Brad Cleveland blog now at www.bradcleveland.com/blog

This blog has moved to www.bradcleveland.com/blog

Consistent Performance

If your organization is seeing call center workload patterns that are somewhat different than in similar historical months and years, you’re not alone. And the reasons – the economy, changes in customer behavior, etc. – are certainly no mystery.

Unfortunately, many managers rely on metrics that are summarized over overly-large blocks of time and lose visibility of problem areas. That can be especially problematic when underlying workload patterns are changing. Take, for example, service level… reporting and interpreting this enabling objective by day (let alone, by week or month) not only conceals problems, it can lead to bad management practices (e.g., if you have a tough morning, you will be inclined to keep more agents plugged in than necessary this afternoon in order to improve the "daily" number). Of course, that doesn’t do a thing for customers who called this morning, and it will keep your team from getting other things done this afternoon.

The good news is, you don’t have to get buried in data to report service level, forecast accuracy or other important operational metrics by interval. A simple alternative is to create a table with five or six rows and then input the number or percent of increments that were within, say, 2.5 percent of your target (first row), 5 percent (second row) and so on. You determine the thresholds—and you can tighten them down the road as performance becomes more precise.

Consistent performance, interval by interval, is one of the standout characteristics of a well-run call center. Teach your team to think, plan, report and manage in terms of what’s happening interval by interval—that’s the key to consistent performance. And it's expecially important in this season of change.

Brad Cleveland
Senior Advisor and Former President & CEO
ICMI
bcleveland@icmi.com

And Now for Some... ahem… Breaking News...

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece that concludes that “companies are trying harder to please customers amid the recession – and it appears to be working.” (“Companies Strive Harder to Please Customers,” Michael Sanserino and Cari Tuna, Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2009). The authors rightly point out that the American Customer Satisfaction Index is at a record high, an unexpected result given that customer satisfaction has declined in most prior recessions as companies cut back on service.

One example Mr. Sanserino and Ms. Tuna cite is Sprint Nextel Corp, which has in the past emphasized keeping call times short, but is now focused on first call resolution. According to the article, Sprint’s ACSI score is up 12.5% and the average subscriber called service four times last year, down from eight in 2007.

I am (very!) delighted to see good customer service – and sensible call center practices in particular – get this kind of positive press. And this article is just one example of many similar stories breaking across the business and popular press, recently. Kudos to the authors and especially to Sprint who seems committed to this direction (they announced this morning that they are acquiring Virgin Mobile USA, which has built a great reputation for service.)

But heck… do you ever wonder why this theme seems to be such a revelation to so many, now? Why did it have to take a severe downturn to prod so many companies to revisit and refocus their service efforts? Yep, build and equip your call center to provide solid service, allow it to do its thing – and good things happen. Not new stuff, folks. But if your company is not fully on board yet… better now than never.

Brad Cleveland
Senior Advisor and Former President & CEO
ICMI
bcleveland@icmi.com

Is Your Strategy Working?

Given the current economic challenges, it's an important time to revisit your customer access strategy, and ensure that it is finely tuned to support your organization’s brand and your customers’ needs. All nine components should be up for discussion:

Customers: How your customers are segmented and served according to their unique needs.
Contact types: The major types of interactions that will occur.
Access alternatives: The communication channels available to your customers, e.g., telephone, Web, email, retail, social media alternatives, etc.
Hours of operation: The days and hours each access alternative is available.
Service level and response time objectives: How quickly you will respond to customer contacts.
Routing methodology: How each contact will be routed and distributed.
Person/technology resources required: The agents and systems required to handle different kinds of interactions.
Information required: The information required for each contact, as well as what should be captured during interactions.
Tracking and analysis: How the information captured and produced during contacts will be used across the organization to better understand customers and to improve products, services and processes.

And the benefits? From a customer's perspective, a good strategy leads to simplified access, consistent services, ease of use and a high degree of convenience and satisfaction. From the organization's perspective, common benefits often include lower overall costs, increased capacity and higher customer retention. There is a silver lining to an uncooperative economy: you’ve got the chance – the mandate, really – to adjust direction, hone your operations, and differentiate services.

Brad Cleveland
Senior Advisor and Former President & CEO
ICMI
bcleveland@icmi.com

P.S.

Only hours after I posted the blog below, I received an email from Derek Flores, a member of Zappos' Customer Loyalty Team. As you can see, I asked his permission to post the exchange we had here... - Brad

________________________________________
From: Derek Flores
To: Brad Cleveland
Sent: Fri Jun 12 15:46:43 2009
Subject: Re: Your most recent blog positn.
Brad,

You are more than welcome to share what I wrote. I would have posted it directly but I felt this would be more personal. I'm glad you appreciated the comment.

Let me know when it is up and I will share with everyone here!

