in contact center outsourcing companies, whether it be clients, suppliers, partners, or even outsourcers themselves can have open discussions on all things contact center.   Whether it be topics like operations, new technology, driving volumes, workforce, human resources or whatever, we want to encourage open and honest communication in our industry.

I'm sure your next question is "who the heck is this guy?"  Well, my name is Greg Fettes, and I am the President and CEO of 24-7 INtouch, a contact center outsourcer based in Canada.  You can check out my LinkedIN profile or visit the about us area on the 24-7 INtouch website.  At the risk of sounding too "salesy" (a big no-no on this blog from here on!), we have been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Canada two years in a row and pride ourselves in being a true leader in innovation for technology, process, and management in contact centers.  In fact, that is the underlying reason this blog got started.  It was a way to create a community that will push the industry in a new direction.  In the coming months you will see guest authors from inside and outside the contact center world make posts on different issues concerning contact centers.  But here's the trick; we are depending on you, the readers, to make comments and push discussions forward.  Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, or maybe you have experiences that you can share that will bring the conversation in a new direction.  We will not be censoring posts or comments for any reason (except vulgarity of course!) so you will be free to absolutely speak your mind.   Anyways, enough background already, lets get on to the blog!

My plan for posting comments on the contact center blog will be to follow a somewhat similar format each week.  I am hoping to post regularly once per week on Mondays and have a few random posts throughout the week.  Please feel free to give feedback on the blog in general as my goal is to make it as useful and informative as possible.

Thanks and happy blogging!

GF