Through my presentation, I hope to set the stage to the Future of the contact centre business. So I hope you will join me on a unique journey covering the chronicles of the Contact Centre Present & Past, and then accelerate to get a one on one look at the Future of our industry and the simple but powerful forces that have begun to shape it. Then we will come back to the present and reflect on what we can take back from this trip to the work we do and warp 2.0 into the future with our Brands…
Organizational Structure Running A Successful Business
Back to the Future of future contact center- keynote Speech Presentation
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2. The Journey Ahead…
• Reflection on Industry’s
Present-Past
• Isolating Issues - Present day
Contact Centers
• The force shaping our industry
• Zooming into the bright future
• Call to action – A head start
into building the future
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4. Before We start : Housekeeping
Let’s get to know our Driver on this trip:
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19. Connected Contact Center
Enabler of brand Image + CSAT + Loyalty + Retention
Enterprise Cust. Experience
Enabler of brand success
CRM Adoption & Integration
Enabler of Enterprise Cust.profile + Big Data
Investment - Contact Center Technology
Enabler of Efficiency & E-Satisfaction
Investment - Contact Center QA & Analytics
Enabler of Process Improvement + Consistency
Re-Evaluation of critical KPIs
Enabler of Unified Cust. Centric Organization
Notas del editor
Good Evening, as opening night keynote speaker, it is my pleasure to prologue this magnanimous gathering of the best and brightest minds in the Call Center Business. Through my presentation, I hope to set the stage to the Future and next few exciting days of the summit.
So I hope you will join me on a unique journey covering the chronicles of the Contact Center Present & Past, and then accelerate to get a one on one look at the Future of our industry and the simple but powerful forces that shape it. Then we will come back to the present and reflect on what we can take back from this trip to the work we do and warp 2.0 into the future with our Brands…
In working on this presentation, one of the toughest challenges I faced was to come up with a unique and never used name…
I hope you like what I came up with….
Now that we know what our Driver expects, let’s take a trip down to the present-past to see what we offer today, and how it affects the consumer brand relationship…
Statutory warning: The following slides will be painful to us as they highlight our industrywide complacency with the worst examples…I assure you though that there is a lot of good we do too. We just will talk about what we can improve upon…
Customer’s expectations, though shortening the SLA windows, have been largely the same and evolving into more time requirement from the brand on relationship, reliability and swift recovery while maintaining consistency.
Service Strategy comes last…..
Call Center = Cost Center
Customer Service = Necessary evil
Old is gold, when it comes to:
Customer Experience = Interchangeable with Customer Service = Call Center Responsibility
Convergence of contact channels = Call Center needs to Lead this
Call Center Metrics & Leadership
KPIs and Process Improvement analytics…
Reflecting on current utilization of service channels, I can only say that we spend more time confusing the customer than actually helping them. Whether it is IVRs with zero through 2000 options and menus within menus to navigate, to waiting 40 mins on hold for a phone rep and then hearing a robotic and policy driven interaction, to email with days of waiting before getting a frustrating response like “We need some more information”, or social media where we tell people to Direct Message us or contact an email address and when they do, it’s the same SLA in days as a regular email. Let’s face it, in the race to provide more and more, we end up providing customers with more reasons NOT to contact us.
First, there is the complexity in the inherent multi layered disconnected interactions between customers, sales, marketing, contact center etc.
To further widen the gap, our strategy makers are so far removed from the reality of the interactions with the customers, that their plans make no sense to the foot soldiers of the brand. This creates multi-layered KPIs and further removes the Customer Service reps from the seeing and being able to convey the full picture and core vision of the brand. There is also the question of customer experience measurement where organizations are still disparate…
The voice of the brand, the representatives at the call center, are unfortunately the least empowered and creative. This is again, partially thanks to the multi level expectations of the Call center manager and thus the representatives, and also due to the fact that the hiring profile of a call center rep is high on compliance and low on creativity, their training teaches them that policies are divine doctrines. Thus, after these multi level de-programmings, what’s left are powerless, apologetic representatives who feel they cannot make a difference to a customer and are always at the mercy of external or internal departments, their managers and the leadership.
And the resulting customer experience is what we all have experienced as customers at some point in the present….Can I see a show of hands if you can identify with at least one of these most frequently used expressions in 2013 during customer service dialog!
And to the ones that don’t have their hands up I’d like So to thank you for your optimism…Cheers!
So now I’d like to introduce you to the 2 forces of evolution reshaping the industry through the present, already creating ruptures in the present day reality of call centers and brand perceptions…
In today’s time of levelled marketplaces and similar offerings, when price beats and satisffaction guarantees are finding their way from big brands to ma and pa shops alike, the old world USPs like brand, price, bargaining etc. are losing importance. Thus, the customer, armed with the power of the internet, is a superhero who has the ability to unforgivingly defect from a brand, just based on one bad customer experience. This is definitely forcing the various industries to re-evaluate customer experience and its importance.
