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TRY, TRY AGAIN: CONTACT CENTRES STILL SEEKING
WINNING FORMULA
Disconnect with consumer attitudes hampers efforts to
develop effective contact strategy
Organisations accept that they need to improve customer service,
but many persist in treating contact centre management as
an operational cost rather than an integrated part of their
marketing and customer relationship strategy, according to
research by Teleconomy on behalf of Cable & Wireless and
Vertex.
Interviews with 170 senior executives responsible for contact
centres found that a significant 70 per cent of respondents
rated their ability to provide multi-channel customer service
as either poor or average. Conducted alongside a 2,000 response
consumer survey, announced last month, the second survey revealed
distinct disparities between the expectations and priorities
of businesses and their customers:
- Businesses focus mainly on ‘operational’
performance measures, such as the time taken to handle a
customer call – while consumers place the greatest
value on how well their query is resolved
- Customer service teams tend to be structured
around a specific product or service, with calls and emails
routed to the relevant team – while consumers expect
contact centres to tailor the way they handle queries according
the nature of the query itself, for example whether it is
a complaint, problem or routine transaction
- Attitudes to the usefulness of automated
IVR systems are not aligned - for example, only 16 per cent
of organisations thought automated systems would help their
customers make bill payments, while 43 per cent of consumers
thought they would help
“Organisations have made large investments in contact
centre technology in the recognition that more needs to be
done to enhance customer service,” comments Paul Hudson
at Teleconomy. “However, businesses will not see a return
on these investments unless they focus their knowledge of
customers to close the gap between what the customer expects
and what the business aims to deliver.”
Although 78 per cent of respondents said they base their
contact strategy either wholly or partially on delivering
good customer service (the remaining 22 per cent said they
focus wholly on minimising cost), the survey indicates that
contact centres are not using the right measures to monitor
their levels of customer service. Furthermore, a surprising
10 per cent of contact centres still use no measurements at
all to monitor performance.
Those that do monitor performance, tend to use internal ‘efficiency’
measures such as time taken to answer (100 per cent) or average
call length (76 per cent). Time of response was the main measurement
of response to queries by email. However, the consumer survey
indicates that while speed must be kept within ‘tolerance’
levels, it is not central to what constitutes excellent service.
Consumers primarily value the advisor’s skills and ability
to resolve issues efficiently.
The method of structuring and training staff also indicated
a significant disconnect with customer attitudes. 70 per cent
of those interviewed stated that their staff were organised
around product knowledge and provided with ‘generic’
call or email handling skills. By contrast, the consumer survey
indicated that customers expect that the means of contact
and the way the contact is handled should vary according to
the nature of their query – for example, whether they
are completing a routine transaction, lodging a complaint
or have a problem to resolve. Failure to handle complaints
and problems in particular was shown to cause rising levels
of dissatisfaction, indicating that businesses should structure
and train their teams to fulfil different profiles of customer
need.
With the majority of respondents acknowledging that contact
centres needed to get more sophisticated, the research also
shows that there is no consensus as to how to deploy developing
technologies. Automated systems, which enable customer self-service,
polarised opinion. While 35 per cent of organisations believed
that fully automated systems would decrease the level of customer
service they provided, 49 per cent thought that it could enhance
customer service. Also, organisations do not share the same
attitude to automated systems as their customers: 43 and 45
per cent of consumers thought automated systems would help
them pay bills and make bookings respectively, while a significantly
lower 16 and 24 per cent of business interviewees thought
that automated systems would aid in these situations.
“This research clearly indicates that contact centre
strategy must be customer-driven,” said David Jackson,
vice president, customer interaction management, Cable &
Wireless. “Technology is a powerful enabler for enhancing
customer service, but the starting point for any new technology
project must be thorough research into how it can help meet
the objectives and priorities of the customers and advisors
who will use it. This can then help organisations to assess
how automation and other technology will help enhance their
customer service levels.”
“Many organisations need a closer integration between
marketing departments and operational contact centre management
- marketing needs to advise contact centre management about
the most appropriate contact channels to deploy and provide
customer feedback,” added Amanda Burn, strategy and
marketing director, Vertex. “This research makes clear
that they should not base their contact centre strategy purely
on the cost effectiveness of the technology deployed.”
-Ends-
Note to Editors
A summary of the entire ‘It’s Your Call’
research is available from paul.hudson@teleconomy.com.
Cable & Wireless Customer Interaction Management
Cable & Wireless Customer Interaction Management (CIM),
a focused business unit, has over 10 years experience supporting
flexible customer interaction management solutions. The Cable
& Wireless team includes customer interaction management
specialists, systems integrators, service engineers and other
professionals. They design, supply, install, maintain and
evolve CIM solutions, be they network or premise based. The
professional services team also works with customers to set
baseline performance information and metrics vital to the
delivery of quantifiable business benefits.
About Cable & Wireless
Cable & Wireless is one of the world's leading international
communications companies. It provides voice, data and IP (Internet
Protocol) services to business and residential customers,
as well as services to other telecoms carriers, mobile operators
and providers of content, applications and internet services.
Cable & Wireless' principal operations are in the United
Kingdom, continental Europe, the United States, Japan, the
Caribbean, Panama, the Middle East and Macau.
For more information about Cable & Wireless, go to www.cw.com
About Vertex
Vertex is an international business process outsourcer with
particular expertise in customer management, leading the way
in helping organisations deliver operational and customer
service excellence. We work in partnership with many other
organisations to deliver a step change in performance
Vertex is the UK’s leading business process outsourcer
with a particular expertise in customer management. Typical
services include customer call handling, billing services
and financial services. Vertex undertakes services for utility,
telecommunications, retail and public sector organisations.
Vertex operates across 29 locations nationally and employs
over 9,000 people, largely within customer contact centres
and information services.Every year, Vertex handles over 34
million customer accounts, handles over 204 million UK contacts,
prints and sends over 65 million bills and documents, processes
over 95 million transactions and collects in excess of £6
billion in payments for a wide range of clients in the public
and private sectors.
About Teleconomy
Teleconomy is a research consultancy and knowledge centre
specialising in understanding how customer relationships are
built. It has more than 20 years experience in working with
over 100 organisations and contact centres across all sectors
nationally and internationally.
Teleconomy comprises a full service research capability and
a focused and creative research based consultancy. Its research
services range from ethnography through to quantitative data
collection - either online or using Teleconomy’s own
CATI call centre. Teleconomy has strong academic links to
universities in the UK and overseas, and particularly strong
relationships with Henley Management College and Lancaster
University.
For more information, please contact:
Tara Salgado
Cable & Wireless
Tel: +44(0)20 7315 4184
Email: tara.salgado@cw.com
Ghezala Beg
Brodeur Worldwide (for Cable & Wireless)
Tel: +44(0)20 7298 7063
Email: gbeg@uk.brodeur.com
Deborah Sadler
Vertex
Tel: +44(0)161 493 2200
Email: deborah.sadler@vertex.co.uk
Paul Hudson
Teleconomy
Email: paul.hudson@teleconomy.com
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