Be Different or be dead

January 7, 2019

7 reasons most call centers are absolutely shameful

Source: Unsplash

7 reasons most call centers are absolutely shameful.

Call centers generally don’t give good customer service.

Every organization that is big enough has a call center to handle primarily incoming calls from their customers.

There must be some redeeming value in having one if everyone has one, right? There is: it’s generally viewed as the most efficient operating solution for processing volumes of calls coming into an organization.

The dark side to call centers

But having led large customer service teams in a variety of business environments I have experienced a dark side to call centers.

In many cases I find that call centers represent the antithesis of miraculous service.

When an organization declares they intend to provide amazing service to their customers and then chooses an operating model with a call centre — particularly in a foreign country — as its nucleus, they are not only being disingenuous, they are fooling themselves (and probably driving their customers crazy) and assuming substantial competitive risk.

These are the aspects of call centers, particularly those that are outsourced, I find quite revolting.

They exist to manage cost

They choose to implement a call centre environment not to serve customers better, but to process volumes of calls at the lowest cost possible.

The question is rarely asked “Is this the best way to both serve our customers in an exemplary way while at the same time optimizing our cost position?”

It’s all about cost. That’s why most organizations outsource them around the world where labour costs are low. Current outsourcing destinations include India, Philippines, Thailand, China and Indonesia with many more planning to enter the fray.

This outsourcing trend has attracted a plethora of experts who define what it takes to have a successful call centre.

They are managed to improve productivity

Effectiveness of a call center is generally based on micro productivity measures such as:

▪️average holding time — the elapsed time it takes a call center rep to handle a customer query. Management tries to drive this number down in order to process as many calls as they can with the resources available.

The outcome of each call is rarely measured. Was the customer satisfied with the service they received? Did they enjoy the experience with the rep?

▪️average speed of answer — the average length of time it takes to answer an incoming call. When I ran call center operations in the telecom world, my target was to answer 80% of all calls within 6 seconds and our resource levels were set to achieve this result.

This was probably the best internal target we had that represented an attempt to deliver good customer service.
Can you imagine in today’s world reaching a call center rep of any organization within 2 or 3 rings of your phone? Rarely ever happens, with common wait times in the minutes rather than seconds.

Productivity and service miracles don’t easily coexist in most organizations; this measure needs attention if any organization wants to get out of the revolting category.

They don’t drive customer loyalty

Whether a call center serves incoming calls or is used to originate sales-type calls, the heavy traffic volumes involved generally work against the relationship building activity that leads to a loyal customer.

A call comes in > the rep answers (eventually) > the rep deals with the customer’s request > the rep terminates the call > the next call is fed to the rep.
And the cycle is repeated over and over again with a supervisor scrutinizing how long the rep is on each call.

The call center is essentially a production shop with no overt objective of creating an experience for the customer that could lead to brand loyalty.

Customer satisfaction may be measured along with productivity objectives, but a satisfied customer does not make a loyal one.

Satisfaction means that expectations were met; loyalty demands more — minds must be blown, expectations exceeded and marvellous experiences created if the loyalty dial is to be moved.

And this takes time. A WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA’M! process does nothing to encourage warm feelings and a desire to do more business with the brand involved.

They take control of your brand

The moment power is given to an outsourced call centre to engage with your customers, control is relinquished and your organization’s brand is put at risk.

Many organizations don’t even put in place a performance management contract with the 3rd party outsourcer to measure how customers perceive the service they receive from call center reps, so changes to brand position are unknown and can’t be responded to.

And with high turnover of employees, consistency in whatever customer treatment is given is almost impossible — at least I don’t experience it.

When your customer connects with the call center you have chosen to empower with your most valued asset, and the experience they have does not go well, it’s on YOU.
The call center rep is YOUR employee. The service outcome is YOUR responsibility.

YOU pay the price in the market.

