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The Warnings of Haiti

By Brendan B. Read,
Senior Contributing Editor

The almost incomprehensible destruction, loss of life and immense suffering from the earthquake that struck Haiti in January serves as a warning for companies in their site selection decisions. If they want their contact centers to survive disasters then they must be prepared because the chances are increasingly excellent that they’re on their own, wherever they are located.

Haiti is and will not likely to be an offshore contact center hub as its European language is French; North African countries have taken that role. Yet India and the Philippines and other developing countries that are drawing this business in English and Spanish are vulnerable to and poorly prepared for similar and other deadly calamities. Many of these nations share the same ills: no or badly-enforced building codes, corrupt officials and poor infrastructure coupled with political instability and terrorism amidst economic extremes that makes these societies fragile.

It is that disaster planning and response
ranks way below subsidizing bonus-happy
bankers who had tipped the economy into
the downturn and bailing out shortsighted
auto manufacturers in funding priorities.

Then again one can make the same points about developed countries. Witness Hurricane Katrina. Is there that much difference between what happened in New Orleans and in Port-au-Prince? Bad planning in the face of predicted disasters, inadequate infrastructure, a pathetic-bordering-on-the-inept government response amidst unbelievable human loss... Except that in wealthy nations like the U.S. there is no excuse. It is that disaster planning and response ranks way below subsidizing bonus-happy bankers who had tipped the economy into the downturn and bailing out shortsighted auto manufacturers in funding priorities.

The disaster prognosis is getting worse. Global warming brought on by a refusal by firms and individuals to pay for the environmental damage they incur can be blamed for the weird winter weather with effects such as heavy rains resulting in flooding and mudslides on the West Coast. As sea levels climb from polar ice melting, roads, rail and communications networks and communities will start to disappear. Homes and businesses situated in flood plains are just waiting to be destroyed and so are the lives of those in them. The same goes for those in danger areas like the slopes of Mount Rainier in Washington State that face the sprawling Seattle-Tacoma area: on top of past deadly mudflows from this iconic dormant volcano.

So where will the money come from when the next disasters hit? Consider California’s situation. The state government is broke and no one wants to pay more taxes or take services cuts. So when the next 8.0-magnitude or worse hits the Bay Area or the L.A. basin, who will pay for the cops, the medics, the firefighting what was lost?

To survive the next event, firms need to thoroughly assess their functions and locations. That includes loss of employees and business and restoration expenses. When these costs plus operating and facilities and technology investments are added the ROI may be there to buy or contract for speech recognition and improved web self-service to reduce staff either directly or indirectly through outsourcers. Look at the typically heavilyscripted calls being offshored. Is there that much benefit in having live agents as opposed to computers handling them?

Companies must take a second look at where their facilities are situated to see if they can be evacuated quickly. Office
parks are more vulnerable than traditional downtowns where there is only one way out whereas the latter are on grid systems with multiple escape paths.

Or better yet, don’t build at all. There is no logical reason why contact center employees have to be in employer-provided
buildings. Having them work from home minimizes disaster losses while providing business continuity, improving productivity, cutting costs and boosting profits.

Lastly, firms should take a leadership role and ride elected officials’ backsides to prevent and minimize and respond to disasters. They should state they are prepared to pay more in taxes, but only if the money goes to the right places, such as stiffening infrastructure, fixing the problems that led or made the events worse and emergency planning, action and recovery. Individual lives, economies and communities wherever they are depend on it.

 

A new report from Genesys (News - Alert) Telecommunications Laboratories, “The Cost of Poor Customer Service” spells the issue out. It estimates that lousy treatment of those who put money in the hands of businesses ding the U.S. economy to the tune of $83 billion. Where is this coming from? Some 71 percent of consumers that have ended a relationship due to a poor customer service experience.

What is the impact to enterprises? How about an average value of $289 in one year of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned? Add those up and we’re talking serious money.

So why do customers leave? The Genesys report points to having them repeat themselves, being trapped in automated self-service, forced to wait too long for service, contact centers that don’t their history and value and an inability to switch channels easily.

Which is the most problematic channel? IVR, what else? 33 percent of respondents cited it as the most challenging mode. Moreover 38 percent said “it is critical to improve voice self-service to make it more intelligently integrated with human assisted service.”

One reason is the nightmares of busy consumers trying to get out of automated Hades to reach live agents. The Genesys report revealed that spent more than 9.5 minutes trying to reach a person.

“As a result, even paper mail is preferred to poorly implemented voice self-service,” says the paper. “Consumers say the biggest issues are that voice self-service does not recognize the value of the consumer, lacks context, and needs to recognize customer needs and intent better. Another consumer said: ‘I don’t mind automated systems but...I hate it when I am unable to reach a human, and the automated voice continues to make me repeat over and over, and when I finally get close to being connected to a human, I am disconnected and have to start over again.’”

In contrast while not surprisingly most people are happy with live agents, more were satisfied with Web self-service than not. Conclusion? It isn’t the self-service per se that bugs buyers but the implementation on the voice side.

So what gives? This isn’t the first time commentators like me have beaten contact centers over the head on IVR. I’ve lost track of how many analysts and other reports that have said the same thing in the 14 years I’ve been covering and involved with this industry.

Why can’t centers make IVR as pleasing or, at best, not as offensive as the Web? Why do they insist on blowing opportunities to save large sums over live agents in handling simple calls by ticking off and driving away your customers when these supposedly valued buyers/prospects use your voice systems?

The solutions are there and there’s no excuse not to adopt them. They include trimming the menu trees and making it easy for customers to zero out: throwing obstacles in their way is only going to make them consider tossing your business into the recycle bin.

The tools also include going to user-friendly speech rec for the right applications. These solutions are becoming less expensive, easier to implement and more customizable. Microsoft has an increasingly sophisticated and affordable array of premise-installed and hosted (via its Tellme (News - Alert) subsidiary) speech products. Nuance’s latest offering, Vocalizer 5 manages the static and carrier prompts and computer-generated speech through one unified interface to deliver a seamless flow of speech, free from clicks and latencies that can hinder the user experience.

So what are you waiting for? Your competitors to take the money off your table?

I heard the IVR system is real good…at the unemployment department.

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