People Connect USA » Call Centres

Are organizations Serious About The “Effortless Experience”?

September 9, 2017

client management leaders are constantly introducing new buzz words, trends, and best practices.

But the question arises here, are they taking them seriously? Call Center Digital Week’s CCW Fall Executive Report answers that question.

The report features the debut of our “heat map” feature, in which we identify whether businesses value — and plan to focus on — “trends” like the effortless experience, social customer care, personalization, lost customer follow-ups, analytics and more.

You can access the heat map — and many other exclusive findings, analyses and case studies — in that CCW Fall Executive Report.

Heat Map: The Effortless Experience

The “effortless experience” is one of the trendiest topics in customer management.

Customer management leaders are taking it very seriously.

Only 1% of organizations believe it is “unimportant.” Only 1% plan to scale back their focus on customer effort.

Comprising over 97% of the business, the remaining organizations feel the “effortless experience” warrants meaningful attention.

Fifty-four percent of organizations are already investing in the effortless experience – and plan to either maintain or increase their investments. Twenty-five percent plan to begin focusing on reducing customer effort. The remaining 19% recognize its importance but do not have any major investments planned for the next year.

Heat Meter: The “effortless experience” is a pivotal focus for businesses. Nearly all recognize it as important, and about 75% are actively working to reduce customer effort.

It is nonetheless interesting to note that 20% of businesses value effortless experiences yet have no plans to offer them. Businesses are now competing on the customer experience; why are one-in-five willing to forfeit an element they deem important?

The hesitation is particularly surprising in this case; initiatives that reduce effort often coincide with efforts to boost operational efficiency. The “cost” inhibitor that prevents investment into new technology is, therefore, not necessarily a factor.

5 Important Metrics for Call Center Success

July 14, 2017

Today, as more and more brands are chosen based on whether the overall customer experience matches their expectations, metrics are essential to help make sure call center protocol is in line with these expectations. However, at the same time, not every metric can be solely customer-centric as there are operational costs and other business needs that must be factored in. With that in mind, here are five critical metrics for call center success today:

1) First-Call Resolution

Perhaps no KPI has a bigger influence on the customer experience than what is known as first-call resolution (FCR). FCR calculates the percentage of incoming customer calls that are completely “resolved” on the first attempt. The challenge is accurately tracking whether a particular customer has actually received a resolution they are satisfied with, and will not need to call back. Nevertheless, FCR is a key metric to measure and understand since a high FCR greatly improves customer satisfaction. In fact, customer contact research shows that for every 1% improvement in FCR, you get a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction. In addition, reducing the costs of callbacks, especially in high-volume contact centers, can do wonders for your bottom line.

2) Call Quality

Call quality is a crucial customer-centric performance metric that can be utilized in all contact centers and helps to measure how successful an agent is in dealing with the customers. It is typically evaluated through the recording and monitoring of agent interactions with customers and utilizes a scoring system based on a list of criteria that a call center feels indicates a quality experience from the customer’s perspective. This may include, for example, FCR, courtesy, and professionalism, providing the right information, capturing the right customer data, etc. Usually the criteria are added up to a total percentage score, however, each criteria can be analyzed separately in order to improve call quality in specific areas of need.

3) Service Level/Response Time

Service level and response time are fundamental metrics for the effective management of the contact center and the customer experience. Service level is the percentage of calls answered within a predetermined number of seconds. It generally indicates how accessible the center is to customers, and thus is the clearest indication of what customers experience as they attempt to reach your contact center. While the faster an agent answers a customer call, the higher the service levels. Businesses also need to take into account that answering calls too quickly can actually be unprofitable because of the staffing costs necessary to meet such high service levels. At the same time, if response time is poor than repeat contacts, escalations and complaints will eventually drive service level down even further so finding the happy medium is the key.

4) Forecasting Accuracy

One common solution for finding the right service level is a metric known as forecasting accuracy. Since staffing operational costs generally account for 70 to 80% of call center budgets, using accurate algorithms is crucial for making sure you are properly estimating anticipated call volume and thereby determining the right number of agents required to meet those service levels. In fact, one of the greatest threats to a call center’s profit margin is labor costs which come from mistaken forecasting. While overestimating demand can lead to overstaffing and wasted resources, underestimating can be just as problematic as it leads to understaffing, which then leads to long wait times in queues. The result of this is frustrated customers and burned-out agents who now have to dedicate a portion of the call to caller complaints about hold times.

5) Customer Satisfaction

While there is no standard method for calculating customer satisfaction, there are certain common practices that allow call centers to not only effectively monitor customer satisfaction, but also to make improvements before customers go elsewhere. The most common strategy is a post-call IVR survey or a follow-up email survey which can be sent out immediately after a call or chat and customers are asked to rate each question on a scale (often 1 to 5) for a quick and easy customer satisfaction calculation.

Jacada Visual IVR is a support based mobile engagement solution that guides inbound callers to a web-based support experience – personalizing the support journey for customers already on their way to the queue. The solution makes it easy for organizations to collect the metrics listed above, among others. Emphasizing these metrics in a balanced manner will ensure that your company keeps customer satisfaction high while enabling your call center to be an efficient and profitable service center.

Source: Jacada