Thanks so much!

Derek

Brad Cleveland wrote:
Hi Derek,

You're welcome... and with your permission I'd like to post part or all of your email. Reason: Keeping an eye on the blog world (good, bad and otherwise) is so important and something we're encouraging companies to do systematically. You just provided a great example! Ok with you?

Brad

________________________________________
From: Derek Flores
To: Brad Cleveland
Sent: Fri Jun 12 14:33:12 2009
Subject: Your most recent blog positn.

Hello Brad,

I just read your most recent blog about "History's Most Powerful Consumer Movement", and I wanted to let you know that what you said about Zappos is great. It is great to see people recognizing us for the service we provide our customers. Zappos has always been about the very best customer service and customer experience as well as our focus on company culture! Our unique company culture allows for our Customer Loyalty Team to be happy at work and deliver that great customer service we focus so much on! An unhappy employee would never be able to deliver that kind of service!

I have shared your blog with some of my colleagues and we look forward to more Brad! Thanks again and have a great weekend!

Derek Flores
Tony's Team
Zappos.com
http://www.zappos.com

Take a look inside Zappos!
http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs

Follow Tony on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/zappos

History's Most Powerful Consumer Movement?

Some believe we are seeing the emergence of the greatest consumer movement in history. I agree. Studies suggest that the vast majority of consumers now use search engines and sites such as the http://www.consumerist.com/ to review the comments of other customers before making brand or product decisions. And bad customer experiences – even if they are one in many thousands of interactions from an internal perspective – end up on blogs, twitter, YouTube and sometimes even the morning news. (This is not just a business-to-consumer phenomenon; the trend towards providing and searching out customer feedback, albeit with somewhat better etiquette as a rule, is similar in B2B environments.)

All of this is just fine with Zappos.com, the online shoe retailer that’s getting oodles of positive press for their great customer service. Sales have grown from $1.6 million in 2000 to about $1 billion in 2008. In an interview with Success magazine (Success, November 2008), CEO Tony Hsieh, referring to their “customer loyalty team” (the 24x7 call center), says, “Most call centers have this concept of average handling time, which is all about how many customers a day each agent can talk to – and the more the better. But that ends up translating into, ‘how quickly can we get the customer off the phone?’ which we don’t think is great customer service.” On company culture, Hsieh says every person – accountants, lawyers, everybody – goes through the same training that call center representatives get. “If we want our brand to be about customer service, then customer service needs to be the whole company, not just a department.”

Some business execs believe these kinds of customer-first strategies apply only to… well, entrepreneurial startups like Zappos.com. But tell that to USAA, FedEx or even American Express (who is putting the customer experience at the center of their strategy). The call center can and should be a powerful loyalizing tool – these are not new principles. They are being “rediscovered” by companies in virtually every sector who know they’ve got to get service right. For those in call center management who really “get it” this is a powerful window of opportunity to make a difference.

Brad Cleveland

Senior Advisor and Former President & CEO

ICMI

bcleveland@icmi.com

The Power of Good Questions

By Brad Cleveland

Are we headed in the right direction? Do our priorities make sense? What would you do if you were in our shoes?

At ICMI, we are often asked these and related questions (they usually come up in the context of working on specific projects or issues with clients). They are good. They are important.

Questions establish context, and the best questions compel decisions and solutions that have far-reaching, positive impact. When it comes to strategy and direction, there’s never been a more important time to ask good questions.

Here are some of the most important questions I believe those leading customer contact services should be asking now:

Do we have a comprehensive and up-to-date customer access strategy that includes all forms of customer access, including new social media channels?

Does our mission reflect the call center’s role not only in efficiently meeting customer demands, but also in contributing intelligence (captured during contacts) to other business units?

How do others across the organization perceive the value of customer contact services, and how can that continually be improved?

Do we have appropriate performance standards for individuals and the call center, and do they align with the organization’s direction and changing customer expectations?

Have we applied disciplined planning and management methodologies to all types of activities, e.g., does our process encompass all contact types and channels, as well as all other types of work related to operations?

Do we have an effective process for training and cultivating upcoming managers and leaders (an important key to success in coming months)?

Do we have a supporting culture that is candid, consistent in values, and establishes the right objectives and opportunities for people to grow and contribute?

Have we envisioned where customer expectations are heading, how we will meet them and what we need to do now to prepare?

Many of the answers to these questions will be interrelated, and some assume (necessitate) the involvement of the broader organization (e.g., marketing, finance, operations, etc.). Effective answers require leadership, persistence and collaboration. But, given the fundamental changes taking place in our economy and the growing importance of customer contact services, asking good questions – then building solid answers – has never been more important.

Brad Cleveland
Senior Advisor and Former President & CEO
ICMI
bradc@icmi.com