Customer Care

Customer satisfaction is important for any organization that relies on revenues from customer sales to stay in business. Even for organizations that do not have a specific product or service they ‘sell’, there is generally a customer-type of audience that must remain happy for the organization to be successful.

 

In the call center arena, measurements of all sorts have been put in place to help drive efficiency, productivity, performance and even customer satisfaction. Such measures include call recording and call monitoring, workforce management solutions, KPIs and balance score cards, customized applications and scripts, to name a few.

 

Many of these solutions are implemented into the call center with the argued theory that they will ultimately drive customer satisfaction. However, according to the Aspect Contact Customer Satisfaction Index, these centers are failing to meet the expectations and needs of consumers. When surveyed, consumers gave contact centers a D+ satisfaction grade.

 

While this may seem like a cut and dry scenario where these centers just need to step up their customer care efforts, many center managers report a much higher satisfaction levels of their customers. The problem with this assessment, aside from the fact that it varies greatly from the outcome of surveyed consumers, is the form of measurement that these centers are using to come to this conclusion.

 

Organizations often assume that because a caller’s issue is resolved on first contact with the call center that the customer is satisfied. While this can often be true, merely assuming it is forgetting the individual customer and the importance of their perception of the actual experience.

 

When call centers fail to survey the customer and find out what the customer likes and dislikes and how they viewed their last experience, they are relying on everything but the customer to determine the customer’s satisfaction. In doing so, the center is likely to fail over the long term, as they can lose sight of how valuable the customer is to the organization.

 

A call center that has implemented the best hiring practices, the most efficient training and coaching programs, robust applications and call routing programs, established motivating KPIs and perfected a script, can still fail if they forget the basics of customer service. All of these enhancements to the call center won’t do anything to advance performance if the agent is not courteous to the customer.

 

The most critical element that must always be present in every call center strategy is the customer. While most tools will be implemented around delivering customer service, the individual customer must be acknowledged and serviced as if his or her business is the only business that matters. Most importantly, call centers must remember to listen to the customer as they are the only completely valid source for measuring their own perception of the experience with the center.

 

 

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.