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By Susan J. Campbell

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

The call center plays a vital role in assuring that customers are satisfied with the organization that the center represents. In fact, the center must ensure that customers are satisfied enough to remain loyal, spread the positive word about the company and produce a return on the investment that the company made when establishing the call center in the first place.

 

According to a new study released by the CFI Group, these things are the direct result of the performance of the contact center. The inaugural Call Center Satisfaction Index revealed that the two issues with the most impact on customer satisfaction with the contact center are first call resolution and offshoring.

 

The key element that is driving customer satisfaction and therefore customer loyalty and the likelihood to recommend is issue resolution. The study found that across all industries that were measured, nearly one fifth of all callers hung up with their issue unresolved. Of those customers who did have their issue unresolved, 68 percent were at risk of defection.

 

The study also indicated that customers who believe the contact center is located outside the U.S. rate their satisfaction with the call center experience 26 points lower on the index’s 100-point scale and are almost twice as likely to defect compared to those who assume the call center is in the U.S.

 

“Offshoring has a negative impact on satisfaction because offshore customer service reps are less adept at solving customer problems,” said Sheri Teodoru, Program Director at CFI Group and author of the study, in a Tuesday statement.  “Customer service reps located outside of the U.S. are rated lower on communication skills.  When communication skills are poor, customers’ issues remain unsolved in the majority of cases.”

 

Customer issues see resolution only 45 percent of the time when handled by reps with poor communication skills. In the instance where a rep can speak clearly, 88 percent of issues are resolved. Communication skills prove to be a challenge among some U.S.-based customer service representatives, but on average U.S.-based call centers score better than offshore call centers on rep communication skills.

 

The methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) was used by the CFI Group Call Center Satisfaction Index. The group surveyed customers of call centers in six industries and satisfaction with each industry was rated on the ACSI’s 100-point scale. The following displays the results by industry:

 

Catalog Call Centers: 80

Banking Call Centers: 77

Cell Phone Service Call Centers: 69

Cable and Satellite Television Call Centers: 68

Insurance Call Centers: 68

Personal Computer Call Centers: 64

 

Standouts from this index include catalog and banking centers primarily due to the superior customer service that their representatives provide, in addition to good first call resolution. PC call centers lag far behind as nearly 25 percent of callers hang up with their issue unresolved, causing PC customer service reps to be rated much lower when it comes to solving problems.

 

“Too many companies treat call centers as cost centers rather than seeing them as an opportunity to solidify the customer relationship, resulting in increased loyalty and retention,” said Teodoru. “Based on this research, any company that isn’t putting resources into making sure that the call center is delivering customer satisfaction rather than frustration is taking a huge risk with its customer asset.” 

 

It shouldn’t be a real surprise to organizations that operate a call center that customer satisfaction is vital to their survival, much less their growth. Yet some still fall short in capturing and measuring customer satisfaction and as a result, continue to experience customer churn. Until these organizations completely understand what drives satisfaction and become focused on driving those elements, they will continue to struggle in their industry.  

 

An overall report and more detailed reports on all six industries are available at no charge at http://cfigroup.com/callsat.

 

 

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.

 

 

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