The Future of Customer Service in a Modern Contact Centre

Overview

Much has been written about what constitutes excellent Customer Service. There are many theories put forward, but each depends on the nature of the business and the type of service being offered. Many theories have one fatal flaw - They don't take into account what the Customer actually wants, but more what the company thinks they want.

Therefore the definition of Excellent Customer Service should be:

Providing a level of service which ensures that each Customer feels that their individual needs have been completely fulfilled.

A tall order? Or is it?

Modern Contact Centres have 'evolved' from the necessity to provide Customer Support to a large number of Customers at the lowest possible cost. Typically telephone support was and is the main channel by which Customers could get answers to their questions. As the Internet became more widely available, email, chat and online help was added, but this was seen as a vain attempt to divert Customers from the telephone. Solutions were hurriedly introduced but all based around the telephone support model.

Even with telephone support and less so for the other support channels, there is little structure to the support provided. Telephone support agents are largely left to their own devices to provide answers to the Customers' questions. This is particularly so with technical support.

Support agents acquire their own knowledge. Training is often sacrificed in favour of handling more and more calls. The outcome of this is that if a Customer speaks to four different agents, then there is a good chance they will get four different answers to their question. Over a period of time 'Floor law' takes over and information is given to Customers that has not been verified by the company. Even worse, in many cases the company is not even aware it is happening. Is there any wonder that contact centres have developed a reputation for poor service?

The Future of Customer Service

1. Start with the Customer

There needs to be a structured approach to Customer Service which is based on what the individual Customer needs. Most Customers, given the choice would not want to wait in a telephone queue, having had to navigate their way through confusing IVRs.

Some would prefer to find the answers to their questions online. However, just to provide a list of links to various web pages is not very helpful. Take a look at any online help site and try to find the answer to a question, if it isn't the most basic, or indeed if it is up to date. The Customer needs to be guided to what they are looking for and if they get into difficulties; they want to be able to ask for help.

Some would prefer to speak to a 'live' human being online, where they can either obtain an immediate answer to their question or be sent information, or be directed to where they can find the information online.

Some would prefer to correspond via email, but in the knowledge that they will get an immediate response to their question. If this doesn't answer their question, then they need to know where to go next.

However, there are still those Customers who do not have internet access and so the only channel open to them is the telephone.

The first two rules of Excellent Customer Service;

Rule 1: The Customer should be able to contact the company by whichever channel they choose.

Rule 2: Whichever channel they do choose, they should be confident that they will obtain consistent answers to their questions.

If the second rule is not adhered to, they will go to the channel they hope will give them this - the telephone. The most expensive channel to support. A mistake often made by companies is that they can 'divert' telephone calls to other channels, but unless these channels provide what they want, they will drive even more calls to the telephone.

2. What about the Support Agent?

I have spent the last few years working closely with telephone support agents and the complaint I have heard consistently is that they are not listened to. They are normally the first point of contact for a Customer and nobody knows better than them what the customer needs.The Customers want their questions answered or their problems solved and they don't want to have to call back.

What happens in practice? The agents are put under more and more pressure to keep call times low. Consequently, they will tailor the call to fit the time allowed, rather than ensure the Customer is satisfied - they often have little choice.

The most difficult part of a call for an agent is diagnosing what the reason for the call is. Particularly with technical support, this is based on the Customer's perception of the problem and the agent's perception of what the Customer is saying. This often leads to wrong or incorrect diagnosis and is a prime cause of long call times, Customer dissatisfaction and agent frustration.

A frequent example is where a Customer says that they cannot connect to the internet. The agent then tries to fix a connectivity problem only to find out some twenty minutes later that there was not a problem with connection but, a simple case of incorrect browser settings, which would have taken two minutes to fix.

These problems equally apply to non technical calls such as sales, product enquiries or Customer retention.

If agents have confidence this is transmitted to the Customer. With new or inexperienced agents they need guidance in just the same way that Customers do. They need 'coaching' as to why they are being asked to take certain steps or ask certain questions. Chances are the Customers will ask why and the agent needs the confidence to be able to explain.

Rules number three and four of Excellent Customer Service:

Rule 3: Ensure that agents are provided with the tools necessary for them to do their job effectively.

Rule 4: Provide adequate training in the use of these tools

3. Structure of a typical Customer contact

A typical Customer contact consists of the following elements that are common to all contacts regardless of channel:

These elements occur in the above order and a typical ten minute call can be broken down as follows:

If the Customer's perception of the problem is wrong then it is easy to see why a ten minute call can become 15, 20, 30, minutes, or even longer and most of the additional time is spent on diagnosis. This is even more pronounced with a new or inexperienced agent.

If the correct diagnosis is made then the resolution time can be predicted and controlled. After all, once a resolution is determined, then its implementation should be consistent for the same symptom. If the diagnosis is incorrect then both the agent and the Customer become frustrated, the problem will probably not be fixed and the Customer will call back.

There are many knowledge based solutions available which use natural language search or keyword searches. In order for these to be effective, the Root Cause has to be known. For the reasons I have stated previously, without structured diagnosis this becomes very hit and miss.

By using a structured approach to diagnosis the result is reduced call times, a higher fix rate and improved Customer satisfaction.

Rules number five and six of Excellent Customer Service:

Rule 5: Ensure that diagnosis is structured and is completed in the smallest number of steps possible.

Rule 6: Measure the effectiveness of resolutions and ensure the most effective are applied.

4. The Knowledge Engineer or Author

To maintain an effective knowledge base trained authors, are required. These individuals have to possess a sound knowledge of how knowledge is structured and be able to interpret information supplied by all stakeholders. A stakeholder can be a product owner, subject matter experts, support agents and Customers.

These people will feed back requests for new knowledge or amendments to additional knowledge based on user experience, new products, a change in Company business rules, or improved processes.

They too need consideration if they are to be productive and accurate. How they author the knowledge can have a significant impact on how efficient they are. Long after a knowledge base is released, these authors will be expected to keep it up to date and supplying the information when and where it is needed.

By providing them with the correct tools for the job, will ensure that maintenance costs are kept to a minimum.

5. The Solution

Using the rules for Effective Customer Service, Companies have the opportunity to provide an efficient and first class service to their customers.

Customers need to enjoy their contact with the company. This can be facilitated by allowing them to use the channel which suits them best. By using the same structured knowledge base across all channels will allow this to happen.

With self-help, if they make a mistake or go down the wrong route, they should be able to re-answer pertinent questions, without having to start all over again. Whenever a Customer is asked a question or asked to perform an action, they should be able to access an explanation why.

In the case of performing actions Customers should have access to clear, graphical tutorials to show them how to perform the action. This should be pertinent to just the action they are being asked to perform. They should not have to search through documents to find out how.

If Customers hit a problem while using one of the internet channels, they must be able to switch channels where a human being is on hand to help. If they do switch channels or they have to make a repeat contact, the previous contact information must be immediately available to the agent handling the contact, so that they can see exactly what the Customer has been trying to achieve and carry on from where the Customer left off. The agent should be able to re-answer any of the previous questions so that they don't have to start from the beginning.

The technology is available to make all this happen. The potential for cost saving is enormous, while at the same time improving Customer Service and thus Customer satisfaction.