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TREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AS TOP PRIORITY.

There is only one boss – the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton

According to a recent survey conducted by Customer Management IQ, 63.6% of Executives and decision makers say ‘Increasing Customer Loyalty’ is their top business priority for 2013. This makes sense as the single most important thing that a contact centre must focus on is customer experience as it translates directly to customer loyalty. The Voice of the customer (VOC), a term used in business and Information Technology (through ITIL, for example), is now one of the key metrics that superstar contact centres use in order to ensure customer satisfaction.

Lee Reinecke, Head of North American Business Development for Motif Inc. says, there are two trends that are moving in the right direction:

î Using robust CRM tools that can provide one view of the customer across multiple channels [and he includes social media here].

î Constantly analyzing Voice of Customer to understand customer expectations and design responses/solutions that exceed customer expectations.

HAVE GOOD PEOPLE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN PLACE.

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them - Jack Welch

It’s important to have good people. But it’s equally important to have good people management program in place if you want your key people to stay, grow and keep adding value to your contact centre.

5 WAYS to Create an Award-Winning, Business-Building Contact Centre By: SSON Asia

As the contact centre industry continues to develop, the competition among the many different players in this sector intensifies. As this industry matures and the number of people who are a part of it grows exponentially, customers and end-users are getting more demanding in the choice of service provider (contact centre) that they pick. For contact centre operators, the challenge is even more daunting because, as more people, mostly Gen Y, are enticed to build a career in this sector, the issues that you need to contend with increases manifold. Of course, once you’re successful and are able to turn a mediocre contact centre into a “contact centre superstar”, the potential returns could be vast.

So, as the adage goes, it’s time to separate the men from the boys. Here are the Top 5 signs that you have an award-winning, business-building, contact centre that will boom. If you’re doing quite the opposite, be careful as it’s probably headed to go bust.

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According to Executive Priorities Report 2013: Business Growth through Customer Experience Strategic and Operational Investment, “People skills and training was the leading areawhere there would be an increase in focus and funding to achieve Executives’ 2013-14 business goals.” It is also important to note that people management goes beyond skills development and training, it also encompasses conducive working environment, growth opportunities and succession planning, among others.

HAVE FLEXIBLE AND ADAPTABLE OPERATIONS PROCEDURES.

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them - Paul Hawken

There is no one size fits all when it comes to dealing with operational issues and challenges. Each problem is unique and must be dealt with accordingly. A superstar contact centre establishes clear guidance and frameworks describing how to respond to a particular situation. Process improvement procedures such as Six Sigma, Lean and Capability Maturity Model (CMM) are among the best-known models around but bottom line is the same: processes must be well-defined, adaptable and responsive to the operational challenges at hand.

In the same Executive Priorities Report, it was revealed that: “From a holistic corporate standpoint, increasing operating efficiency is the number one 2013 priority among decision makers, followed most closely by improving customer satisfaction. Process improvement will be the chief area of dedicated funding and resources for meeting those goals.”

DON’T JUST IMPLEMENT STRATEGIES RIGHT. IMPLEMENT RIGHT STRATEGIES.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall - Stephen R. Covey

A capacity to see the “big picture” is what every great leader possesses. They have the ability to steer the organization into the right direction and make every stakeholder execute that vision consistently and persistently.

Colin Taylor, a leading contact/call center expert and a recipient of 30 awards for excellence in Contact Center Management outlines the 7 steps before a contact center strategic plan can be developed:

î Understand fully the corporate Strategyî Understand customer segmentation and prioritiesî Identify the impact of customer segments and priorities on queuing managementî Understand applicable boundariesî Examine your metrics and KPI’sî Review and revise your demand forecastî Examine you operational methodology for structural changes

YOU SEE TECHNOLOGY AS AN INVESTMENT, NOT AN EXPENSE.

There might be new technology, but technological progress itself was nothing new - and over the years it had not destroyed jobs, but created them - Margaret Thatcher

Basic rules of investing dictates that you must understand and see its value before you invest in it. This is true in the world of finance as well as technology. Surely, with an array of new and advanced technologies available, it’s easy to get distracted from your real goal or the specific job that you need to get done. Similarly, once you start treating new technology as an expense, the kneejerk reaction would be to reduce it to a minimum, which could actually be counter-productive if you’re competing in a fast-paced, highly demanding contact centre industry.

In selecting technologies to increase efficiency and to enhance the customer experience, decision makers must take care to evaluate not just the initial cost of the technology and its implementation, but its integration and maintenance and future enhancements, as well.

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