Contact Centre

Creating a Motivated Workforce – Chapter 14

For those of us that have been in the Contact Centre industry for any length of time, we all remember the infamous book Contact Centres for Dummies. Well, it’s back! The book has been re-written, republished and is back in the market with a facelift.

My blog today speaks to increasing performance via motivating your front-line workforce. Chapter 14 of Contact Centre for Dummies is dedicated to anecdotal and actual proof statements relating to this very topic. Hence, my title – Chapter 14.

Chapter 14 focuses on three key areas that ultimately drive success in Contact Centres: recognizing the importance of employee motivation; finding out about agents’ needs; and motivating and rewarding your agents.

Unmotivated agents are less productive and have a higher turnover ratio. Meaning, unmotivated staff cost you money (negative ROI) being there and cost you money to replace them when they leave. There are many different formulas used to calculate “true cost of attrition”. One widely accepted conservative ratio is 3-1. Meaning, it costs 3X more to replace staff versus developing, upgrading skills and motivating your existing staff. If that is true, why do many organizations allow the attrition ratio to be so high? One theory involves not seeing what is deemed as “soft costs” to the organization. Hence, we sometimes fall into that trap of, “If I pay $100 to upgrade the skills of a particular agent, I have to get that cost approved”. Fact is, to replace that agent it will cost you at least $300.

The challenge is not only learning what motivates staff, but also how to accomplish that motivation. In my experience, often most difficult for leaders is actually taking action on the how on a consistent, daily basis. Somehow, things get in the way. Not to mention, some front-line leaders take for granted that “their staff are happier when left alone”. That is myth 101!

Do leaders do enough? When was the last time you or your leadership team conducted a verbal or written (public or anonymous) survey of your agents, asking them basic questions such as: what motivates you? what would make you leave? what one thing would you change here? how do you feel about our culture? While I am certain everyone could come up a variety of this type of question, don’t forget that if you are going to take the time to ask, be sure not only to communicate WHY you are asking, but also to TAKE ACTION as a result of the findings. Surveys create expectations and failing to deliver on expectations can create credibility issues, negating any value derived from surveying your team in the first place.

Another lesson I have learned regarding successfully motivating agents regards the collection of metrics and linking metrics to performance. Far too often, I see contact centres compiling an enormous amount of metrics measured at the rep level. Measuring is critical to success but I have found that basing performance on a multitude of metrics at the agent level more often than not confuses agents. That in turn can de-motivate staff, as well as drive productivity down. My theory on metrics is this: measure the input metrics (in the background) in detail, but give accountability at the agent level on a very limited number of output metrics (visual for agents). Show agents “how-to” achieve the targets set on the output metrics, as all targets should be 100% controllable by the agent.

My final tip: reward, reward, reward. Not all rewards cost money. Encouraging Post-it notes, emails, personal calls, coffee, etc. are all little to no cost but go a long way in motivating agents and making them feel more connected to senior leaders in the organization.

In conclusion, I do not believe creating an engaged work-force is complicated. However, it does take a concentrated effort from many levels of the organization, on a consistent basis. The net returns are high in value and very rewarding for the staff and the organization.

By Amar Sidhu, Director - National Contact Centres, Trader Corporation and Chair of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Our Own Worst Enemies

My wife recently had an interesting customer experience that, although she categorized as positive, I am sure the service provider would categorize as negative. My wife was trying to redeem points from a loyalty program toward an airfare. Her first stop was online where her options would have required eight times the number of points she had anticipated. Dissuaded by what she saw, she called the loyalty contact centre. By talking to an agent she was able to obtain an upgraded ticket at one-fifth the number of points as was required by the sel-serve option presented on the internet.

My wife was delighted with the service and results that she received from the contact centre, but as a contact centre guy myself, I was haunted by the unnecessary call that was driven into the contact centre. At the core of the issue for me was the inability for two customer-touching channels to harmonize their servicing strategy. The internet, a channel used to improve customer experiences and reduce costly calls to the contact centre, had in fact driven an additional call into the contact centre.

