Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

The telecommunications industry is experiencing an explosion in technical innovation, with multiple personal technology devices being compressed into one. Yesterday’s cell phones are now must-have music-playing, video-recording, web-browsing, photo-taking, e-mailing personal accessories. Oh, and you can also use them to make a phone call. However, the processes and technology that define the sector’s customer service have not kept pace with the fast-evolving nature of both the industry and the expectations of its consumers. 


Hyper-competition in the telecom marketplace has companies fighting for market share in an industry already saturated (86 percent wireless penetration level in the USA and 62% in Canada, according to World Markets Research Center.) In the US, there are over 260 million Internet users (in a documented population of 301 million according to US Census estimates). Of these, over 50 percent now surf the Internet using Broadband according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Cable companies such as Comcast are “bundling” cellular, traditional phone and Internet services into their existing cable services. Atlanta-based Cox Cable has announced that it is pursuing its own wireless network. Phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T are countering by offering television services alongside their phone and Internet offerings. Regional competitive providers such as Frontier and CenturyTel are trying to fill the service gaps in a variety of business and consumer markets. The ensuing result is a marketplace filled with service complexity, product confusion and intense competition.

Why the Gap Exists

Technology and strategy issues tend to be quickly resolved when new products and services are introduced to the market. Communications companies spend millions of dollars on the development and promotion of their products and services. There is however, a glaring gap still largely un-bridged by the telecom industry. Although these companies have the ability to create and offer a myriad of services using equipment with dazzling features, their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices have not kept pace.

For starters, customers often have to decipher their monthly bill, rather than just read it. Billing content can include cellular minutes, traditional phone service, cable TV, premium movie channels, HDTV packages, Internet service, tariffs, taxes, miscellaneous fees, equipment rentals, text messaging and pay-per-view fees all in a confusing multi-page document. The problem is fueled by marketing choices, the absence of a common billing and service support platform, and a knowledge gap among consumers.

“The service processes of most telecom providers never anticipated this level of product complexity and service demands,” said Doug Wano, Head of Global Operations for Proudfoot Consulting. “For that matter, customers weren’t designed to easily handle this type of complexity either.”

Process Changes Need to Complement Capital Investment

Horror stories about calling telecom providers’ customer service departments are legion: long wait times, too many options on the service menu before a human being gets on the line, poor linguistic skills of the customer service rep and insufficient product knowledge to help the customer. Making matters worse, this sector’s poor service isn’t cheap – in some cases more. Although they have spent millions attempting to combat the problem, many telecom call centers still continue to struggle with disjointed processes inadequate for today’s demands and complexities.

The acceleration of markets, emerging communications products and hyper-competition has created a demand for customer service unlike anything the industry has seen before. Companies need to not only focus on recruiting skilled customer service workers; they must install new or upgraded management operating systems and create a more proactive environment in which these workers can operate efficiently.

Missing Out on Your Chance to Shine?

Fundamental areas of focus include:

·         Improved Training - Proper training is crucial for client-facing workers, especially for those who serve where customers are calling to solve a perceived problem. Workers need to be coached on how to pacify angry customers and trained to minimize call transfers. The longer a customer has to remain on hold, the less patient they are going to be when a CSR does answer.

·         Streamlined Processes - If it takes several weeks to train a front-line employee how to support a basic consumer product set there’s too much complexity for everybody and its adding unnecessary cost – direct and indirect.

·         Effective Reporting - Streamlining the reporting process is crucial to the success of an initiative. In some companies, supervisors and managers receive too many reports occupying numerous pages that can be as confusing as some of the bills the company’s customers receive. A one page summary detailing each worker’s output will prove to be a highly successful tool in determining at a glance which workers are performing above expectations as well as who needs more attention.

·         Communicated Performance Expectations - Workers need to know what is expected from them from the onset. This ties in directly with training and coaching. Workers should also be well-versed as to when to transfer a call and to only do so when necessary.

·         Active Coaching and Feedback - The need for coaching/feedback- Although every situation is different, workers should receive regular coaching on “best practices” to engage customers to calmly work through the life cycle of the call. 

