THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE ISSUE 3 • 2015
Contact centres: ‘Go digital, or die’ Part three of a series on challenges facing the Canadian contact centre industry Also in this issue: ❯❯ Improving employee retention with smart software
❯❯ Piece of cake: A 6-step recipe for talent planning
Travel & Tourism
Are your CSRs order takers or sales advisors? By Mike Aoki
W
hen someone calls your contact centre, are they dealing with a glorified order taker or a genuine sales advisor who helps them make the best buying decision? For example, one of my clients in the travel industry found their phone representatives were good at processing a sales order—if the customer asked for it. However, they were terrible at recognizing opportunities to proactively advise the client on additional services to give them peace of mind. How much money is your contact centre leaving on the table when they miss obvious up-sells such as travel insurance and medical coverage?
Cancellation insurance For example, trip cancellation insurance is a big money maker for the travel industry. It has a high profit margin and people rarely claim it. On the other hand, trip cancellation insurance also offers a huge benefit for customers. That makes it a true win/win situation. Some travel industry customer service representatives (CSRs) think customers will automatically say, “no” to trip cancellation insurance. However, that is usually the result of two big mistakes: reps wait until the end of the call to mention it and fail to describe its benefits. Reps fight an uphill battle by waiting until the end of the call to upsell. By then, the customer has already mentally settled on a price. For example, they already made a buying decision based upon, “$5,000 for my week-long family vacation” when your CSR suddenly re-opens the negotiation to get an additional $250 for insurance. No wonder customers say, “no” to surprise add-ons at the end of a call. Instead, coach your CSRs to ask the right questions and listen to their customer to determine if they are a good candidate for trip cancellation insurance. If they are, include it as part of the vacation description rather than leaving it for the end of the call. Note: some jurisdictions legally require CSRs to mention trip cancellation insurance. However, “mentioning it” and being really good at selling it are two different things. Begin by having your CSRs ask the obvious questions: Where is the customer headed? How many people are going with them? How many days long is this trip? How often do they travel per year (this may suggest multi-trip insurance coverage)? What are the ages of the people going on the trip (this may suggest certain kinds of medical coverage)? Do any of the travelers have pre-existing conditions that might exclude them from coverage? Have them listen to their Issue 3 • 2015
customer’s answers to see if they can help them. Here are customer clues for trip cancellation insurance: There is a long lead time before they leave. No one can predict the future; however, a lot more can change in six months than in six days. If the trip is several months down the road, introduce the idea of trip cancellation insurance early in the call. Explain the benefit: it may protect them if they need to cancel their vacation due to unforeseen circumstances. To reinforce this benefit, use a cautionary story. For example, a friend of mine booked a flight/hotel package for a certain date only to cancel it later due to a family emergency. She did not have trip cancellation insurance and had to pay a large re-booking fee as a result.
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They have small children or elderly parents. If a customer is travelling with small children, explain how trip cancellation insurance may protect them if their child gets sick and they have to cancel their flight. If they have elderly parents, they may have to cancel a trip due to a medical emergency at home. Trip cancellation insurance may help them avoid penalty fees and give them peace of mind. The only thing worse than cancelling a trip is PAYING to cancel the trip! As always, explain any restrictions or exclusions so customers can make an informed buying decision.
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It is an expensive vacation. The more a vacation costs, the greater the potential loss to cancel or re-schedule. So, position the benefits of trip cancellation insurance as part of the initial price discussion.
Educate your reps on the coverage and exclusions for your policies, so they can listen for the right customer clues. Reps also need to explain the limits of each policy so customers can make a fair buying decision.
Medical coverage Medical coverage is another travel industry up-sell. For example, if a customer breaks their arm while in the United States, a local hospital may charge $25,000 for x-rays, pain killers and a cast. Their provincial health plan may not cover them in the U.S. or other provinces. Their workplace group insurance plan may only cover them for workrelated trips, not a family vacation. In addition, older travellers may have a higher risk/likelihood of needing medical care. So, travel medical coverage provides peace of mind while traveling. Have CSRs help customers make an informed decision by mentioning the benefits of a medical insurance plan, as well as any restrictions such as pre-existing conditions and limits to coverage. Good vacation memories last a lifetime. Unfortunately, so do bad ones! Help your customers plan a great trip with upsells that give them peace of mind before and during their trip! Mike Aoki is the president of Reflective Keynotes Inc. (www.reflectivekeynotes. com ), a Canadian training company that helps contact centres improve their sales, customer service and management results. A call centre expert, Mike has been interviewed by the Customer Experience Show and the Globe and Mail. He also serves on the Advisory Council of GTACC (the Greater Toronto Area Contact Centre Association (www.gtacc.ca)) and was master of ceremonies for their 2012, 2013 and 2014 annual conferences.