This experience is not unique to loyalty programs or an online contact centre strategy. We see this type of unintended end result frequently caused by organizations with multiple customer touch points. When you consider all the potential ways in which you touch a customer (inbound calls, outbound calls, marketing solicitations, statements and invoices, applications, letters and so on), its easy to understand how difficult it becomes to maintain consistency within a customer touch point communication strategy.

I have seen organizations where customers question that company’s price competitiveness not because of the outside competitive market, but rather because different channels are offering different rates for the same product suite. I have seen organizations where statement inserts have not been communicated to the contact centre and thus resulted in frustrating customer experiences and lower than anticipated take-up rates. All of theses types of issues, and many more similar ones, drive both customer dissatisfaction and increased cost.

The overriding issue seems to be that the larger an organization grows, the more touch points and channels it has to communicate with customers. As the number of customer touch points grow, the control over the consistency and sharing of information internally seems to weaken.

What is missing is a customer contact guru: an individual or a team who does not own a specific customer contact channel, but rather is empowered to ensure that all information sent or accessible to a customer is appropriately disseminated within the corporate organization. A group that is tasked for identifying and eliminating conflicting information between channels. Effectively, a group that makes sure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. Until such time that we recognize that all of our touch points with our customers need to be zealously guarded, we will continue to be our own worst enemies.

Richard Litvack, Vice President, Operations, Citi Cards Canada Inc.
& member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Empowerment in the Contact Center

Agents often manage it best.

Most companies have a renewed focus on their business plans for 2010 and are considering strategies and overall customer centric processes that might not have been a significant part of their thinking in the past.

In the world of customer service, retention is an active buzz word. The focus appears to have switched slightly from that of sell sell sell, to one of nurturing and keeping that valued customer of yesterday.

Amidst all of the latest and greatest technology and the various ways that call centers are positioning themselves for success, one fundamental element continues to reappear in the language of what a customer is looking for: The ability to have an intelligent conversation with an agent who is able to assess and resolve their issue on that first call.

While the notion of First Call Resolution (FCR) is not new, nor has it lost its importance in the world of call center metrics, what is getting more attention today is the whole notion of Employee Empowerment. In a true call center space, what this means is arming an agent with the right training and support to be able to make decisions. It seems simple enough, however in the past, agent tasks were seen as more transactional in nature, and void of the ability to truly communicate with the customer in a meaningful and productive way.

There is a common thread throughout the call center space these days, beckoning the agent to have a true “conversation” with the customer, and not worry so much about Average Handle Time (AHT). Call centers traditionally have more metrics and an abundance of measurements that will supposedly, at the end of the long mathematical equation, tell companies how the overall service delivery was and what improvements can be made.

Steering away from these metrics and empowering the agent was historically, not an option. I recently attended a Call Center Conference wherein two very large corporations spoke of the challenges of transitioning the belief that their respective call centers were not cost centers but in fact revenue generating centers. They both highlighted the adaptation of structured Employee Empowerment strategies as keys to their recent successes in this area.

Today, with the implementation of solid Employee Empowerment initiatives, many call centers have transitioned from being viewed as true cost centers, to powerful centers of service delivery with the potential to generate substantial revenue.

Effective service delivery = retention, recommendations and a willingness on behalf of the customer to purchase additional product. Therefore with an enhanced focus on just the service piece alone, call centers now have front line customer service agents who are also skilled at retention and sales if they are able to deliver effective service.

If given the proper training and support, empowered agents, for the most part, are trustworthy, effective and happier at their daily task. They make better decisions and show a more genuine interest in a customer concern when armed with the ability to make a difference without the need to escalate the issue. It bodes well for a company to demonstrate as much trust, faith and empowerment to their own employees as they do with their direct customer base.

For the most part, front line agents want to succeed in their function, and when given the ability to make decisions, take that very seriously and don’t give away the farm. For example, when a huge appliance company decided to make the policy shift to empower their front line agents, internally some feared that the company could lose millions of dollars through agents giving away free product. Of course, the total opposite occurred. Metrics showed that empowering their front line contact centre agents resulted in large savings and improved customer retention. Improved call centre experiences gave customers a whole new reason to remain loyal to the brand.

The message needs to be clear: Employee Empowerment isn’t about “giving up power” but more about “sharing power” with those who have the ability to make a difference in the organization. Agents will feel that a bigger investment is being made and that their contributions really do matter. The end result is a more motivated and skilled front line, and no doubt both the company and the customer will benefit from that!

