Why do customer service failures persist?

Call centres are hot houses of performance measures and analysis.  There’s not a ratio or indicator that has not been put to the test in a call centre.  But what does all the analysis and measurement tell us?

Customer satisfaction is the key to call centre success.  At the end of the day, meeting customer need is all that matters. If customer service is not the ultimate priority, the very existence of the call centre has to be questioned.

Sure, we want to know what it costs to meet customer needs.  But more importantly we have to clearly define needs and accurately measure customer satisfaction.

Customer service failures occur when we become obsessed with the metrics and benchmarks and lose sight of our customer.

Consider the scenario of Agent M.  Agent M is multi skilled and has immense product knowledge.  He is dedicated to the delivery of excellent customer service.  He is respected by his colleagues and is a previous ‘employee of the year’.

Agent M frequently tops the sales ratio list, both in number of sales, value of sales and return sales.  He is popular with customers and, although not ideal in a call centre environment, is sometimes requested by name by inbound callers.

Agent M has just been moved sideways in his call centre.   Why?  Because his Average Handling Time gives management a headache.  They cannot see past the blow out in his AHT statistics.  Forget about how well he handles the customers.

What sort of message does this send to staff about management commitment to customer service?

Let the Operations Manager tinker with the statistics and KPI’s.  Call centre leaders must look at the bigger picture to ensure service excellence.

The organisation’s vision and values must be clearly understood by all.  Staff development and training must be ongoing.  The entire operation needs to be examined in terms of facilities, systems, rewards and customer service objectives.

Managers must drive a culture of service excellence.  They need to understand their customers, communicate, seek feedback and try very hard to exceed their expectations.  If customers want to speak with Agent M, then let them have him.

Managers need to get their heads out of the stats and focus on their customers.   Virgin Money is a category winner of the Customer Service Institute of Australia awards.  This is a company that listens to customers and develops service policies around customer expectations.

Virgin Money customers don’t like Interactive Voice Response systems, so the company has got rid of them.  Customers want a problem resolved in one call rather than four or five.  Virgin Money agents stay on the call as long as it takes to resolve.

Many call centres reward staff on the number of calls handled.  It would be better to look at the quality and outcome of calls.