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Cover story
Contact centres: ‘Go digital, or die’ Part three of a series on challenges facing the Canadian contact centre industry By Sarah O’Connor with Amy Bostock
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ll around the world, more and more customers are choosing to interact with contact centre agents through digital channels (e.g. email, web chat, social media and self-service channels) rather than over the phone. Dimension Data’s 2015 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report suggests that if this shift continues at its current pace, digital will overtake voice-based contact within the next two years. The fact that this evolution has been looming for the last decade does not make it any less bewildering. It’s one thing to appreciate that your customers want an integrated experience in an omnichannel environment, but it is quite another to deliver it strategically, consistently and, of course, at a globally competitive price. Dimension Data’s report demonstrates that analytics is recognized by the majority of contact centres as the factor most likely to influence the industry over the next five years, and yet four out of 10 centres still have no internal data analysis capability whatsoever. “There’s this perception, which still exists predominantly outside the industry, that when we talk about contact 4 | contact management
centres we’re talking about telephone calls,” observes Dimension Data’s Head of Solutions and Global Benchmarking Andrew McNair. “And sometimes it still exists within organizations as well. We’re guilty of it ourselves. When we edit our report each year, it’s one of the real points that we’re so conscious of that, hey, are we talking about call centres? I think that’s a real key point that organizations need to focus on going forward, that if they’re looking to attract overseas or U.S. traffic into Canada, and equally if they’re looking just to re-shore some of what, in the past, has been sent overseas, it’s not about just having that telephone capability any longer. That is not the future of the contact centre. “The telephone capability is going
to be crucial and, if anything, when the transaction reaches the telephone, it’s going to be more important than ever before. But, I think it’s around having those channels available and having those channels joined up, and understanding how to use those channels to maximize the returns for your business. And, the key to that is through analytics, which [the report illustrates] is a real area of neglect as well.”
An increasingly complex industry In just 10 years the industry has shifted from all calls, all the time to today, where digital interactions account for 35% of all interactions and are expected to grow to 87% of all transactions. Delivering a frictionless Issue 3 • 2015
Cover story next 18 months or so, but it was a surprise to see the sheer level of that neglect across all levels of measurement, analytics and management. “It’s all very well having the channels and it’s all very well having an aspiration to then connect those channels so that we can try and aspire towards this kind of omnichannel experience. But, in reality, in order to offer your customers the best possible services, but also from an organizational perspective to maximize your own returns from those new channels, you need to understand how, and where, and for what transactions should be routed for each individual interaction type. And, that’s where there’s just an absolute lack of understanding. “A basic example there would be a personal loan application. There’s no point trying to push that towards email or online, if you know that the conversion rates are perhaps only 20% through those channels. If you know that you can get an 80% conversion rate via telephone then, by all reasoning, you absolutely want to route that particular type of transaction to the telephone agent, where they can convert that and maximize your return.”
Over half of all organizations will soon be managing a multichannel contact centre offering service through at least eight channels. customer experience that results in a satisfactory resolution of their concerns has become dramatically more complex. “The more touch points, the more complex it gets, the harder it is to aggregate all that data from different touch points into a consistent customer story,” says Mike Morrison, vice president of sales at Millennium 1 Solutions. “It started with inbound calling, and then it progressed to inbound and outbound,” adds Don Moffett, CEO of Millennium 1 Solutions. “And, then email was introduced as a new service channel. And, then chat was introduced as a new service channel. And, in very recent history, social media has become a potential service channel. And, social media actually changes the game considerably, because in the previous scenario, phone, email and chat, the servicing delivery model has been one to one. In the social channel, it’s one to many. So, one person makes a post, it gets responded to, hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people view the post.” The stakes are getting higher as customer satisfaction levels are dropping. Social media is already the preferred channel for Generation Y globally, and yet six in 10 contact centres have no social media capacity. The majority of organizations (75%) view the contact centre as a key differentiator (rather than just a cost centre) but 80% recognize that their current IT infrastructure won’t meet their future needs, while 40% say it doesn’t even meet their current needs. Dimension Data predicts that over half of all organizations will soon be managing a multichannel contact