Customer service most often is the differentiator in this highly competitive market. Companies need to re-engineer their service platform in such as a way as to consistently exceed customer expectations. No doubt adopting, training and continually supporting employee empowerment initiatives will be a key component in this planning effort.

Jennifer McLeod, VP, Business Development at VOXDATA Solutions Inc.
& member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Marketers, have you appreciated contact centre employees today?

Customer Service Week is a nationally recognized event in the United States that runs the first week of October every year. Many Canadian companies have adopted this event within their own corporate culture as a means to formally recognize how critical a customer contact centre is within an organization. The ICSA-Toronto Chapter sent out a newsletter to various companies providing tips on how to celebrate this event. The Toronto Chapter went as far as to hold a Staff Appreciation night so that companies could recognize their staff in a more formal setting. This alone shows how serious some companies are about recognizing and celebrating the importance of contact centres and the people within them.

How is the contact centre relevant to the marketing world? Marketers have long sought the services of the call centre to boost their sales via direct marketing initiatives, lead generation or cold calling. Not only can representatives assist customers with questions about a piece they have just received in the mail but can also provide callers with a needs analysis to ensure they are purchasing the product that best suits their needs, making a customer feel at ease with a potential purchase decision.

Marketers have come to realize that the contact centre is also a retention tool to keep the customers they have, as well as an additional revenue source, especially if more than one product is offered within an existing portfolio. By supporting the contact centre in terms of motivation, incentives, and thorough product training, it ensures the team is well-equipped to deal with any type of situation a caller may present. Marketers know that when customers are satisfied, it opens and paves the way to introduce other sales opportunities.

How can marketers support their contact centre teams not only during Customer Service Week but throughout the year?

• appreciate the amount of knowledge the contact centre is expected to retain
• pass along praise when you hear it from a customer
• be there to provide explanation if needed on product details
• provide incentives or treats to thank the team for well-launched campaigns and strong sales results

Keeping the contact centre engaged and well-informed of all marketing initiatives simply makes good business sense.

By Patricia Palumbo, Director, Customer Service, Manulife Financial-Affinity Markets and a member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council

Brand Management Doesn’t Stop at the Ad Campaign

As manager of a number of CMA’s Marketing Councils, I am surprised when I am asked – more frequently than you’d think, “Why does the CMA have a Contact Centre Council? What do contact centres have to do with marketing?” I can tell you that members of the Contact Centre Council see themselves as marketers – and this mindset likely correlates to an organization’s bottom line.

The Contact Centre Council collaborated on an article in the most recent edition of Contact Management, and in the magazine’s editorial, Ron Glen quotes a speech by Diane Francis that I thought was bang on. She said “The industry can have the smartest advertising campaign the world has ever known, but if the people answering the phone turn the public off and cost you customers it is all for not. To think that brand management stops with billboards, newspaper ad, TV commercials... is crazy.”

I’m not sure why contact centres are often overlooked as marketing tools. How many Twitter posts have you seen complaining about a call centre experience ending with a declaration that they are switching suppliers or will never do business with that company again? On the flip side, have you ever upgraded your spend as a result of a great call centre experience? I certainly have.

I wonder how people question that a corporate function with implications to brand, customer service and relationship building, and up-selling and cross selling, does not have to do with marketing. If marketing departments are embracing the use of social media tools, why is there question as to the marketing value of a live, relationship building touch point with consumers? Am I wrong?

Perhaps you can help me: where does your contact centre fit within your organizational structure – in the marketing department, or is it an operational function? Does this affect how your organization sees call centres as marketing tools?

Customer Service: Clients May Not Really Care About Industry Standards

Many of us tend look to industry standards when we want to improve a process to enhance the client experience when it may be of little to no value to most clients.

An example of a typical industry standard is the way we traditionally measure Service Levels in contact centres. Service Level is typically a metric of answering X percentage of calls within X seconds. This is deemed as an important indicator of service delivery and it has been in place for years. When contact centres evaluate the client experience from an organizational perspective this metric is an important part as it is a measure of how fast the majority of phone calls are answered and the performance of the call centre. What this measure doesn’t truly indicate is the clients’ expectations and what is most important to them.

