Being
in the contact centre industry for over a decade, I have witnessed several
changes in technologies, demographic shift, and corporate crisis. Yet our
contact centre’s processes remain pretty much the same, and C- level executives
have left us alone, simply because the contact centres make little impact on
corporate strategies, partly due to the fault of the contact centre managers’
incompetence in executing changes and managing processes. A contact center exists to cut waste, delight customers
and generate revenue. Managing these processes with measurable results will be
the key to the success of any organization.
My
conversations with CEOs have convinced me that most of them don’t really care
about their contact centres as they see their centre as merely managing tasks
and not processes. All these can be something in the past, given that the
corporates are going through transformation enabled by a new business model and
digital strategy.
Strategy, process, structure
Everything
starts with a clear strategy and articulation from the top. A well-articulated
strategy spells out how we achieve our vision and, it gives clarity on who we
serve, how we serve and what type of resources required. We then change our processes enabled by
digital means. One insurance company integrates its front and back ends by
automating their claim process. They drastically reduced manual tasks through
automation and machine learning. They promote self-service via portal/mobile
application. These actions result in fraud ratio reduction and timeliness and
accuracy of claims. They also turned its contact centre as a revenue generator
by re-training their contact centre professionals.
New Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), New
behaviors
We all
remember the traditional KPIs of a typical contact centre. Most of them were
set by technology vendors. Thus, most of them are operational in nature and
after all these years, most of them are so outdated that by deploying them, it
would not just be a waste of time and effort, but also i detrimental to growth.
Only a handful of the best practice contact centres are using new KPIs such as
revenue per CCP (contact Centre Professional), NPS (Net Promotor Score), CPC
(cost per call), PAI (percentage of avoidable input), Customer retention Ratio
(CRR), Customer Acquisition Ration (CAR)…
All these measures will only be trackable if you have mapped out new
processes. As Process maps enable you to peel away the complexity of your contact
centre structure and internal politics and focus on the processes that form the
heart of your business.
What’s Next?
I
believe that that Digital journey is critical to the survival of any company,
big or small. Contact Centre Heads must
get themselves to become part of this effort and offer their contributions, since
they can represent the voice of the customers. They have the creditability and
knowledge of how their customers feel about their services/products.
In
summary, below is a must do list. Once you’ve embarked on these actions, you
can expect a strategically important unit and to become a key member of the
senior management team.
1. Understand
your company’s digital transformation strategy, integrate some digital
marketing KPIs to your centre. E.g. mobile traffic, engagement on website,
Number of new leads etc.…
2. Learn
about E-Commerce, Social media, Cloud platform, Self-service model, cyber
security, Artificial Intelligence, and data analytics
3. Enhance
the quality of the voice of customer through any of the above tools
4. Revamp
your Contact Centre processes with new measures that align to your digital
strategy
5. Set
bold and “unreasonable” goals like 100% customer satisfaction or 100%
improvement on Net Promotor Score or 100% of avoidable input
6. Mentor
and coach your team with a change of mindset and new skillset
7. Visit
other centres and learn best practices through benchmarking of other industries
It is not going to be easy, Yet, by going on this path with your
digital team, it will greatly enhance your ability to deliver excellent
customer experience.