centre offering service through at least eight channels. These myriad channels require support from a strategy designed to deliver consistent service in an siloless model that generates useful data. The alternative is a frustrating confusion of contact options and a waste of resources. “We really broadened the report, to start looking at a lot of the traditional measurements which are generally in place for the stereotypical call centre, telephone-based interactions, and we broadened that out to look at what are others seeing, methodologies and processes and systems. Are they in place across the digital channels as well?” says McNair. “And, we were very surprised at just the sheer lack of some of the basics. And, it’s almost as though a lot of organizations have rushed to establish this presence. They’ve not connected to channels, and at the same time, there doesn’t really seem to be clear ownership on a lot of these digital channels as well. So, very simple practices that, as I say, are very much in place in the call centre industry are just being neglected, and that was a real surprise. I’m sure there will be a catch up over the Issue 3 • 2015
Delivering what really matters The proliferation of technology capable of managing an omnichannel service model concurrent with the ability to mine myriad data for meaningful insights in real time presents unprecedented opportunities for the modern contact centre. At the same time, delivering a real connection with another human being is also more important than ever. “What consumers are really interested in, what they’re really looking for is that ease of resolution,” says McNair. “That’s their prime concern. So, channel choice, yes, is important, but ultimately what they want is to resolve that enquiry. There’s still the opportunity to accommodate a lot of their interactions offshore through some of the faceless transactions, so things like web chat and social media, which we anticipate will grow as a customer service channel. That’s where we’re going to see growth in agent head count in the years ahead. It’s not voice which is going to create that growth, it’s going to be those back
office channels, where we still need human intervention but they’re not necessarily talking to the customer.” The challenge is to leverage technology and data in order to create more positively impactful human experiences for customers. A usercentric, channel-agnostic approach is the key to creative a cohesive customer experience across the organization that in turn will deliver an increase ROI. “If you remain the telephonecentric call centre, then your relevance is just going to diminish and eventually drop away and perhaps die. Analytics holds the key, has been voted as the number one factor that’s going to change the industry by our participants over the next five years. And, obviously, to get back to my earlier point, what that will create is more personalization and help drive more qualified channel
“The telephone capability is going to be crucial and, if anything, when the transaction reaches the telephone, it’s going to be more important than ever before.” strategies, which are based upon interaction value. In the short term, and the short term being over the next couple of years, we’re seeing that there will be an overall growth in head count within the industry, so the real opportunity. And, I think this is where we need to get away from thinking of the stereotypical call centre and actually view it as a customer management centre.”
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The CSR issue
Piece of cake A 6-step recipe for talent planning By Jen Lawrence
Y
our star employee has handed in her notice or your business has expanded, and you need to hire someone new. The impulse might be to hire someone as quickly as possible to minimize disruptions, but it’s much more effective to do some talent planning so your new hire reflects your current and future goals. Think of your business like a cake and your employees like the ingredients. You can’t just throw ingredients into a bowl and expect to bake a cake successfully. You need to follow a recipe such as the one below:
1. Understand the purpose of your cake First, you need to know what kind of cake you want to make. Are you making a cake for your grandma’s 90th birthday or for a raucous bachelor party? Is it a fancy cake for a sophisticated palate or a plain cake for fussy eaters? Are you feeding five people or 200? Your vision will drive the kind of recipe you need. Similarly, you should have a very clear vision for your company. Are you a healthy fast food chain that is hoping to expand geographically? Are you a software value-added reseller that is expanding into another vertical? Are you a hotel chain that is trying to rebrand? This will tell you what kind of talent plan you need. Just because vanilla layer cake has worked very well in the past does not mean that hazelnut crunch might not work better now.
2. Identify possible cakes Before you start baking, you need to think about who will be enjoying your cake? If you want to dazzle pre-school princesses, look is probably more important than taste. You are going to need a big fancy cake, preferably with a lot of glitter (subtle flourless chocolate cakes need not apply). Let’s say you run a chain of small hotels trying to rebrand and are in need of a new customer service director. Will your ideal customers travel for business or pleasure? Do they have a tight budget or do they expect a first class experience? Has your ideal customer profile changed since you last hired for this role? Thinking about how the job has changed will help you identify the type of person who could help you execute your vision.