Another example of an industry standard is Quality Monitoring (QM). This is a process of where calls are listened to, evaluated and scored. In some organizations we tend to spend too much time developing the process from the QM evaluation form to the scoring method and how calls are selected. All of this to ensure we are delivering the best experience to the client.

In our organization we have Calibration Session on the client experience. The intention of these sessions is to align on what a great client experience should sound like. We do this by listening to customer compliments; what we found out is the standard we had for a “wow” call and what the client thought was a “wow” call were not aligned. The truth of the matter is the clients’ expectations were much lower than ours. In these calls our Associates were friendly, efficient and helped resolve the client’s inquiry on the call. Our opinion was the calls were “average” as we expected the Associates to be super-friendly and ask a few more questions on the clients’ implied needs.

So here we are internally focusing on what we thought the client expected, when in fact the clients expectations were clearly lower than our own.

What this caused us to do was simplify our Calibration Sessions to be focused on the overall experience of the client, instead of meticulously evaluating each nuance of the interaction and scoring the call. Having said this, we have not changed our expectations on the client experience. We still expect our staff to be super-friendly, ask the right questions and completely resolve the client issue.

What we learned from this is it is critical to determine what is important to our clients before building, investing time and resources in a process that is not an important factor of the service experience for our clients. Industry standards are great as a guideline. What is more important is to truly understand the needs and priorities of your clients.

By David Bradshaw, Vice President (Head) of Sales & Service, ING DIRECT. David is a member of CMA’s Contact Centre Council.

Bottom of the Food Chain?

A recent article in the Toronto Star struck a nerve with me. Specifically, I was very disappointed by statements made by New Democrat MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) who actually expressed “loathing of telemarketers”. I was compelled to write Mr. Martin an email, which I thought I would share. Feel free to share your opinions here, or with Mr. Martin directly!

Dear Mr. Martin:

As a professional in the contact center industry, and working for a very reputable private Canadian outsourcer, I must tell you that I was both shocked and unimpressed with your comments in the above mentioned article.

To say that "They (telemarketers) really are the bottom of the food chain in terms of commercial marketing" is both untrue and very disrespectful. As an industry, Contact Centers provide some of the largest opportunities for employment in this country*, and most operate with extremely detailed internal policies and procedures to ensure that all codes of practice and government regulations are followed.

I know that in Ontario specifically, we are working very hard through various different associations and organizations, to bring to light the professionalism and opportunity that this type of work offers. As members of the Canadian Marketing Association my own organization and many others have long followed a Code of Ethics with a stringent telemarketing component and the requirement to use the association’s Do Not Contact program.

The regulatory bodies such as the CRTC are in many ways, supporting this approach through the introduction of the National DNC. To my knowledge, all reputable contact centers in Canada adhere to these and many other rules and regulations, ultimately providing a professional and seamless experience to the end user.

In this day and age, and in light of our current economic situation, I would expect that someone of your standing would understand the importance of supporting those employment verticals that provide good jobs and sound education to thousands of individuals throughout the country.

Sincerely,

Jennifer McLeod
Member of the CMA Contact Centre Council

* CMA’s 2007 study, Marketing’s Contribution to the Canadian Economy, estimated that in 2007, the employment impact of telemarketing in Canada was 159,805 jobs and the correlating sales impact was $27 Billion.

Service Levels Are Not An Indication Of A Level Of Service.

For as long as anyone can remember, call centres have measured themselves through service levels. This mathematical formula of the percentage of calls answered within a certain time frame has been the bedrock of the industry. It has been widely accepted that by managing service levels you are ensuring a consistent and acceptable customer experience, while appropriately managing your resources. This traditional view of service levels, however, is a fallacy.

There are three main reasons why I hold this view:

1. Service levels manage to averages and not deviations to the average.
2. “Buying back” service levels are a common occurrence in the industry.
3. By not including IVR (Interactive Voice Response) time, service levels do not correctly reflect the customer experience.

No one manages to a service level target for each and every call. By the nature of the calculation, that would be impossible. Instead, we manage to service levels within a given period of time (a day, a week, a month). By stretching out our time horizon, we in affect hide wide swings in service levels that we experience all the time. By not factoring in a measurement that accounts for these deviations, we are not accounting for the consistency of service being experienced by our customers.

