Efficiency is good, effectiveness is better

Essentially, the goal of all contact centre management is to maximise the effectiveness of each customer contact, while optimising the efficiency of that contact.

In the dynamic field of customer relationship management, that contact centres exist in, the centre that fails to plan, review and constantly modify its systems and processes will certainly be left behind.

After all, maximising the effectiveness of each customer contact does not just happen by chance. There has to be a commitment to planning and consistent delivery.

But the focus has not always been on effectiveness. Over the years, as contact centre measurement and performance has evolved, a debate has raged between efficiency and effectiveness.

For most contact centres there has been a strong skew towards efficiency. Simply, it is more easily measured. Call centre elements such as talk time, wait time, and wrap up time are readily accessible. It has never been difficult to count such things.

That’s all to do with efficiency. “How much talk time per sale?” is a specific statistic and it can be counted as a clearly measurable element of efficiency.

But effectiveness is a different story. How can you evaluate performance from the perspective of the customer or prospect? Obviously, the metrics are difficult to capture.

For many managers today, managing the operation means juggling the demands of efficiency against effectiveness.  

And what does this juggling act amount to in reality? With the proliferation of marketing communication channels, customers today expect to have more options for communicating.

At the same time, they also expect total integration. In other words, if they transact through one channel, they expect that transaction to be recognised when they communicate through another channel. From the management point of view, to get all this activity aligned correctly requires efficient technology and personnel who are trained effectively.

Of course, there are major pressures that make it hard to get the effectiveness/efficiency formula right.

Tight operating budgets:
CFOs everywhere are directing their companies to do more with less, yet contact centres are the place where customer complaints land, which means there is constant pressure to perform at a high standard.

It is no longer possible to exhort agents to work faster or harder without adversely affecting quality and agent satisfaction.

Fickle customers, lower customer satisfaction, and increasing customer churn: 
These are all symptoms of a systemic “you don’t know me!” frustration on the part of customers. It must be very frustrating for contact centre managers to hear this, when they are doing so much to get effectiveness right.

Of course, training specialists insist that it has long been recognised that the best way to improve contact centre performance is to make the agent workforce more effective. Their thesis is that enterprises achieve significant, measurable results by developing their agents through coaching. They say that effectiveness can be dramatically improved by continually evaluating behaviour, using personalised training and objective feedback to correct any problems and by providing recognition and rewards to build motivation.