How Smartphones Can Make Contact Managers Manage Smarter

While many executives are content with using their smartphones to write emails and check on portfolios, contact centers offer a unique application for smartphones – metric dashboards. Most contact centers today have some type of performance monitoring system in place to help managers and supervisors gauge the efficiency and productivity of their center. Unfortunately though, many of these systems rely on physically tied down forms of report delivery, such as a dim computer screen in the back room office. This forces managers to be constantly confined to their rooms, unable to see what is actually happening on the call center floor and thereby preventing them from knowing completely their center’s happenings. If the manager were to somehow be able to take the reports with him, he would not only be able to leave his office, but also to engage with his agents as well.

Furthermore, in modern cases where the manager has to step out of his office, it is likely that he will experience a near-complete disconnect on the condition of the center, with the only traces of information coming from supervisor text messages and phone calls. This of course is not the best way of delivering information, especially in cases of emergency. Still, is it really a good idea to conduct business based solely on what some people choose to tell you? Probably not. It would be much smarter if you could see the information for yourself.

Managers should be able to monitor their center’s performance no matter where they are, with quick access to the same metric data as if they were sitting at the computer in their offices. Imagine, being able to check how a particular department is doing before even arriving at the office in the morning, being able to direct supervisors based on performance data while standing in line to order lunch, or being able to diffuse a crisis before it gets out of control while sitting on a couch at home. In fact, it is surprising that most managers haven’t even considered asking for such solutions from their IT departments, as virtually all the required pieces of technology are already available.

Best Call Center Metrics

Here at Centergistic Solutions, we like to stay on top of news and trends in the contact center industry. We recently discovered an informative article from the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) entitled Seven Metrics to Watch for Call Center Success.

According to the article, there are seven performance measures that definitively indicate the success of any contact center. Among some of those named are contact quality, which incorporates how courteous agents are, as well as how well they can provide relevant information to customers, forecasting accuracy, which depicts the accuracy of predicting call volume as well as the planning of operations to meet those predictions, and self-service accessibility, which is how often customers are able to initiate and complete a troubleshooting program with little to no interaction from an agent.

In the article, ICMI also identified a key metric that was the single best indicator for contact center success. Studies showed that for every 1% increase in this particular measure, a corresponding 1% improvement in customer satisfaction would also occur. Furthermore, contact centers with higher results for this metric showed lower operating costs, reduced customer defection, and higher employee satisfaction rates.

To find out what this number one metric is, and to learn more about the other six performance measures that best depict contact center success, please visit http://www.centergistic.com/best_call_center_metrics.htm for the full article.

Reporting --- Too much data, not enough actionable information.

Another inefficiency comes in the form of reporting. We’ve interviewed hundreds of call center managers over the years and still find many of them complaining about the inordinate time spent hand-assembling reports. Why is this? In this day of automation and instant access to information, it’s hard to believe we still have managers cutting and pasting data often from several sources. We even find some managers having to manually enter data!

Part of the problem is that every system in the contact center produces reports, dozens of them. There is no lack of data, there is simply too much.

Most vendors take a “one size fits all” approach, providing a canned set of reports to their customers. So, what the manager ends up doing is stripping out data from a number of separate reports and compiling a new report, usually using an Excel spreadsheet. Some of our customers have told us that they need to re-key the data by hand because they can’t get reports in an interactive format.

This is probably the number one waste of time in a contact center. It’s a shame because it is a relatively easy area to improve efficiency. How?

You can probably answer this yourself, but perhaps you rely upon an IT department, already overworked, to provide you with performance reports and every time you want to make a change you need to go back to them.

Usually a reporting module is included with the ACD you purchased. The problem is that these systems are locked alongside the ACD, behind closed doors and out of your reach. Even if they were accessible, there are security issues that make it difficult to get the kind of nimble reporting you need in the contact center. So, managers resign themselves to spending hours each week creating reports, repeating the process because someone else needs the information with a slight variation. Those “slight variations” can be a nightmare.

How can you create a nimble reporting structure that will adjust to your needs? First, do a little research on independent reporting vendors. Ask them where their software sits in terms of the ACD itself. Also ask how flexible their system is. Is it easily adjusted for those on-the-fly variations? What is the reporting structure? Excel? Crystal? Make sure it is standards-based and easy to maintain. A good independent reporting vendor can save your company thousands of dollars in time and energy, not to mention headaches!

The sample report above is for a collections department. Data has been taken from an ACD, a predictive dialer and from a collections database. Once created, reports should be easy to maintain and fine tune.

This is just the beginning

There are many more areas where inefficiencies can be squeezed out of a contact center with a little planning and input from the team. Remember that each inefficiency you identify may seem harmless by itself. But inefficiencies in one area will impact other performance areas.

Where there are people there are inefficiencies! However, these are also great opportunities to improve! Once you begin to identify areas where improvements seem possible, watch your team rise to the occasion. We mentioned earlier about the company whose employees actually created their own goals in terms of performance metrics. This is an opportunity to use your people to attach real numbers to those goals. That, along with a strong performance management and reporting system will take you a long ways towards achieving goals you may have thought impossible before. Isn’t that worth doing?

