June 1999

When You Think "Monitoring," Think "John Smith"

BY RON ELWELL, DICTAPHONE CORPORATION

By several estimates, nearly three-quarters of all customer interactions today take place through call centers. Each customer interaction is an opportunity for the company to make a good or bad impression an invitation for customers to stay or leave and to buy less or buy more an investment in a lifetime of revenue and profit.

It's no wonder the call center's role has evolved from simply handling calls to managing customer experiences. Today's call center is no longer just a "call" center, but instead a vital hub for creating and maintaining profitable customer relationships.

With this in mind, consider that call centers are investing billions of dollars in all manner of high-tech equipment to manage their customer interactions. (In fact, according to Frost and Sullivan, the call center hardware and software market is expected to grow to more than $10 billion by the year 2001.)

While all of this technology has been designed to improve customer interactions, sometimes it can have quite the opposite effect. As an example, let's take John Smith. He has what he thinks is a simple question to ask your company. He spots your 800 number on your product literature and calls. After two rings, your IVR system picks up. Mr. Smith negotiates a maze of menus, after which he spends five minutes on hold before he gets to speak to a live person. By the time he gets through to your "star" agent, Mary, he's already frustrated. Unfortunately, Mary can't answer Mr. Smith's question, because your system transferred him to the wrong department, so Mary puts him on hold again, and then transfers him to Bill, who transfers him to Holly, who sends him back to your IVR system to select option 3.

You can imagine what happens next. CLICK.... John Smith, your loyal customer for nearly 20 years, hangs up and calls your competitor.

Sound far-fetched? Perhaps. But the point is, unless you have a way of knowing that Mr. Smith had a bad experience, and unless you can understand why, then you're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. The investments you made in technology and training to provide great customer service will all be for naught. And you'll never know how many Mr. Smiths you lost to your competitors.

So what does this all have to do with monitoring technology? Until recently, monitoring technology couldn't prevent call centers from repeating past mistakes. Designed as agent evaluation tools, these systems were excellent devices for automating the monitoring process and enhancing supervisor efficiency, but provided very limited insight into the customer experience.

Because such systems were designed to monitor random samples of agent calls (for example, 10 percent of all calls), it was easy for call centers to miss 90 percent of the problems.

Furthermore, since the technology was limited to only capturing individual agent conversations and couldn't tie together all the other elements of the customer's experience, it was virtually impossible to identify with any certainty all the problems that resulted in a dissatisfied customer.

Keep in mind every element of your customer's interaction with your call center   whether it's with a human being or some form of technology  makes a difference. A widely quoted Rockefeller Institute research study indicates that 68 percent of customers who leave a company do so because of an attitude of indifference on the part of the company. That's the human aspect.

Now, let's look at the technology aspect. Research conducted by TARP (Technical Assistance Research Programs) confirms that "known dissatisfiers" (i.e., long hold times and multiple transfers) can cause customer defection. One TARP study points out that customer loyalty and satisfaction can be decreased by 10 to 15 percent if a customer feels he or she has a problem gaining access to the company through the company's IVR system. Another TARP study shows that multiple transfers can cause 10 to 25 percent of customer dissatisfaction.

Other studies (and common sense) affirm that dissatisfied customers take their business elsewhere. According to research conducted for SOCAP by Yankelovich Partners, "three in four Americans (75.5 percent) say an unsatisfactory discussion with a company's consumer representative will affect whether or not they continue to buy the company's products or services." What do you think these customers' biggest pet peeves are? The answer is easy to guess: long hold times (waiting to speak to a live representative) and getting caught up in an automated system, unable to reach a human.

This brings us back to John Smith. If your call center used a random monitoring program, chances are good (9 out of 10, in fact) that John's call would never have been recorded. On the 1 out of 10 chance that it was recorded, you probably would have captured only his conversation with Holly. But surely Holly wasn't the only source of John's dissatisfaction.

Now suppose you had a way to easily isolate John Smith's call (and similar problem calls) from the thousands of calls handled daily by your call center. Then suppose you were able to review  hear John Smith's experience in its entirety  his IVR menu selections, his wait on hold and his conversations with Mary, Bill and Holly. Knowing what happened, you would be empowered to address the root problems that caused John to defect. You could rework your IVR menu options to process calls more efficiently and give Mary, Bill and Holly the extra training and one-on-one coaching they may require.