3. Select your recipe Once you know that you need to make a fancy princess cake that is heavy on the glitter, you need to find some inspiration and a recipe. You can research “fancy princess cakes” on Pinterest and see what appeals. You might discard the cakes that require $200 worth of ingredients or a trip to a specialty store based on budget and time constraints. You might discard other possibilities because 6 | contact management
you have not mastered fondant icing. Eventually, you will find a recipe that suits. In your business, you need to figure out what kind of person would best at help you get to where you want to be, keeping resource constraints in mind. If you are trying to upgrade your level of service and redefine your hotel as a luxury brand, you might not want to hire the manager from a competing mid-price chain.
ingredient is someone with a luxury approach to customer service, you might be able to take a creative approach to hiring. Could you hire someone from a luxury retailer or a restaurant group and then train him in the specifics of the hotel world? The interview process will show you what ingredient might work best in your business.
4. Take stock of the ingredients
Once you have found the missing ingredient, you need to mix the ingredients together. In business, this is the onboarding stage and it’s good to give it some attention as you don’t want your cake to flop or burn. If you don’t have a good new employee orientation program in place, now is the time to create one. At a minimum, you should take the employee out for lunch, make her feel welcome, appoint someone who can answer her job-specific questions, get any company-specific training underway and make sure she has some projects to tackle. Before long, the new hire will be up to speed and contributing to your business.
Once you know what recipe you are making, you need to gather the ingredients. First take a look in the pantry; in the consulting world, we call this a talent audit. Whenever you are replacing or hiring a key member of staff, it’s a good idea to take inventory of your other people too. What skills do you have? What skills do you still need? Who can you train? Who should you hire? Perhaps you already have all the ingredients you need. Perhaps there is a more junior person in your organization who is now ready to take on an expanded role. Perhaps someone can make a lateral move to broaden his experience.
5. Source new ingredients Let’s say you’ve taken inventory and need vanilla extract. What type of vanilla extract do you need? Do you need the organic, hand-blended variety in the fancy glass bottle or is the generic label variety fine? This is the stage where you need to draw up a list of specific skill requirements for the new job. In the case of a replacement, it’s tempting to simply use the existing job description but if you want to maximize this hiring opportunity you should determine what skills you need today and in the future. Review your existing talent pool. If your hotel chain is a well staffed and your only missing
6. Mix the ingredients together
Talent planning can seem complex but if you follow the recipe above, it’s really a piece of cake. Jen Lawrence has been helping organizations improve performance and navigate change since 1994. Prior to joining Process Design Consultants, Lawrence was the executive director of a children’s museum, a director within the investment banking arm of a major Canadian bank, and a consultant for one of the “big four” consulting firms. She also ran the training and development department for the Canadian subsidiary of a Fortune 500 manufacturing company.
Issue 3 • 2015
Contact Management
Improving employee retention with smart software
You can’t afford not to invest in improving UX for your customer service representatives 8 | contact management
Issue 3 • 2015
The CSR issue
By Guillaume Seynhaeve
B
y 2020, customer experience is expected to exceed both price and product as the primary basis upon which consumers base their purchasing decisions and brand loyalty—in fact, one might argue that may already be the case. Regardless, while many businesses have turned to technology to help meet the challenge of offering the elusive ‘perfect customer experience,’ many in turn have done so at the expense of perhaps their most important asset—their employees. In fact, one has but to consider the following call centre statistics to quickly grasp the extent of the issue: • Average customer service representative (CSR) attrition for contact centres in growing enterprises is approximately 25%. • Annual CSR turnover rates average 35% across all call centres but can exceed 60% for those who specialize in outbound campaigns. • The average turnover rate for call centres with 500 or more employees ranges between 31% and 50%.
stored within disparate systems and platforms during each customer contact. In fact, 60% of low first call resolution (FCR) rates can be attributed to the inability of a CSR to gain quick access to a consumer’s information when it matters most—at the time of the interaction. However, by consolidating and integrating the various systems and platforms (CRM, SM, etc.) an enterprise may prescribe to, the ability to streamline and simplify a CSR’s access to timely and relevant customer
The typical culprits? • Frustration with cumbersome and manual processes despite the existence of advanced software and solutions. • Mismatches between agent skills and assigned customer issues. • Lack of consistent coaching (not to be confused with training). • Inflexible work environments.
information can quickly enhance both the customer’s experience as well as the CSR’s experience. In fact, according to SQM Group, for every one per cent in FCR improvement, contact centres will see a one to five per cent improvement in employee satisfaction.
The potential cost A 1,000-seat contact centre with a 60% CSR turnover rate will easily spend millions in attrition costs. A typical calculation would be (training time / average tenure) times annual fully loaded cost. So if training is two weeks, average tenure is 24 weeks and annual cost (fully loaded) is $37,856 ($13 hourly plus overhead), the cost to the 1,000 seat centre will be 1,000 times $3,154 or $3.1 million. Factor in the additional affect on employee morale, the ongoing loss in intellectual property and the long-term effect on customer service and the cost significantly grows beyond the immediate operational expenses. In fact, the damage can be permanent in today’s hyper-sensitive customer service environment.