The problem of deviations to a standard service level is only heightened by the fact that many in the industry regularly “buy back” service levels. This is accomplished by running at service levels well above target to make up for intervals where the target was missed. This practice does not change the experience of those who waited a longer period to be answered, and is not appreciated by those who are answered faster in exchange. This practice only costs a firm additional money to meet an artificial in-house target.

Finally, service levels do not include IVR time. The IVR and the time taken to navigate it, is as much part of the customer experience as is the hold time to be answered after getting through the IVR. We are as responsible for the experience on the IVR as we are for the experience with an agent. We also have as much, if not more control over the IVR experience as we do over the agent experience.

It is essential that as an industry we challenge ourselves to find new and better ways to account for the customer experience within our centers. I invite people to add their comments and help share what they have done to combat the short falls of service level measurements within their organizations.

Authored by Richard Litvack, VP Operations, Citi Cards Canada

'Coaching' the Coach

At a time when training and overall employee moral requires the biggest boost, it seemed more than fitting that the CMA Contact Centre Council recently held a “Coach the Coach” session. It was clear from a room full of engaged attendees that many companies still see the value in ensuring that their leaders and managers have a fundamental understanding of the importance of “coaching” within their respective organizations.

Three industry experts presented at this event (Winston Siegel, Switchgear Consulting, Kim Chernecki, Fusion Learning and Terry Pruner, Seneca College) and all participants came away with a more structured understanding of the differences between, managing, coaching and leadership.

Today it is simply not enough to manage or to lead...coaching is an essential part of the development process and will enable some of your best to truly shine. It is a unique art that is being better understood and more broadly embraced than in times past. Solid listening skills, one-on-one meetings and the enhancement of a skill were all promoted as vital ingredients to becoming a good coach.

The session, which began with understanding what it means to be a true “coach”, then evolved into what types of tasks a good coach would engage in and ended with an educational approach to how one may learn to understand the fundamentals of leadership within a contact centre environment. There were also some key thoughts shared around how one might identify a learning organization and what key contributors are evident in such an organization. Recruiting and hiring for values, recognizing and rewarding behaviours and identifying with effective mechanisms that are in place to identify barriers to the learning process were all mentioned as key criteria to support a learning organization.

Fundamentally, we all took away the clear message that what you are doing is not the question; it is all about how you are doing what you are doing that makes the biggest difference and the most significant impact. To that end, Winston Siegel left all minds running in high gear with the thought that “if no SKILL has improved, no COACHING has actually taken place.”

Cost of Quality

We all know it is more cost effective to keep an existing customer than find a new one. This is especially true in today’s economic times where customer acquisition is becoming harder and harder.

Which begs the question; why is quality of call not included in the ‘success matrix’ of the telemarketing score card at most organizations?

While some companies look at quality of an inbound call, it is often underweighted, behind the almighty dollar. How long the call takes to resolve is always number 1. Short calls may come at a cost much higher than the price of the call; many of your customers will feel like they are being cut off, that their concerns aren’t being heard – that they are just another number. If you’re lucky, they will call back to get a sense of satisfaction from another agent. If you aren’t so lucky, they won’t call back - they will just find someplace else to spend their money. A customer’s satisfaction with the way a call is resolved should be the top priority. Some companies say this is addressed through 1st call resolution rates, my question is “how do you gauge those people who don’t call in a second time”, if they simply choose to find another company to work with?

If your cost to acquire a new customer is 3 or 4 times more (and sometimes higher) than to maintain your existing customer, shouldn’t the level of quality during the call be a priority?

Outbound telemarketing numbers can be much more staggering. I was recently part of an analysis that looked at the long term value of customers that were acquired. Due to the length of the initial calls, Organization A’s costs were $250,000 for the campaign; Organization B’s costs were $350,000. Initial response rates were almost identical. On the surface, everyone would say it is an easy decision - go with Organization A every time, as we are getting the same response for 60% of the cost. Responses were generating regular purchases every month on an ongoing basis. But once we started to look at the data and follow the trends, those that were acquired by Organization A were dropping off by as much as 24% per year, while those by Organization B were dropping off at 5% per year.