Their words create the precious moment

Whether a customer has a miraculous service moment or not depends on communications with the call center rep. Miracles happen when the engagement is spirited, entertaining and responsive. When there is an easiness to the conversation that leaves the caller happy and fulfilled.

And for me, very often it is extremely difficult to fight through the accent of a foreign call center rep to have a meaningful and enjoyable conversation.
I simply can’t understand many (not all) of them, and that’s a BIG problem for the outsourcer.

If even the basic communications expectations of the call can be met, there is little chance that a service miracle will ever occur and in fact the opposite is the result with the caller being annoyed or angry with the encounter.

It’s not that the foreign reps are uneducated or don’t have some skills in the English language.
But it’s one thing to pass English 101 and have an understanding of sentence structure and grammar, and quite another to engage with someone else in a way that flows and is productive to the other party.

Are these reps tested by role playing to evaluate their conversational proficiency? Not from where I’m sitting.

Wait times are shameful

Outsources really don’t care about how long we wait on the phone to reach a rep; if they did, they wouldn’t tolerate wait times that often reach ridiculous levels — for me personally, I am blown away if I actually get a rep in 5 minutes and am not surprised to wait 45 minutes or longer. Business mediocrity in action.

It’s ironic that wait times take no priority at all; organizations are content to provide messages they feel assuage their shameful service: “Your call is important to us”; “We are experiencing unusual traffic volumes at the moment” unfortunately greet us more often than not when we call for help.

But wait! There is a silver lining to long wait times. Put your iPhone on speaker, slip it in your back pocket and get on with the job jar your wife has skillfully filled for you.

The reps have an impossible task

I totally get that even a highly competent and caring call center rep has a tough time being on 100% up time.
By the time a customer gets to them, they are often met with frustration, anger and sometimes abuse, with literally zero chance of turning a bad encounter into a pleasant experience.
The reps simply wants to get away from the pain they are engulfed in.

And the rep of course doesn’t own the problem — leadership does.

It’s a pipe dream and shameful leadership behaviour to create an impossible working environment and expect employees to perform impeccably. What planet are they on?

It’s quite simple, really.
If you want low costs, technology can do only so much and you will be saddled with the result. Under-resourcing is typically the result of cost cutting in the face of relentless demand and who pays the price? CUSTOMERS DO!

Call centers generally don’t focus on building intimate customer relationships and outsourcing them makes matters worse.

There are exceptions, however, but these rare organizations make the decision to establish their call center as an integral loyalty building instrument not as an efficient call processing center.

So if you decide to use call center technology to engage with your customers, please don’t preach your intent to deliver amazing service.

It’s intellectually dishonest and it fools no one.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.7.19 at 04:10 am by Roy Osing
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December 3, 2018

5 proven ways to create amazing customer service experiences

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5 proven ways to create amazing customer service experiences.

Most organizations have a customer service strategy.

The following are typical claims they make in terms of what they intend to deliver:
— “we provide the best customer service”
— “we were voted #1 in service”
— “our goal is to exceed our customers’ expectations”
— “we go the extra mile…”
— “we pride ourselves on providing high quality service”
— “we provide memorable experiences”

These are all laudable expressions in terms of the service experience outcome they want to provide.

Words vs music

The problem, however, isn’t in the words; it’s in the music

For example, they say “your call is important to us”, yet force us to wait 40 minutes to speak with a call center rep. How is this consistent with delighting anybody? I pity the frontline person every time they answer a call knowing how upset every customer will be for having to wait so long. Pain ensues…

Unfortunately most organizations fail to deliver on their customer service promise.

There are two reasons for this:
— they don’t understand the essential elements that contribute to service miracles;
— they are unable to execute consistently on the service elements they choose to focus on.

The irony is that many organizations fail because they are inept at implementing flawed service elements. Not only do they suck at execution, they are trying to do the wrong thing.

So let’s start at the beginning. What are the things that must be done — the service elements — to deliver miraculous service experiences?

