Many internal call enters struggle when it comes to satisfaction with customers. Why? Here are some reasons:
Reason 1: Who Has the Say?
Who is running your call center? What I mean by that is it your financial people, your marketing people, your sales people? Who has the most say, who is the squeaky wheel that you always seem to have to appease. The mindset of the people running your center has a lot to do with the culture and the personality of your center. Now a great center can meet a happy medium for all these different aspects but when one takes over as more important as what happens in a lot of companies you can have a disconnect and the customer take the brunt. If...
Financial importance is your main effort:
When this happens you feel the pressure of constantly being efficient even to a fault. High service levels do not mean as much as low AHT, Wait Times, and Wrap time. You get pressure to handle more calls in a shorter period of time. When this happens you have a couple issues, one you already are going to get irritated customers before they even get to an agent because of long wait times in queue, second when reps feel the pressure of quicker calls the service of the call drops. This has a snowball effect as well because the bigger the queue the more pressure you and each of your supervisors put on the reps to handle the next call. WE HAVE ALL BEEN THERE!! It's funny as well when you look at the SL and Wait times for people calling in to buy something from the company... they are over staffed and the customer service is under staffed. This is true in most companies.
COMPANIES STILL DO NOT REALIZE THAT SELLING TO AN EXISTING CUSTOMER WHO IS HAPPY WITH THEIR SERVICE IS SO MUCH EASIER AND CHEAPER THAT GETTING NEW CUSTOMERS... MARKETING 101!!!
Marketing/Sales is your main effort:
So many contact centers, rightfully so, are trying to make their center not just a customer service center but a profit center. There is nothing wrong with cross-selling your customer service calls as long as we all understand it is an add-on. Some mistakes I see here is when
A) your cross-sell effort does not match your call type (I have seen crazy things that have tried to be sold just for a quick buck) and
B) and most importantly your selling effort takes over as the main reason for the call. When this happens not only are you not getting a sale but you may be losing a customer. You have to make sure you handle the customer's issues first; build a rapport and then try to cross sell based a product that meets the needs of the customer.
Do you just keep track of how many sales your reps have in a day? That's probably posted in the room right? Your top sales people get all the rewards right... I hope you have your quality scores and reps satisfaction scores posted as well... most don't.
Reason 2: Training.
Another issue why I think customer service is so bad in general is that it is not trained properly. In an earlier blog I talked about breaking down your calls and training each aspect with how you would like it to be handled which I won't duplicate here in its entirety. Companies can't think of a call as one lump sum to deal with. It's a lot of small moving parts that all need to be handled in their own way. For example, as discussed in the earlier blog, you need to train how a rep handles portion of calls when you know there will be a long wait/hold times. Teach them how to handle this, give them talk off topics. Companies are good at training product and screen knowledge, they are not very good are training DELIGHT into calls.
Reason 3: No Fluid Processes
Large and small companies can all have this issue but you normally see it in large companies. When multiple departments have a say in how the customer service for their specific is to be handled you can get inconsistent and confusing service. Different 1800 numbers, transferred call, multiple call resolution. It's really frustrating! When you are told by a company rep that they do not handle that issue in his/her department the frustration level rises and you may have already lost that customer. Disjointed departments all handling sales/service is a huge reason for the lack of service in the marketplace.
Reason 4: Lack of Information
Many companies do not have proper CRM software to help with their service. Asking multiple times for you SSN (process issue as well), having to recap your story multiple times because it is not in any software the company has. This is a huge expense and one of the reasons that I recommend outsourcing if you are just starting a customer service department. You have to do your homework (or hire me to help... cheap plug!) but if you find the right group with the right tools it can be a huge asset for you to deal with your customers properly.
Reason 5: Lack if Caring
This goes back to reason number one. You must put as much time in keeping the customers you have as you do with getting new ones. Its effects things such as sales, customer appreciation, customer loyally and more importantly the reputation of your organization.
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