With the power of ever evolving connected world applications, the social media and internet have captured communications worldwide. Through engagement and constant connectedness, today’s customer interactions are driving the tectonic shift and forming new continents on the consumer-brand biosphere. The accelerated customer expectations on resolution times through mediums like twitter etc. are small examples of how companies are being forced to interact and expedite resolution times…These consumers can sway entire lists of friends, family and even acquaintances through a single update via social dialog, thus having the power to change the destiny of a brand. They can put our brand in front of new untapped audiences, or sway large numbers to defect from it, all in a few keystrokes… It will all depend on what we, the leaders of Customer Contact, can do, to create a unique and relationship centric ecosystem through connected experiences.
So let’s take a look at the glorious future of our industry and try to take some hints on how they did it…
The future is surrounded by the key phrase “Returns and revenues through relationships based on equal partnership”. Thus the brands have transformed their contact centers into intelligent personal bankers, who have access to and review the whole relationship prior to every client interaction, proactively identify growth opportunities, and listen for the present and future needs of the client, before providing a comprehensive solution and recommendations to grow the account.
To establish this dream into reality, here’s the 3 steps brands of the future used…
Organizational vision will be universal and driven by customer experience. Thus, customer experience will be at the pinnacle rather than being a afterthought to core strategy design, and where every function is judged based on their contribution to customer experience. So, irrespective of whether it is finance, legal, IT or PMO team, they will all focus their activities and SLAs based on the need of the contact center being able to provide an apt ETA to the Customer, with which, the brand will retain customer faith.
The organization of the future, where the prioritization of resources is done keeping in mind the nerve center of customer interactions. A world where active direct liaison with Contact Center becomes part of the organization’s DNA, whether it’s drafting internal SLA, making a pitch using Service as a differentiator, Creating custom solutions or solving complex issues for customers. And where customer relationships are basis for incremental revenue growth.
Recruitment via job mirroring and site visit + Social angle review. Profiling based on creativity and not conformance as top attribute.
IT Systems Setup within the opening day to allow full extent of learning and enable meet
Learning and enablement using interactivity and all modern channels and strategies towards connected work I.e gasification and achievement badges etc. To make trainings interesting and fulfilling + real world calls / chats / interactions to evaluate proficiency versus conventional multiple choice questionnaires etc.
Operations using options like lynx and interactive video chats / screen shares as tools to expedite support on demand whether from a manager on rounds with his I pad or a Sme at his desk chatting with 2 front line reps and helping both in real time without having to locate them physically.
QA based on intelligence and not compliance. Used as a tool to enhance an agent and not reprimand. Active engaged QA working close to ops team and providing coaching in real time. Process improvement at core of QA versus agent evaluation.
Rewards and Compensation alignment and goal tie back between call center and brand. Strengthen relationship and reduce or remove conventional measures of how quickly we can get rid of customers. Creation of certifications and recognitions in line with progression.
Connected HRM to allow real time access and support based on HOO and not 9-5. Total rewards for call center and stress relief via game rooms and on floor convenience options.
CRM adoption organisationally and convergence of data points to become one glance enterprise profile for every facet of the customer's interaction life cycle and make call center into relationship nerve center and the center of action for brand image management
Social listening and inclusion of multi channel service and support with aggressive SLAs and organisation wide commitment on partnership to deliver on them. Chat, email, twitter, forums, blog G+, Facebook etc.
Prioritisation on outsourcing based on customer interactiveness I.e Back office versus client care call center etc.
Active leadership and big picture with regularity of communication and awareness. Walk a mile and shadow job for partners and contact center team to learn and appreciate collaboration.
Integration of real time workstation availability to optimize real estate available + Advance multi shift options in line with creative work life balance options I.e steady shifts and flex- wfm
Communications increasing Use of Connected terminal, broadcast when idle and pushed messaging on site operations. Less reliance on email and more on interactive media to communicate critical updates.
So coming back into present day reality, let’s start reflecting on the key technologies of the future with the help of which we can transform today’s contact centers…
we have the Cloud that provides cheap and minimalistic platform to enable helpful cost effective tools like remote agents and data virtualization & convergence regardless of point of origin. Then you have social media, listening to which helps us to assess and track brand performance as well as advertise the brand through providing quick resolutions as well as gain credibility by contributing to general self help forums, blogs etc. And Let’s not forget the SAAS outsourcing of technologies to the Experts, companies specializing in integrating Contact routing technologies to CRM giving us the best of both worlds without having to invest in hardware and also allowing simplified real time changes that would normally take days or even weeks to complete. And lastly, the mobile/tablet/2-in-1 computers based on Touch OS with touchscreen capabilities where our brand apps can provide apt validation information in real time to know exactly what the issue is and jump straight to resolutions.
Contact Center - The hub of relationships, voice of the brand & business development and the driver of internal SLAs
Enterprise Cust. Experience – The focus and partnerships on customer experience direct and indirect touch points will ensure our brands look like well oiled machines, where no clanky parts stand out every now and then.
CRM Adoption & Integration – The data convergence of all customer experience touch points available to contact center.
New Technology & Contact Center – From IVR methodology to Self Service optimization and Skill based call routing; we need to incorporate the new technologies that enable seamless support experiences and get critical savings
Customer Contact Analytics – listening to and Churning data from our interactions with customers can teach us a lot abou how we are doing and where we can improve.
Re-Evaluation of critical KPIs – Incorporation of Customer Analytics in evaluating support partnerships internally and removal of redundant call center metrics