1. Hire miracle workers

Hire people who ’love humans’. Miracles are delivered by people who create moments, not technology that delivers according to an algorithm.

And if you don’t recruit people who love humans you’re dead from the beginning. Your current recruitment strategy must be blown up and reinvented. It’s mission must be to identify those people who are innately driven to serve others whatever it takes.

2. Attract servant leaders

The internal world of any organization must be cleansed if miracles are to be commonplace

Barriers to delivering astonishing moments must be expunged. Tools that enable conversation time with customers must be provided to everyone. And bureaucratic crap that prevents miracle workers from doing their job must be eliminated.

Leaders who serve ask “How can I help?” are the powerful force to enable this culture. Find ‘em. Grab ‘em. Never let ‘em go.

Morph your executive leadership program reward managers who serve others like an involuntary muscle. Command and control freaks have no place in creating miracles.

3. Let your people go

Empower people to serve people. It’s the loose vs tight dilemma.

Do you trust that your frontline miracle workers will do the right thing for the company if you empower them to take customers to a heightened service experience?

Many organizations believe that they will go too far left to satisfying the customer and sink company profits. RUBBISH! In my experience, if they are given the trust of leadership, they are amazing at balancing what it takes to dazzle someone while at the same time protecting the come.

Ok, say they go too far for a customer every once in a while. Are you telling me that there are no other occasions in the company’s world where margins may not be optimized?

The real issue is: do you want to dilute your margins for a customer miracle or do you want to do it for a sales conference in Maui?

4. Lose the cost phobia

“But we can’t provide all the resources needed to deliver miracles and still deliver the margins expected of us”. Hogwash.

Ever see a study that correlates customer face time with net income? No. and you never will. But you do see market share statistics explain a drop in revenue accompanied by stories of excommunicated customers who were unable to take crummy service.

The cost guys want cost to drive investment decisions and as a result really stupid service acts are taken like outsourcing call centres to a part of the world that has a difficult time with our language.

Yes these folks are well educated on IP technology but I am constantly fighting the language problem which gets in the way of a smooth conversation.

I love Tony Heish’s really simple view of call centers. They’re not cost centers, they’re ‘loyalty centers’ and should be managed as such. Invite someone to call. Spend as much time with them as you have to take care of them. Deliver a miracle and they will return.

5. Kill the stupid

There’s a lot of stupid stuff we do to that piss our customers off.

Rules, policies and procedures intended to maintain efficient operations fly right in the face of customer logic. So they may satisfy some internal perspective of sense, but are destructive — ineffective — in delivering service miracles.

The couple who wants a booth in a Vegas restaurant but is refused because booths are reserved for parties of 4 or more is really annoyed when there are only a few people there and all booths are vacant.

Miracles are simple to deliver when you realize that the customer’s desires supplant the internal world of an organization.

The real question is: do we have the guts to put the customer in control of the rules we operate under? If ‘yes’, miracles will come; if ‘no’, mediocrity will stay and DEMISE will most likely result.

A simple starting point. Purge “It’s not our policy” from your vocabulary and fire anyone who utters it (and tell the rest of the organization you did it).

Miracles are simple

Miracles are not complicated. In fact as customers ourselves, we find they are often created by simple moments that surprise us because we are not used to special treatment.

We are in a retail store (known for its lack of service) unable to find an open service counter to pay for our purchases. A young man dressing a mannequin spots us meandering; he offers his help and finds an open service position for us.

Complicated? No; caring, yes.

A bloody miracle? Absolutely!

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 12.3.18 at 03:19 am by Roy Osing
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August 20, 2018

5 insanely easy ways to make a customer your BFF

Source: Unsplash

Why would you want a customer to be your BFF?

Your job after all is to sell them something, answer their question on why their product isn’t functioning the way it should or why their bill is higher than what they expected.