Fortunately, today's new monitoring technology enables you to do just that, by capturing information to store along with voice recordings  numbers keyed into a IVR system, hold times, transfers to various extensions, agent IDs and myriad other information relating to the call or the customer. That same technology also enables you to "follow the call" wherever it goes, using a unique call identifier.

All of the call detail data is stored in a Microsoft SQL database running on a Windows NT server in your call center's network. You can query the database to find calls containing known dissatisfiers. Then you can review the calls in their entirety and isolate problems with your systems, scripts and training. By identifying root causes of customer dissatisfaction, you can take action to eliminate the problems, enhancing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This, in turn, results in greater customer retention and greater profitability.

Now let's take this model one step further and apply some actual values. If you know the percentage of calls in your call center with these known dissatisfiers and the current overall customer satisfaction rate for your call center, then you can estimate the impact of implementing this type of monitoring technology on your overall customer satisfaction rating.

For the purpose of this analysis, let's assume the following:

• Your overall customer satisfaction rate is 86 percent,
• Your percentage of calls with known dissatisfiers is 35 percent,
• Your customer satisfaction rate for the calls handled satisfactorily = y,
• Your customer satisfaction rate for calls with known dissatisfiers = z.
  

If we assume that calls with known dissatisfiers reduce customer satisfaction by 25 percent, we can calculate the customer satisfaction rate for the calls we handle satisfactorily (y) at 94 percent:

.65y + .35z = .86
.65y + .35 (.75y) = .86
.65y + .2625y = .86
y = .94, or 94 percent.

In other words, your customer satisfaction rate for the calls handled satisfactorily is equal to 94 percent. Now that we know the value for "y," we can calculate the value for "z," the customer satisfaction rate for calls with known dissatisfiers:

.65 (.94) + .35z = .86
.611 + .35z = .86
.35z = .25
z = .71, or 71 percent

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That philosophy applies here. A 94 percent customer satisfaction rating (for calls handled well) is difficult to improve. Conversely, a 71 percent customer satisfaction rating should raise a few eyebrows. The good news is that you can make a real, measurable impact on overall customer satisfaction and on the bottom line simply by focusing your efforts on specific problem areas.

For example, let's conservatively assume that by routinely identifying and monitoring calls with known dissatisfiers, you can reduce such calls by 50 percent. Then we could estimate the increase in the overall customer satisfaction rate that would result.

New percentage of calls with known dissatisfiers = .50 (.35) = .175, or 17.5 percent
New percentage of calls handled satisfactorily = 100 percent - 17.5 percent, or 82.5%

.825 (.94) + .175 (.71) = Your new overall customer satisfaction rate
.7755 + .1242 = .90, or 90 percent

So simply by reducing the calls with known dissatisfiers by 50 percent, you can increase your overall customer satisfaction rate by 4 percentage points, from 86 percent to 90 percent.

Now, let's quantify what this means for your bottom line. Assume that you know you lose 5,000 customers annually. Of the 5,000 customers, research shows that 32 percent probably defect due to issues with your product, your pricing, etc.

However, research says that the remaining 68 percent (or 3,400 customers) typically leave because of bad service or indifference on the part of your company. Now, let's assume that by reducing the percentage of calls with known dissatisfiers by 50 percent, you can cut your number of these "salvageable" lost customers in half (to 1,700).

To carry this analysis through to completion, let's bring back our customer, John Smith. It's probably too late to save John, but through a proactive monitoring program focusing specifically on calls with known dissatisfiers, we've been able to salvage 1,700 other profitable customers just like him. We know that each of these customers generates, on average, $1,000 annually in profit for our company. This figure is significant when you do the math ($1.7 million dollars). In addition, this does not take into consideration other "multiplying" factors such as the overall lifetime value of each customer retained and positive word-of-mouth benefits.

So what is the moral of the story? The next time you think monitoring, don't just think about monitoring your agents. Think about monitoring the customer experience instead. Think customer retention.

Think John Smith.

Ron Elwell is senior vice president and general manager of CRS and International Operations for Dictaphone Corporation . Based in Stratford, Connecticut, Dictaphone is a provider of customer-centric monitoring solutions for call centers.

A key objective in all sales operations transcending otherwise unrelated fields involves creating an optimum inbound and outbound teleservices program.

New technology-driven innovations in call logging and monitoring now provide a cost-effective method to increase the efficiency of any teleservices effort.

Call logging and monitoring technology can be targeted at two basic functions: transaction documentation and quality monitoring.

