Author:  Gary Barnett

I recently read an Associated Press article by J.W. Elphinstone that I found a bit disturbing.  The piece mentioned that “no one likes to wait for customer service on the telephone while listening to elevator music, especially during the holidays.”  This statement is entirely accurate as the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index found - without a doubt, customers in North America and Europe would like to minimize the time they spend on hold.

The article, however, goes on to say that customers can speed their calls by “cheating” the contact center system, doing things like calling during off hours and choosing the Spanish speaking option in order to bypass automatic prompts.

There is no reason that customers should be forced to take these actions.  In fact, there are many tools available today that can help contact centers provide high levels of service without breaking the bank.  Here are three that directly address the “cheating” recommendations made in the article:

• Use workforce management software to accurately plan for, and efficiently manage peak periods.
• Design automated systems that give customers they information they need up front.  Use speech self service to simplify the automated process, and enable customers to easily and quickly connect to agents when needed.
• Provide agents with adequate and ongoing training; use quality management solutions to monitor interactions and provide regular coaching as appropriate.

By following these tips, you can make your customers happy and prevent them from having to act sneaky.  As I stated in a previous posting, research shows that each unhappy customer will tell 13-15 people about their bad experience with a company – far more than they will tell of a good experience.  And, in this day and age, you really can’t afford even one bad experience.  So it’s of even more vital importance that we’re not telling customers how to cheat the system, but rather looking at ways to re-examine contact center operations and processes to make it easier to provide great service to consumers. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 6:50 am and is filed under Customer Service/Consumer Demands, Performance Optimization, Voice Self Service, WFM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.