Job descriptions never say “be the customer’s BFF”. Employees are viewed as instruments of the organization; to perform the role that maximizes results for the shareholders and owners of the organization in terms of sales and cost.

Employees serve “them”

Employees are taught to serve the organization. Period. Their essential duty is to the hierarchy; to follow the rules of the people that give them a regular pay check.

And that’s the problem because superlative performance doesn’t happen when people inside the organization serve the organization exclusively. When they are excruciatingly focused on controlling costs, minimizing the time they spend answering a customer’s request and striving to deliver all internal company metrics flawlessly day in and day out.

Majestic performance that exceeds that of every competitor in the market happens when employees are outward focused to the customer; when employees exist to satisfy one and only one objective — serve the customer in a way that surprises and delights them.

Yes, they have their “internal world” to satisfy — productivity goals and the like — but their prime purpose is to create mind blowing experiences for the customer within the confines of what makes good business sense.

Having an incredible moment with a customer is the way to delight them, have them buy, tell their friends all about how amazing you are and keep them coming back for more (sounds like a plan that would satisfy any shareholder, right?)

And the tool to create memorable moments is friendship; the ability to build credibility and trust with another person in the limited time you have with them.

Try these 5 simple approaches to build a BFF relationship with a customer that will both blow them away and satisfy your organization’s hunger for growth.

1. Reset your brain

Get out of the mindset that says your job is to fulfil the mandate of the organization. Rather than focus on the ultimate end game of your actions — generating more sales for example — concentrate on the behaviours that will yield the intended result.

Long term sales growth, for instance, isn’t achieved by flogging products and services to potential clients, it’s by consistently demonstrating the relationship building acts that get you there.

2. Unplug your ears

If you’re not really listening to the customer how can you possibly befriend them? If your agenda is to push your wares or execute the policies of your organization, it’s virtually impossible to align yourself with the customer’s wants and desires.

Customer engagement is all about THEIR agenda not the organization’s, so lean into the conversation with the intent to “hear them”, not force them to comply with what you want them to do.

3. Shut your mouth

If you listen well, this will automatically happen. Airtime with the customer will be heavily weighted to what THEY have to say not what you have to say. Your role in building a BFF relationship is to clarify their narrative so that you can respond appropriately and satisfy their requirements.
You’re not giving a speech that would try to convince them to comply with the organization; you’re simply trying to get a clear understanding of what it takes to satisfy them.

4. Surprise them

The main ‘driver of delight’ with any person is the surprise element; doing something the other person DOESN’T expect.
The airline loses your luggage which contained the clothes for your 8-month old daughter. You call the airline expecting to get the run around, but the rep first of all apologizes profusely for the unfortunate incident, tells you to go out and purchase whatever you need to replace the contents of the pieces of luggage lost and to send the bill personally to her for immediate payment (and the promise is kept).

How would you feel about the rep and the company she represents? My guess is you would be WOW’D! and would tell your story to your friends and family — and blog readers also.

5. Stay with them

Organizations have a complicated structure; for example, responsibilities are separated among marketing, sales, customer service, billing and repair departments with a strategy to concentrate expertise and (hopefully) maximize productivity.

“This isn’t my job, let me pass you over to the people who answer billing questions” doesn’t do anything to build a BFF, it destroys it. I have to enter another call queue and probably wait another 10-15 minutes to get a rep and then tell my story all over again.

Building friends requires the “Never pass a customer around!” mantra where the employee who has a customer keeps the customer until they are completely satisfied.

Why would you ever want a customer as a BFF? Because a BFF is loyal, they tell you their “secrets”, they talk you up to their friends and they like spending time with you.

Sounds like a formula for business success to me.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 8.20.18 at 03:22 am by Roy Osing
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July 30, 2018

6 common customer service mistakes that will make you sick

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6 common service mistakes that will make you sick.

Most organizations are trying to use service as a key component of their competitive strategy yet my observation is that few actually deliver what I would call out-of-the-ordinary service.