Customers acquired by Organization B felt valued during their call; the length of time spent with them on the phone was more than by Organization A – they showed an affinity toward the organization. As these customers were tracked over a number of years, the acquisitions of Organization A contributed just over $4,000,000. Acquisitions of Organization B contributed over $5,700,000. What looked like an easy decision based on initial costs, has ended up costing the company $1,600,000 over 5 years.

Maybe the decision wasn’t so easy after all.

Top Three Myths about Canadian Contact Centres

As the world economy continues to struggle, many organizations will be looking closer at outsourcing as a key initiative to improving their bottom line.

Outsourcing contact centre services is a sensitive topic for any large corporation. The feeling of vulnerability and loss of control is common in a corporate board room filled with senior management. 3rd party contact centres are always asked how they can deliver such services without damaging their clients brand while maintaining good client experience. Large organizations that have outsourced some or all of their contact centre services have started sharing their strategic business imperatives with their outsourced vendors. This transparency has enabled 3rd party contact centres to transform and adopt new standards for their business. A decision to outsource contact centre services is no longer just financial; it also includes the careful selection of a true partnership that will build success over the longer term.

With 19 years in the Canadian Contact Centre industry, working in both internal and 3rd party contact centres, I’ve heard just about all the myths concerning contact centres – here’s my top 3:

Myth#1: 3rd party contact centres are challenged to provide good customer experience
3rd party contact centres are rigorous in building superior call quality process and metrics that are aligned with their client’s goal of delivering good client experience. We know the customer is always right and deserves a great experience.

Myth#2: 3rd party contact centres are able to offer lower cost at the expense of call quality
Many contact centres today boast ISO standards and have also adopted state of the art digital recording technology, enabling real time monitoring of good call quality. Organizations that outsource also request remote monitoring to help evaluate and monitor call quality.

Myth#3: The recruitment and hiring standard is lower in a 3rd party contact centre
3rd party contact centres adopt hiring practices that are similar to their clients. In many cases, 3rd party contact centres take their hiring standard up a notch by conducting criminal and credit background checks and behavioural based interviews to name a few.

Time to Call-aborate

The new Do Not Call Legislation sends a strong message to companies to re-examine howthey do business with their customers. The days of unsolicited cold callshave been eliminated and professional marketing companies now need to focus their efforts on permission-based marketing techniques to acquire new sales more than ever.

This has been somewhat of a mixed blessing for direct marketing professionals. In the environment of a test and learn mentality, an ongoing challenge is the exploration of new collaborative methods and test vehicles for their business. Key drivers of these initiatives include exploring new methods of reaching customers in the on-line environment including directing more people to on-line websites, targeted email campaigns and/or personalized URL's (PURLs). Using these approaches either together or in part is definitely an advantage for those companies who have their own internal sales teams or call centres. Typically, sales teams have been an outbound group but have now been challenged to reinvent their contributions on daily processes to speak as inbound reps. The new focus is specifically on either existing customers to up-sell them or prospects who have made inquiries which will now allow the reps to speak to these prospects with the goal of closing sales.

Regardless of the products sold - these methods generate new sales, increase a company's brand awareness and will easily highlight those companies that are taking this strategy to a whole new level of customer care. The result in part of a company's reputation actively pursuing this strategy will be one that is personable, respectable and environmentally-responsible which will definitely result in win-win situation for both the customers and the business.

Red Herring Season

At the time of writing I have just left a meeting with Sandy Weill (of Citibank fame), where he told me we are entering into the deepest recession any of us has seen in many, many years. Of course, he was talking about the US. But let’s say, hypothetically, that Canada does not miss this bullet (in spite of our government’s solid, stay the course plan) and we too enter into a recession. What then?

Unemployment climbs, demand for consumer good drops, the economy shrinks, inventories shrink, profits disappear, and so on. Most importantly, though, none of this is our fault at a micro-economic level. It is all the fault of the economy; a comforting thought to many Canadian business leaders who love nothing more than to find a convenient external source to blame for whatever happens to their business (high taxes, the liberal government tax and spend policies, the free market conservative policies, the dollar, 9/11, SARS, Listeria, and so on).

