Contact Center As Input To CI: Operational
Almost everyone has experienced the frustration of dealing with a contact center and having the absolute sense that a complaint, comment or suggestion will go no further than the CSR’s ear. It seems that your words are bouncing off the CSR’s eardrum and the mumbled apology and denial of responsibility is the sound of your concerns falling on the floor.
It doesn’t have to be that way, and the solution is the easiest and cheapest idea in this paper. The solution will also provide the CI team with a deeply insightful source of customer concerns and behavior.
Provide CSRs with complaint management training and simple complaint capture tools. CSRs can defuse angry customers by using some variation of the following script:
“Although we have explored all approved options, the company does care when a customer has a comment or suggestion. (Company name) has a customer comment and suggestion tracking system and I will be glad to report your concern (suggestion). These are reviewed and if trends are identified, we will develop new policies or even technologies to address the situation.”
This is powerful. It demonstrates that although the company does have policies and procedures, it is willing to listen to new ideas that make working with them easier. In many cases, this can avoid a supervisor escalation or a complaint callback. And most importantly, CI analysts can comb the input for customer needs and behavior. The CSR has already identified the customer, so analysis by customer segment is possible. High-value customers can be called back if appropriate.
A strong complaint and suggestion management program has many benefits and is inexpensive. Complaint management should be part of every contact center’s basic core capability.
This idea of engaging in the CI process early in the analysis cycle is important. Customer analytics can become esoteric without pragmatic input from contact center managers. Contact center staff can not only provide valuable input into the analysis, but help guide it to outputs that are actionable. Thus, the role of the contact center manager is to keep the CI analytical team focused on operational realities: descriptor data points available in customer identification databases and to routing engines, mapping of descriptor data points to proper treatments and identification of success metrics.
Contact Center As Input To CI: Technical
Optimally, a complaint database should be implemented as part of the CRM package. The collection form is quite simple—a customer identifier field and a free form text field. The addition of drop-down boxes might be helpful, but it is important not to overcomplicate the process. The emerging technology of text mining can allow free-form complaints to be easily grouped together to show trends.
Absent an easily developed CRM solution, the “wrapper” alternatives discussed above can be configured to support a customer complaint database. Most email systems, including Outlook and Notes, can be easily adapted to capture such data. If necessary, a shared directory where CSRs can store text documents can be used.
Conclusion
Operationalizing customer intelligence is a key factor in migrating the customer contact center from a cost/service-oriented operation to a profit/loyalty-oriented operation. Contact center managers should be able to discuss customer defection saves, service-to-sales conversions, cross- and up-sell ratios and what the center is doing to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty with senior management.
To leverage CI, contact center managers need to do the following:
* Identify who is interacting with the corporation.
* Get the interaction to the resource best able to handle it.
* Execute specialized treatment on each individual interaction.
* Capture the center’s results relating to increased sales and loyalty.
* Leverage the contact center’s close connection with the customer to provide input into the CI analytical process.
Operationalizing CI in the contact center is a relatively low-risk endeavor, as long as success metrics are captured and communicated.
Ike Mitchell is a principal at Computer Sciences Corporation and a contact center specialist, focusing on both the technical and human sides of contact center management.