Quite frankly, service generally is abysmal despite the rhetoric provided by leadership — it’s a dream with no practical way to make it come true.

These mistakes are at the root of the problem that, for most, the words and the music don’t match.

1. Putting cost before care

The only purpose of ‘customer service’… is to change feelings. – Seth Godin

After the aspiration — “our goal is to deliver service beyond expectations” — fades, reality sets in and the monthly income statement dictated the agenda.
What does the business case look like to deliver service goals? What will it cost to delight our customers, and how do we translate this into additional revenue?
At the end of the day, a proposal to outsource the service call center to a remote location with lower wages (and questionable English language skills) gets approved — the care factor is ignored.

Don’t talk about service excellence when you’re not prepared to invest to deliver it. You can’t creature memorable moments when costs are the primary concern.

2. Treating the frontline as bottom dwellers

Who in the organization delivers the service brand? It sure the hell isn’t the CEO or the Executive Leadership Team.
The irony is that the people who own the brand are relegated to the bottom of the chart. These are people who are “only” receptionists, service reps, credit reps and sales assistants. People who perform “junior” roles but who breathe life — or not — into the aspirational goal of superlative customer service.
It’s about time organizations honour the people who wear the badge of service every moment of every day.

3. Focusing on the abuser

Policies and procedures are typically used as mechanisms of control. They control the customer engagement process. They control the criteria for treating customers who have been wronged by the organization.
They are constructed to deal with the person who wants to ”abuse” standard protocol.

The customer who is assumed to be dishonest — “Before I serve you a drink I need your credit card (because others who came before you took off without paying and I assume you will do the same).
Here’s a novel idea: why not create rules and policies to make it easy for people to do business with you rather than punish them for what a minority number of people in the crowd has been known to do in the past?

4. Not saying “I’m sorry”

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates

Mistakes happen because organizations have two resources that go wrong from time to time — people and technology. As it turns out, however, mistakes that are handled the right way actually build stronger customer loyalty than if the OOPS! never happened at all.

A successful service recovery is fix it fast + do the unexpected. To have an amazing service outcome, the mistake must be quickly remedied — after 24 hours you have lost any possibility of building loyalty — AND a surprise element must be added — something the customer doesn’t expect.

And it begins with the apology. “I’m sorry” opens the gates for a delightful service finale when things get screwed up regardless of whose fault you think it is. Quote company policy at your peril, because people don’t give a damn about your rules and policies.

5. Getting it right the first time

The essence of service quality teaching is to conform to customer requirements the first time. To avoid mistakes that will require you to redo your work to get it right, thus increasing the costs of supply. Repeat work = higher costs.

So the majority of attention and investment goes into this purpose with little acknowledgement that it MIGHT not get done right the first time. That mistakes might rear their ugly head and present an opportunity to actually come out of it all in a stronger position — read last point again.

Successful organizations plan for screw ups — how do we intend to deal with situations where we DON’T get it right the first time? Don’t fall into the trap of relying on achieving perfection with every customer engagement. Big mistake; it won’t happen.

6. Meeting expectations

The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways. – Richard Branson

Doing what the customer expects is merely part of the answer to delivering brilliant service. It’s the basic action that must be taken in order to “play the service game” — you’re in the game if you do it but you don’t excel at it if that’s all you do.

Standout organizations try to anticipate what could be provided beyond what is expected; they set their sights at delivering more. They look for opportunities to add something extra to the customer engagement process — a bit of fun, some unique advice, a number to call for help if needed — small things that leave a memorable impression.

Stopping at what people expect defines you as a member of the service herd, indistinguishable from everyone else. Big mistake; limiting move.

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000. –  Jeff Bezos

The cost of a service mistake is HUGE yet the rhetoric in many organizations continues with insufficient action to make any significant difference.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.30.18 at 04:13 am by Roy Osing
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