A Spoonful of Sugar helps the medicine go down… (Part 4 of 5)

Forgive me for quoting Mary Poppins, but it’s true! What kind of real-time messaging are you using? Make sure you are taking time to insert a positive ad-hoc message or two, especially if your team is having a tough day.

Sometimes a message that says “You guys are the best!” to a roomful of agents goes a long way, especially when they’ve been told to take more calls or wrap up more quickly. Don’t be afraid to show your personality in your messaging. If you just found out that the local team won a key game, put it up on the board. If the rain is going to stop soon, let everyone know.

Make sure you are also using your instant messaging to its best advantage. IM can help you communicate with agents without interrupting their work-flow. So if you’re looking at an agent’s performance on your performance dashboard, send a quick message to that agent, “Keep it up, you’re doing great!”

These small words of encouragement will pay high returns. You might also try putting an alert metric ribbon with the goals of an agent’s personal best alongside their current ribbon to encourage them to compete with their own goals. If they are ahead consistently for a given period of time, automate a message to tell them “You’re on top of your goals! Great!” Or tie a bonus to the goal. Either way, using performance messaging in a positive way will encourage positive, profitable actions from the team.

Now, get out on the floor! You already have your real time performance system doing the grunt work, so what are you doing sitting in front of your computer? Have your system send a message to your Blackberry or cell phone when something needs attention. There should be little reason to be cooped up in your office.

Get out on the floor and coach! It shows the team that you are all connected to the same goals.

Next post: Effective Reporting (Part 5)

The Revolving Door Syndrome (Part 3 of 5)

Another inefficiency we should discuss involves the workforce itself. Even if you don’t care if your agents are happy, guess what? Your customers do! Just think of the last time you interacted with a contact center agent, how was your experience? Did the agent speak in a monotone voice or was he or she personable and attentive?

Wells Fargo is a great example. Their agents are well-trained and pleasant. As a result, I’ve remained a Wells Fargo customer for years. They are consistent in their approach and professional in conducting transactions. Come to think of it, I’d probably use the same phrases to describe Wells Fargo on the whole, as an organization.

That’s because contact center agents really are the face of the company. Period. If they aren’t happy, they’ll make customers unhappy. Soon, absenteeism will rise, they’ll become less and less motivated and they’ll leave. This revolving door syndrome is an expensive one.

According to a Benchmark Portal study, on average it costs companies over $6,000 every time an agent departs. For financial institutions, the average is over twice that amount.

Hiring, training and motivating are expensive!

The chart on the left shows the average cost of turnover by industry. This chart was produced by the Detroit News in 2005 from a study made by Benchmark Portal, Inc.

Employees need to feel connected to their goals. They need an offset to the stress of customer issues, in addition to sufficient training and, above all, strong communication from supervisors.

People also want to understand what they need to do to move up. That can equate to clear and attainable goals. Without that, especially in the hectic environment of the call center, they will quickly become disillusioned, complacent or downright hostile.

How do you think that translates to the customers? What is the most important to businesses?

Customers!

Okay, how do we squeeze inefficiency out of the workforce without cracking a whip? How to keep the team in place longer? Increasing salaries is not always the solution, by the way. Ever since Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was publicized in 1954, managers have known that “job satisfaction” is the most important factor in employee retention. With real-time performance management tools, providing targeted metrics can be very effective in communicating the here and now of the contact center.

You must start, however, with goals that are realistic. That may mean re-evaluating some of the current key performance indicators, or KPIs, you have in place. Are the thresholds realistic or are these metrics always green or always red? Nothing is more demoralizing to the workforce than the sense that management doesn’t care enough to adjust the performance metrics to meet the ebb and flow of the calling activity! So, take the time to make the adjustment. We have a customer whose agents actually help to create the thresholds for their KPIs. And they’re hard on themselves! They lowered their longest call waiting from 1:47 to :38 seconds!

Goal obtained! It can be and is done all the time.

Look for our next post! "A spoonful of sugar." (part 4)

Squeezing the Inefficiency Out of Your Contact Center Using Performance Management Part 1 of 5

But we’re already as efficient as we’re going to get!

Today’s contact centers are equipped with some of the most sophisticated technology in the marketplace today. That’s because companies are waking up and responding to customers’ “right now” expectations. These customers are using web-based or IVR-based self-service to retrieve information, answer questions and conduct transactions, all without interacting with a live agent. Instant gratification is king and companies are deploying technology like never before to satisfy their customers using as few live agents as possible.

So many contact center managers believe they can’t possibly squeeze out any more inefficiencies, at least not from a technology standpoint. Perhaps that’s true, but we need to remember that there comes a time when just about everybody must talk with a live person in a contact center. That is the point at which technology and human skills intersect. People represent the greatest expense to the contact center, not the technology. Performance improvement is aided by technology but it is the people who close tickets and put numbers on the board, and it’s the people the customers will remember when conducting a transaction.

As soon as people are added to the mix, inefficiencies abound. It’s unavoidable. People get sick, run late, daydream, have problems, become angry and even quit. So there will always be a certain level of inefficiency to deal with.

The question is how to use real time performance management to squeeze as much out of the profitability equation as possible and not impair the effectiveness and the motivation of your workforce.

The chart above illustrates typical improvements in efficiency when performance management is introduced into a contact center, using a unit of '1' as a benchmark.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post on how visibility affects efficiency!