Call Centers, A Prescription to Heal Thyself

I love the many ads on TV and in Magazines that major pharma companies take out to help you diagnose your illness. They usually present a check-list of half a dozen symptoms that just about anyone can relate to.  If you answer yes to more than half the advice is clear, 'Talk to your doctor about whether -insert latest anti-depressive-hypertensive -cholesterol med HERE - is right for you. If you believe these ads it seems we have much more wrong with us than we ever knew. Then again, perhaps the problem is not that easy to diagnose.

But it got me to thinking. What would a similar test look like if there were a drug for customer service? Here's a short list of the symptoms I'd look for before writing a prescription:

- Do your customer service reps dread picking up the phone?

- Do 50-75 percent of your CSRs last less than six months on the job?

- Do fewer of your new CSR (News - Alert)recruits make it through probation than would make it through Navy Seals training?

- Do your customers have to call more than once to get questions answered?

- Do customers constantly get put on hold during their calls?

- Do your CSR make costly errors?

- Are your policies and procedures written for a paper-based world?

- Do your CSRs have to open  a half-dozen or more windows on their desktop to answer even a basic question?

- Do you wonder how much more complex your business will become before it implodes?

So how did you do? If you didn't recognize most of these then you are indeed in an enviable spot or in complete denial.

These are symptoms in virtually every call center. We consider them an unfortunate cost of doing business. Sure we try to address them through education and training, help systems, intranets, search, and myriad home grown solutions, but in the end they are an ever-present feature in the call center.

The reason the problem is so wide spread is that it runs much deeper than anything that traditional solutions, such as training, can address. The root of so many of these issues is the legacy of outdated methods we use to capture and deliver policies and procedures. No amount of training will be adequate to make up for the enormous complexity and volatility of navigating through this chaos of information.

For example, I recently sat down with a large bank to review the way they handle wire transfers. Having done my fair share of international wire transfers I always wondered why it was sometimes such a complex process. Well. Now I know. As it turns out the policies and procedures governing international wire transfers makes the Internal Revenue Code look like bedtime reading. Trying to administer the policies and guide customers through them was often a sure-fire recipe for CSR burnout. Not to mention the response of new CSRs, who would look at the policies and wonder how they would ever come up to speed.

That's just one example. I've seen hundreds of cases where the sheer complexity and volume and volatility of information CSRs need to access is well beyond anyone's capability to keep up. It's an impossible situation that is only getting worse as regulations, compliance and cost pressures increase. The only thing decreasing is customer patience.

So what's the answer? It starts by coming to the realization that our policies and procedures are living in the past. We need to re-architect the policies and procedures written for an older generation of work and workers into real-time deliverable and real-time consumable information that can be used by CSRs when and as needed. This goes way beyond just converting them to help files and short blocks of text or loading them into a searchable database. Having more, smaller pieces to pull together when a customer is waiting on the other end of the phone only makes the problems I described that much worse.

Instead, we need to architected policies that reflect the uncertain nature of knowledge work. These policies can guide a CSR through their task much in the same way that a GPS guides you through a complex set of unfamiliar roadways. The idea is that the driver and the CSR need to be free to do what they do best, focus on the task at hand, while also having the unfailing reliability of the most up-to-date guidance when it's needed. Using training alone to solve this same problem is like trying to educate someone on the entire roadway system of the USA and all of the changes taking place in roadways across the country; it's a waste of time and money.

Policies and procedures in the call center need to be re-engineered to work in real-time, just like a GPS. Sound like a pipedream? It's not. It's a prescription for change that many companies have already filled. But it's not just a matter of a tiny blue pill. There are no panaceas here. You need a deep understanding of the problem and best practices in dealing with real-time policies and procedures, which most companies I've encountered lack. 

But the solutions are there if we put a little more effort into going beyond just calming the pain and addressing the underlying illness. 

David Frenkel is CEO of Panviva, a provider of solutions for simplifying complex policies and procedures and Business Process Guidance.

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Edited by Stefania Viscusi