The seven habits of highly successful contact centres

Perhaps I am getting a bit long in the tooth these days but I remember those heady days of the contact centre world when we only had to worry about the phone. That's right, emails were non-existent, the web was still something that crawled along at a painfully slow speed and to get a mobile phone required a second mortgage and a urine sample.

However, today, with plummeting costs for broadband and ever increasing speeds, as well as the ubiquity of mobiles, the means of which we prefer to communicate with our friends and colleagues is ever changing, and we expect the companies who we do business with to keep up.  I come across "multi-channel contact centre" proposals at least once a week now, and there's no stopping it.  The likely forces at work here are an increased level of simplicity to deploy, as well as a lower cost of entry.  Even more dangerous are the little "baby dot coms" that can slowly nibble at your bottom line selling everything from leisure products to bank loans.  These companies have already invested in slick multi-channel communications which allow customers to conduct all kinds of interactions effortlessly, while the bloated uber-retailers with their huge investment in legacy systems can only look on and whimper at the eroding revenue.  It appears, however, that something has turned a corner and the larger companies have woken up to the threat.

The ability to handle phone, email, SMS, fax and webchat seamlessly in your business is the Nirvana for many a contact centre manager.  But are their aspirations misguided?  Of the operations I have visited in my travels, there are precious few who are doing it, and doing it successfully.

There is a recipe to making it work, however.  Don't expect for one second that your agents will take to it like a duck to water. If not coached in and managed correctly, the response will be more like a duck to a blast furnace.

So what are those habits of highly successful multi-channel contact centres?

• Accepting that some channels are just as expensive to handle as the phone - thinking that web-chats, emails or SMS responses are somehow cheaper to handle than on the phone is a bit of a fallacy.  If not done correctly, responding to the emails or web chats could take you longer than if you just grabbed the phone and spoke to the customer.  Preparation of the process and the correct systems is key in maximising your productivity in a multi-channel environment.  Some people have this vision of their agents conducting four webchats, two emails and a phone call, all while making the tea - this is unrealistic.
• Build a progression path in your operation for your agents:  You don't just get the keys to the Porsche just because you passed your driving test.  You have to earn it.  In multi-channel centres, it is exactly the same. People who prove they are reliable and able to multi-task should get the ability to handle more than one channel and it should reflect in their pay-packet too.
• Aptitude tests:  Not all people are equipped to use the written word to communicate with your customers.  I know some agents who couldn't string a sentence together to save their life.  It's vital that you ensure that only your agents who have demonstrated good spelling and grammar are let loose on the emails or webchat otherwise you'll find your webchat transcript on some comedy blog.
• Grade of service for every channel:  Just like on the phone, emails have a maximum accepted time to answer, as does webchat and SMS.  They are hard targets that the business is rewarded on if they achieve service level. These should be communicated across the business, too.
• Right tools for the right job:  The companies in question have invested in technology to allow them to easily control the flow of interactions across the different channels. There is enough MI to understand the peaks and troughs as well as where the operations are hitting/missing service levels. There are, in my humble opinion, some excellent solutions companies out there, as well.
• Close interaction with marketing and the webmasters:  In order to get the message out there about multiple channels, it needs to be prominently displayed on the webpage, your invoices, your queuing messages, etc.
• You are tuned into "WIFM":  Customers are only tuned into one radio station, "What's Innit For Me"?  Your business will need to encourage your customers to use these new channels. How will the customer benefit?  Will they get a faster service?  Will they get a discount?  All this is at your discretion.

As with any change to the business the agents need to feel they will get the support they need to adapt to this new change to their environment. By adapting these concepts into your business, as well as prudent decision-making and change management processes, your operation will easily glide into the multi-channel world.

Gene Reynolds, contact centre consultant at CC