Don’t blame these poor souls. They are suffering from RHD, Red Herring Disorder, a viral disease native to the Canadian Urban Regions.

RHD starts, as do all worthwhile disease, with flue like symptoms. Subsequently the patient slumps into a lumpish, self-sympathetic pose, often muttering: “But there’s nothing we can do,” over and over again. RHD victims generally cut budgets and cancel activities, mostly to avoid being responsible for anything, but also, in most cases, to reduce their workload in order to spend more time bemoaning their fate. RHD is probably caused by an airborne pathogen as it is easily transmitted from person to person (and, in an odd, metaphysical way, from organization to organization).

As RHD progresses it takes control of the autonomous nervous system, causing the patient to become increasing boring and repetitive. A compulsive need to stifle any external stimuli and repeat the “cut the budget” mantra is the reason this disease is often mistaken for an obsessive-compulsive mood disorder. Practitioners now believe this not to be the case, as RHD is often accompanied by a contradictory psycho-neurotic behavioural symptom: pathological self-preservation syndrome. The precise relationship between RHD and PSPS is not clear, but the fact that they so often occur in parallel has opened an entirely new path of study for experts in these diseases.

RHD is often incurable and, in the worst cases, ultimately results in the sufferer being separated from the organization organism at such time as the economy improves. Unfortunately for the organization organism and the world in general, this occurs far too late to be of any use.

In the US, a vaccination has been tested and shown somewhat successful. At the very first intimation of the virus, test subjects are given massive doses of courage and creativity. Early test show that the resulting hard work, positive outlook and immediate business success appear to be effective in fighting off the disease.

If not caught in time, the disease cannot be effectively treated.

Under no circumstances, should sufferers be exposed to competitors who have taken advantage of the difficult economic climate to rethink their fundamental mission and vision, and develop innovative, effective, and hard-hitting strategies.

Service is NOT a Strategy

Many firms today like to look at their customer service departments as a strategic advantage. They believe that the quality of their service will be a significant differentiator between themselves and their competition. Let me be provocative and say that in today’s world, customer service is not a strategic advantage! This does not mean that effective delivery of customer service is not important, but rather, that customer service as a strategy within an organization, will never be a differentiator. There are several factors which lead me to this conclusion:

•Consumers have a different expectation of customer service than what firms want to provide.
•The flow of thoughts, information, people and technology are too free flowing to maintain a competitive advantage.
•For most industries, there is a lack of causality between improved customer service and better financial results for the firm.

For a whole host of other reasons, what customers believe to be a good service experience differs greatly from what many firms believe a strategic service experience should be. High customer satisfaction scores are usually grounded in a firms ability to do ‘what they say, when they say, how they say’. While firms are looking for ways to add the illusive and often undefined “value added” service in their customer interactions, their customers are looking for customer service to simply be a painless experience. What this has lead firms to do is to design customer service departments which they can tout as “World Class” or “Industry Leading” as part of their strategy. All the time, however, these firms overlook points of customer dissatisfaction. The end result is that the focus on differentiated service becomes more of an annoyance to customers as their core issues remain unresolved.

Even if a firm was able to both fix customer dissatisfaction points as well as developing value added features in their service offering, the longevity of that strategic advantage would be short lived. The free flow of thoughts, ideas and people along with the supporting technologies between competing firms is too large to be controlled. If one firm were to find a way to add bottom line value to their firm through their customer service department, it would be easy to duplicate at competing firms. Furthermore, the speed at which a competitor could reproduce a customer service experience would mitigate any uplift the originator of that experience would have seen as being first to market.

Many within the customer service industry would argue that higher customer satisfaction leads to lower attrition, or increased spending, or higher loyalty which is a bankable impact to a firm. The issue with this argument is that it is somewhat anecdotal and does not account for the net impact of “value added” service compared to regular customer service. There are a multitude of reasons why customers change their spending habits which are both internal and external to firms. Also, the investment that firms make in their customer service departments to ‘differentiate’ them may not be what drives any additional value from customers. One may be able to argue that competent service, rather than value added service is what drives value from customers. The stories of bad customer service experiences travel more rapidly than those of exceptional customer service experiences. The end results is that although many firms could find a corollary relationship between customer service and a customers value to the firm, this relationship is not one of causality.