Whether a company operates one call center or a network of centers, operations need to be standardized. Performance metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) need to be implemented and properly communicated to ensure supervisors can evaluate worker performance against a predetermined criteria and industry norms. In many companies, these criteria are not regularly monitored.

In order to fully standardize a department, it is often necessary to step out of the trenches and shift to a “higher view” where emotions are removed from the situation. Management should consider partnering with an operational consulting firm as such initiatives often require the perspective of an educated and objective third party. Such consultants specialize in enabling the necessary program changes that adapt your company to current, as well as future business conditions.

Knowing Your Customers = Cost Reductions, Higher Satisfaction, Increased Retention

Successful service processes start by selecting a service channel appropriate to your customer profile - which is no easy task. It requires a careful, honest assessment of the following: Who are my customers? How do they want to interact with my business? Serving customers in their preferred channels will impress them. By creating these options, a company encourages renewals, repeat purchases, cross-sales and referrals. With service “bundling” becoming more widespread, an impressed customer is more prone to become a loyal and profitable customer.

Channel development and channel optimization does not necessarily require major capital investment as most large companies already have the necessary internet and telephony infrastructure in place. What is needed is creative and comprehensive process design with a closely managed system of checks and balances to measure utilization, performance and customer satisfaction.

What’s at Stake?

According to J.D Power and Associates, nearly half of all wireless phone customers have contacted their provider’s customer service department within the past year. The most common reason is to attempt to resolve a billing issue. Of those experiencing billing problems, almost 60% were to clear up inaccurate charges. Customers were also three times more likely to call their provider than to visit a retail location. The opportunity to improve customer care is tremendous. Assuming each additional customer is worth an average of $50-100 per month in gross revenue per service, a swing of just 10,000 customers would be worth millions of dollars on an annual basis. This would certainly keep the shareholders happy.

There are many ways to streamline services while improving customer satisfaction and reducing costs. By educating customer service representatives and utilizing aspects of this sector’s cutting edge technology to service accounts, these changes are possible. It will take a strong company commitment to tackle this problem, but a good start would be at the front lines of the customer experience.

In their defense, telecoms have explored potential solutions to these challenges. Different process improvement strategies, ranging from internally-managed training programs to system reviews performed by external consultants have been attempted in recent years, even to the extent of applying Six Sigma methodologies to CRM processes.

“The problem with these strategy-driven initiatives is that they’re short-lived,” says Agnes Aman, Director of People Solutions for Proudfoot in North America. “The only way to embed the required behavior to sustain the process and system improvements is to coach and work with the people at the point of execution. Only then will we be able to see the cultural shift in an organization. Change management is a central, crucial part of how Proudfoot improves business processes; unless the solution sticks, the new process strategy becomes meaningless. Sticking to it is an art, it requires focus; and it is the people in the organization that can make the changes happen. That’s where Proudfoot is different – we engage the front-line employees so that they take ownership of the improved systems and processes until they become totally engaged in a culture of continuous improvement.”

A skilled external change specialist can partner with management to evaluate the situation, design and implement an improved process flow prioritizing the human element. These “operational” consultants can objectively view the situation and take emotions out of the decision making process.

Now more than ever, with the industry battling a malevolent economy and rife with mergers and consolidations, improved customer service should be a prize worth aiming, and fighting, for. 4G technology and products demand to be supported by an equally high standard of customer service - the end result is a more engaged workforce and higher customer satisfaction which translate to higher loyalty and a healthier bottom line.

 

Mark Keeley is a Senior Vice-President at Proudfoot Consulting. Proudfoot Consulting is the world’s leading operational consulting firm. For more than 60 years, Proudfoot has specialized in implementing change to achieve measurable and sustainable performance improvement in client companies. Its teams work with client company management, and with people of all levels of the organization, to design and install programs as well as increase bottom-line financial results. Proudfoot Consulting is a part of Management Consulting Group PLC., one of the world’s top 25 consulting firms.

 

 

For more information, contact Joe Froelich at 404-260-0557 or visit www.proudfootconsulting.com.