ICMI's Customer Management Insight - September 2007 - (Page 32) O P E R AT I O N S evidenced by the fact that more than 30 percent of centers fail to formally measure customer satisfaction with the service they receive. This finding raises serious concerns, as transactional post-contact surveys inform centers about how customers feel and how likely they are to continue doing business with the organization, and such surveys also enable centers to capture key customer data and preferences that can drive invaluable enterprisewide enhancements. Our research uncovered other areas of concern, too. For instance, many centers are waiting too long (two days or more) after the customer interacts with the center before surveying the customer about their experience. This not only dilutes the feedback received (since the contact is not fresh in the customer’s mind), it greatly decreases the likelihood that the center will be able to “recover” a customer from a highly negative service experience. Of course, this problem can be eliminated by implementing an automated phone survey via the center’s IVR — something that less than one-quarter (23.9 percent) of respondents has done. Another concern is that in only a little more than half of the centers does a manager or supervisor “always” contact highly dissatisfied customers uncovered via surveying. Not all is negative, however. Most centers appear to have a solid handle on survey design — implementing concise surveys containing focused questions as well as opportunities for customers to qualify their responses with openended comments. Most centers have also started incorporating customers’ satisfaction scores and comments into the quality feedback icmi’s insight and coaching that agents receive — something that many consider to be a best practice. KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS A large number of call centers are not measuring — or are poorly measuring — key performance metrics, such as first-call resolution, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction. This is a true concern, considering that these metrics have been shown to have the biggest impact on the customer experience and the center’s costs. According to our research, 39.5 percent of centers do not measure first-call resolution (FCR), with another 39.3 percent measuring FCR but doing so using ineffective or outdated methods, such as relying on mail surveys or on agents themselves to track FCR success. Such poor measurement and management of this metric is alarming because FCR is considered by many experts to be one of the most critical performance indicators in the modern call center — with numerous studies linking high FCR to high customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction, lower operating costs and increased revenue generation. Equally concerning is that nearly one in three centers (29.3 percent) do not bother to formally measure customer satisfaction, and that a whopping 45.6 percent do not formally measure agent satisfaction. The latter is almost inexplicable, when you consider the fact that: a) research has clearly shown a direct correlation between agent satisfaction and customer satisfaction/loyalty; and b) the cost of re-recruiting, re-hiring and re-training resulting from agent turnover can be significant — and often staggering — in the call center. Not all findings were so gloomy. For instance, the vast majority of call centers surveyed do appear to be doing a decent job of measuring and managing many of the more traditional metrics that have historically ruled the performance measurement roost: service level and response time, quality, schedule adherence, average speed of answer, and abandon rate. And — importantly — most call centers seem to have done away with the type of rigid and lofty average handle time (AHT) objectives that have hindered the customer experience and agent morale for years. AGENT RETENTION While call centers have chipped away at the once-staggering industry average for agent turnover in recent years, many centers have yet to fully focus on and embrace the things that research, case studies, industry experts and even agents themselves have been saying about successful employee retention today. Only half or fewer contact centers include in their retention programs things like a formal noncash reward and recognition program (55 percent), career development opportunities (52 percent), onboarding/orientation programs (37 percent), agent wellness programs (36 percent), employee engagement programs (25 percent) — this despite the fact that numerous previous studies have revealed that public praise and recognition, empowerment, support, and continuous opportunities for growth and development are what agents value more than anything else. Thus, it’s no surprise that 85 percent of respondents indicated that unwanted agent turnover in their center either increased (38 percent) or remained the same (47 percent) over the past year, and 70 percent | SEPTEMBER 2007 www.icmi.com 32 http://www.icmi.com
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