Transaction documentation can fulfill legal requirements where written records are not practical. Financial transactions, such as stock purchases, often depend on oral agreements. Maintaining a record of these agreements allows firms to create a permanent record in case of future disputes.

New voice-recording software facilitates storage, indexing, grouping and evaluation of these conversations in an efficient manner. Systems should also allow flagging of any given transaction to accelerate frequent retrieval. Playback is now available by looking up date, time, dialed number, extension channel number, duration of call, user-ID or written comments.

Prior to current recording systems, oral transactions were documented by paper notes and then analog technology, which required enormous amounts of storage space. Now, storage can be handled with flexible online systems, redundant hard disks and different types of removable media.

The latest technology can also improve quality monitoring supervision by offering graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for easy systems operation. Overseers can easily retrieve and play recordings from a specific search from multimedia PCs on their desks. Features include fast forward playback, loop call and skip to next call. Also, non-distorted speed control allows a message to be slowed down or sped up without any distortion.

New logging software can also provide a graphical representation of individual and call center performance as well as suggesting training courses and selecting TSRs qualified for promotions.

This software also serves as an efficient, and often superior, alternative to CTI (computer-telephony integration).

Compatibility can be achieved between voice logging and digital (E1, T1, PCM, ISDN) and analog communication systems, computerized turret systems and major PBX and ACD manufacturers. Other logging features include LAN/WAN support, adjustable data compression per channel, direct digital tap cards and front panel access.

Cutting-edge developments include storage as a WAV file that can be attached to a document or e-mailed from Windows '95, '98 or NT workstations. APIs (application programmers' interfaces) may also be available to integrate call logging into an existing application.

Methods Of Call-Logging/Monitoring
There are several ways a call monitoring system can be used:

• Bulk Recording. Traditional recording applications required that all calls/transactions be recorded. In many applications where there is potential liability, this is typically the method of choice. Here, every agent is dedicated to his or her own separate channel on the recording system, making searches quick and easy. If required, additional search criteria can be added through ANI, DNIS or CTI integration.
  

• Selective Recording. Selective recording is the method of choice for quality monitoring when it is not necessary to record every agent every day. This allows the supervisors the flexibility to program who gets recorded and when. Selective recording can be either on-demand, event-driven or scheduled.
  
  
• On-demand Recording. On-demand recording consists of recording a call and its associated information as initiated either by an agent script or by the agents themselves. This method can be employed when only part of the conversation needs to be preserved.
  
  
• Event-driven Recording. Sometimes certain calls must be recorded based upon customer-defined criteria. For example, calls can be recorded from or to a certain number or specific account.
  
  
• Scheduled Recording. Scheduled recording applies when the user/supervisor decides to record only during certain time periods.

Quality Monitoring
Quality monitoring and training can enhance the efficiency of inbound and outbound teleservices. Agents can improve their pitch and create more sales, profits, satisfied customers and happy clients.

Call logging and monitoring encompasses much more than catching the stray negligent employee. The process can illuminate gaps in training, provide positive feedback for TSRs and allow greater flexibility and efficiency for supervisors.

More and more companies employing call centers are becoming systematic in their approach by evaluating their agents' performances against set business criteria. Ideally, the supervisor is able to electronically generate this criteria list, covering any aspect relevant to the agents' areas of business. The list can include how the initial greeting was given, how well the agent probed for further customer needs and how well/whether a given task was completed. The system integrates the electronic scoring sheet with the recorded audio, enabling supervisors to grade agents at the same time they review the calls.

The results can be used to evaluate skill levels among teleservices agents to determine an agent's strengths and weaknesses and ability to handle given job responsibilities. Based on the results of the review, systems today can automatically schedule the agent in the next available training class and notify them to appear. A historical trend analysis can also be created that indicates gaps in training in terms of the effectiveness of the training programs themselves.

Conclusion
When teleservices agents are provided regular, fair and timely feedback they are motivated to do a superior job. By learning how to improve their performance, they can feel a sense of progress, and thus, turnover can be reduced.

Future logging systems will be technology-driven by the Web and e-commerce   including multimedia and virtual call centers where automated tools will require more monitoring to allow remote managers to maintain effectiveness and control.

Monitoring and call logging technology and systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are well worth an examination by key executives in many fields.

Tony Procops is senior vice president and general manager of ASC Telecom, a provider of voice and data recording with over 20,000 customers worldwide. Since 1964, ASC Telecom has pioneered digital recording and communications solutions for telephone, radio, fax and Internet applications as well as language teaching and multimedia systems.