Making Your Call Center the Heart of Your Strategy

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Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Making Your Call Center the Heart of Your Strategy

Call Center Demo & Conference Dallas 2007

22What We Will Review Today

• Aligning Your Call Center With the Brand• My Personal Journey• What About SMB Call Centers?• Wrap Up

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Aligning Your Call Center With the Brand

44Is the Inherent Value in Your Call Center Being Harvested?

• Many senior executives still do not view the call center as central to strategy– Customers are not viewed as scarce resources so the focus remains

on bottom-line performance or shareholder value

– Pre-conceived (often negative) ideas about call centers in general – this is a result of lack of information

– Lack of funding/investment

– Call Center managers struggle with properly articulating the importance of the call center in terms that senior execs understand

• There is a present need for “organizational transparency”

– Opening up the call center to the rest of the organization to provide visibility

55The Evolution of Call Centers

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

1980sStrategy: Automate serviceTactic: Automated issue tracking

2000-2003Strategy: Cut costsTactic: Call deflection and migration to non-phone channels (e.g., IVR, online self-service)

1990sStrategy: Increase agent productivityTactic: Knowledge-based tools

2005 and beyondStrategy: Generate revenueTactic: Blending marketing and service with inbound marketing

Source: Forrester Research

66Aligning the Call Center With the Brand

“The Call Center’s Impact on Company Brand and Image” by Dr. Jon Anton and Anita Rockwell

77The Impact of Negative Service Delivery

• Shareholder Value– Anecdotal evidence suggest there is linkage between bad

customer service/call center experience and declining stock price

• Customer Value– Customers are “literally” sick of poor service experiences

• Brand Equity– Significantly diluted; unmet customer expectations

• Call Center Profitability– It costs more to run the center

88The Impact of Repeat Calls on Call Center Profitability

# Calls to Resolve

% Overall Calls

# Problems # Calls Offered

1 60% 60,000 60,000

2 20% 20,000 40,000

3 15% 15,000 45,000

4 5% 5,000 20,000

40% 100,000 105,000

Excess Calls/Month 5,000

Cost per Call $5.00

Profitability Impact (per quarter/per annum)

$525,000/quarter or $2.1M/annum

99Designing Your Ideal Caller Experience

• To make your call center the “heart” of your strategy infers:– Creating institutional memory at the point of contact

– Making an emotional connection

– Leveraging each call as a relationship

– Augmenting traditional volume metrics with value metrics

• Defining and mapping the caller experience is central to begin this journey

Develop tactics to close the expected-vs.-actual gap (incorporate VOC and benchmarking)

1a. Review SLAs with hosting vendor1b. Minimize size of graphics to speed page loads

Determine actual customer experience

Determine critical customer touch points (aka, “Moments of Truth”) from customer’s viewpoint

“Interest Me”“Interest Me” “Meet My Initial Need”“Meet My Initial Need” “Keep Meeting My Needs”

“Keep Meeting My Needs”

Develop reward & recognitionfor achieving or exceeding expected customer experience

Develop appropriate set of rewards and recognition5

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3

2

1

1a. Website available = x%1b. Website satisfaction = y2. Recognition factor = z

1a. Website available > 99.99%

1b. Website satisfaction > 4.5

2. Recognition factor > x

1. Marketing web site2. Advertisements

Customer Experience Design

Document Expected Customer experience (incorporate VOC and benchmarking)

Sales Fulfillment ServiceProcess

1. Apply by phone2. Apply by website3. Get notification of decision4. Close financial transaction

1. Account issue raise by phone or email

2. Complain by web mail3. Receive solution to complaint4. Hear about other products5. Take part in surveys

1a. Average hold time < 2 min1b. Application time < 10 min2a. Website available > 99.99%2b. Application time < 15 min

1a. Average hold time < 2 min1b. 1st time resolution > 95%

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My Personal Journey

1212My Personal Journey

• Responsible for early Balanced Scorecard adaptation– Not very Balanced Scorecard-like at all

– Gone through several iterations

• A lot of attention was focused on our retail call centers by senior executives but there was a lot of level setting to do

• Outsource call center provider was not aligned to our objectives or priorities

• Corporate incentive plans and metrics was driving me to drink!– Line of Business goals/metrics made no friggin’ sense!

– Wanted to choke a bunch of people!

1313My Personal Journey

• Spent significant time setting the right expectations by establishing a cross-functional team (including the outsourcer) to develop strategy and the right set of metrics

• Re-worked outsource contract to include pay-for-performance so that the new priorities would get the right attention

• Opportunities– Needed the message pushed down to the agent level so that they

started to treat each customer interaction as a “value interaction”

– The change management component was tough on ALL levels

1414What Did the Framework Look Like?

• Practical– What’s the organization’s competitive strategy? Cost leadership, quality

leadership?

– Invariably, the call center should deliver on the strategic focus so that the brand is protected/reinforced with callers

• How did the following partners define value in the call center?– Finance

– Marketing

– Call Center Operations

– Human Resources & Training

• The answers to those questions produced the following……..

Strategic Objectives

• Contact Center ROI• Cost per Call• New Products Sold/100 calls

Market Differentiators

Drivers

Financial Customer Process OrganizationKey Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• CSAT Index (Top 2 Box• Customer Churn Rate• # of Net New Customers

• Response Time• Forecasting Accuracy• Service Level• Abandon Call Rate• Average Handle Time• Sales per Hour

• Agent Peak Performance Index

• Employee Satisfaction Index

• New Hire Speed to Competency

• Generate revenue• Manage budget• Lower cost per call

Financial Customer Process Organization

• Cross-selling/Solution selling

• Partnering• Grow targeted customer

segments

• Responsive• Eliminate bureaucracy• Reduce errors

• Effective training• Foster a win-win

environment• Attract and retain best

associates

Contact CenterMission

Statement

Vision Core Values

Customer Service

BrandEase of Doing

BusinessQuality

Attract/RetainBest Employees

Strategy Articulation Map

1616What Were the Results?

• My violent streak ended….

• Realized capabilities that our outsourcer could not deliver on– Internalized email channel

– Internalized chat channel

– Internalized risk mitigation

– Reduced operating expense by 40% in 60 days!

• The organization was more appreciative of voice of the customer feedback– Able to capture Call Center profitability and tie back to agent– Introduced lead generation and marketing programs

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What About SMB Call Centers?

1818Small-to-Medium (SMB) Size Call Centers

• Time, resource constraints and capital are always an issue

• Suffers from similar problems as mid-market and enterprise call centers

• The Answer – figure out how to do things differently within the context of your control– Training & Agent Job Aides

– Review the value of each customer interaction

– Hold monthly cross-functional meetings to review monthly/quarterly performance

– Work closely with senior execs to define competitive differentiation

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Wrap Up

2020Final Thoughts

• Today’s call centers are mission critical assets to organizations

• Aligning the call center with the brand in a cross-functional framework helps to bring clarity around the call centers focus and starts to reinforce the brand promise with callers

• Defining and articulating the call center strategy provides a road map that everyone in the call center organization can rally around

• Open up the call center to the rest of the organization by sharing meaningful & fact base data on caller perception, product/service issues, and other relevant issues in order to gain a seat at the executive table

2121Let’s Keep In Touch (I Promise I Won’t Choke You)

Art HallAlvarez & Marsal Business Consulting

3399 Peachtree Road, Suite 1900

Atlanta, Georgia 30326

[email protected]

Direct: 404-260-4152

Mobile: 404-759-9158

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Making Your Call Center the Heart of Your Strategy

Call Center Demo & Conference Dallas 2007