The conclusion that one should derive from this position is that customer service is an important part of any organization. It should be effective, painless to the customer and reproducible across the business. Many firms have already started down this path with increased focus on items such as first contact resolution which drives down cost while alleviating a customer pain point. Trying to shape a customer service center into a strategic advantage for a firm is bound to fail. Firms would be better served by investing excess capital in product development, marketing or creating a price point advantage in their product than they would in trying to evolve customer service into a corporate strategy. Personally, as a manager, I want my customer service department to be the best in the world. As a consumer, however, I just want my issue resolved to my satisfaction quickly and painlessly. I would invite others to tell us about their experiences with customer service as a strategy. Have you seen a customer service strategy paying significant return on investment to a firm?

Dad, what do you think about me getting a job in a call centre?

My oldest is about to complete his first year of university and is thinking about taking a year off. Because I’m in the call centre business he asked me about employment opportunities in the industry and what I thought about working in a call centre. Before I could answer my wife jumped in and said, “I don’t want him working on one of those places. I hate those calls you get at night.” I politely explained that there are a whole range of opportunities in the industry with most of the jobs in roles where you’re handling inbound calls providing customer service and support. “But even in those places you have to put up your hand if you want to go to the bathroom. Who’d want to work in that kind of environment” she said.

So what a great question. As someone who’s been a part of the industry for over 15 years do I think a job in this business is good enough for my first born? The answer is a resounding yes. It’s perfect for him.

First, he doesn’t have a lot of experience which eliminates him from many full time opportunities but he does have retail experience. Dealing with and helping customers in a retail environment transfers well to the call centre business and many companies hiring will consider that sufficient background when they ask for “previous customer service experience”. Second, he’ll get some good training on basic, but very important skills that we’ll stay with him for a lifetime. Managing and guiding a conversation to a successful outcome, dealing with difficult customers, problem resolution, and communication skills, are all areas that he would typically receive training on and get plenty of practice using in a call centre job. Clearly these are skills that will be critical to him, regardless of the profession he finally chooses, and a call centre is a perfect place to hone them.

Even if he decides to try his hand “at one of those places” as my wife called it there is no more valuable skill to learn than attempting to engage someone who you call out of the blue and get them interested in your product and services. Sales skills, no matter what profession you choose, are critical to success in business. It also doesn’t hurt in giving him a little toughness that comes with hearing no over and over again before success is finally realized. That’s a life skill that he must develop and outbound telemarketing gives you a crash course in it.

You’ll notice that most of the reasons that I’ve cited so far are in the context of skills he’ll learn that he can transfer and use when he gets a “real” job. There’s another very important element to this business that I think is one of the best kept secrets in this industry.

There are probably no better environments for career advancement for talented hard working young people than in the call centre business. High turnover is a reality in this business primarily because most people view it as a pit stop along the way in their career. What a few people quickly recognize is that within this environment it can be easy to stand out by simply having a good attitude, showing some enthusiasm and initiative, and really caring about doing the right thing for your customer and your company. These people soon find that they are being considered for the next Supervisor or Team Lead position sometimes after only a few months on the job and often with little formal post secondary education. If my son lands a job in a call centre I am going to tell him to do his best to stand out because he may have the opportunity in a very short time to take on a leadership role and get some outstanding experience in managing people and leading a team that he just couldn’t get in any other environment.

In a recent meeting of the CMA Contact Centre Council I asked my colleagues, many of whom are Vice Presidents of Customer Service for large well known fortune 100 companies, how many of them started out as an agent. Over half of the room put up their hands. Wow. These very bright people figured out early on that by showing some initiative they could quickly work their way up the organization becoming subject matter experts in an area of the business everyone now recognizes as critical to success. That’s why they're earning six figure salaries. Not bad from starting out as an agent making a little more than minimum wage.

So when I’m not around and my wife secretly tells him to look for a “real” job because she naturally doesn’t believe anything I have to say, hopefully he’ll tell her about my friends who quickly turned a job, that she considers unworthy of her first born, into a profession that pays handsome dividends.

Who am I kidding? He’ll probably listen to her. Dad has no idea what he’s talking about.