The solution: 3 steps toward improving CSR retention
Platform consolidation Per a recent Aberdeen Study, CSRs can spend up to 26% of their time searching for relevant data and information Issue 3 • 2015
Workplace flexibility As the workforce demographic for CSRs continues to transition from Generation X to Millennials and technology continues to evolve, the demand for flexible work environments is on the rise. In fact, 89% of today’s Millennials would prefer to choose when and where to work rather than being subject to traditional nine-to-five protocols. Perhaps even more interesting, 45% value workplace flexibility more than salary benefits. Thankfully, due to
For every 1% in FCR improvement, contact centres will see a 1–5% improvement in employee satisfaction.
Active CSR coaching According to recent studies, 41% of employees expect to leave organizations with “poor” training as opposed to just 12% for those rated as “good.” But while many organizations follow traditional training practices, in which much of the guidance is provided at the beginning of any new employment, many fail to maintain a consistent level of coaching and mentorship to foster continued growth and education. And yet, for those institutions that have implemented active coaching programs, workforce optimization (WFO) platforms, e-learning tools and more, many have seen improvements in customer satisfaction (5.8% YoY increase), employee productivity (7.9% YoY increase) and CSR retention.
recent advancements in technology, notably cloud call centre software and other SaaS solutions, contact centres can now grant CSRs the ability to work from whichever location they choose, while maintaining the same, if not enhanced, levels of security, reporting and supervision. The benefit? Turnover is generally 35–50% lower for at-home representatives versus in-house ones.
Conclusion Despite the advancements in technology and the ongoing desire of consumers to be self-sufficient, the fact remains true competitive differentiation for enterprises will still heavily rely on the expertise and proficiency of the CSRs manning the front lines. Not just a wise investment, but rather a necessary one. Guillaume Seynhaeve is the director of marketing and business development at 3CLogic (www.3clogic.com).
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News
Women in Leadership Presented by GTACC June 2015
Sangetta Bhatnagar, chair of the GTACC, welcomes guests.
By Sarah O’Connor
T
his past June, the Greater Toronto Contact Centre Association (GTACC) hosted a morning of inspiration and thought leadership in celebration of influential women leaders within the local contact centre industry. The keynote address was delivered by Franca Gucciardi, CEO of the Loran Scholars Foundation. Gucciardi previously served as the founding director of the Millennium Excellence Awards program of the Millennium Scholarship Foundation. She is also a committed public servant, currently serving on the boards of College Montrose Children’s Place and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Gucciardi’s keynote was followed by a panel discussion including Afshan Kinder, partner, SwitchGear Consulting; Helga Iliadis, assistant deputy minister, customer care division, Service Ontario; Miriam Pearlman, consultant, MBPG Education & Organization Services; and Kim Whyte, superintendent, Peel Region Police. 10 | contact management
Keynote speaker Franca Gucciardi, CEO of Loren Scholars Foundation.
Issue 3 • 2015
News
Panellists from left to right: Afshan Kinder, partner, SwitchGear Consulting; Helga Iliadis, assistant deputy minister, customer care division, Service Ontario; Miriam Pearlman, consultant, MBPG Education & Organization Services; and Kim Whyte, superintendent, Peel Region Police.
The event was generously sponsored by LoyaltyOne, Scotiabank and InfiniteKM. All proceeds from ticket sales were donated to Room to Read, which partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish libraries and
create local language children’s literature, and Pathways to Education, which helps youth in low-income communities graduate from high school and successfully transition into post-secondary education. The GTACC is a non-for-profit
organization whose mission is to benefit the local contact centre industry by positively engaging in knowledge exchange, networking and marketing initiatives. The GTACC’s annual conference will take place November 5, 2015.
Is Your Contact Centre Mature Enough for Today’s Customer? During this interactive working session, together we will look at understanding your contact centre’s current state and begin to chart your path to the desired future state, strategic value and unique dynamics of your contact centre that match the customers’ expectation.
Direct Marketing invites you to a Free Breakfast Briefing Oct 15, 2015 • 7:30-10am
Twenty Toronto Street Conference Centre, 20 Toronto Street, Toronto Issue 3 • 2015
Presented by
You must be registered in advance to attend. Free to register www.dmn.ca
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