Call Center Environment
Get around a call center for any time and the systemic issues or attrition, customer experience and operational integrity will come up in any conversation. After all these years, it’s interesting to note that the same exact issues that plagued the industry decades ago are still with them.
What comes to mind is the definition of crazy…
that is, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. This, unfortunately is the life of call centers and that environment. Management continues to spout great speeches about the importance of customer service while lowering the morale and effectiveness of their primary customer service and support organization. This is just plain short sighted but has been going on for years.
The attrition, or loss of experienced employees continues unabated while management continues to be “alarmed.” Alarmed!? Because people don’t want to be treated poorly for lousy wages and few benefits? Oh please! Get your head out of the sand and take a look at the real world. Walk a mile in the typical employees shoes and management would quickly see that the real problem is…. poor management. Go figure!
Inbound Call Centers Can Become Outbound Money Generators
Many companies that have developed in house call centers for customer service and support have found that these assets can also add to the bottom line. The way to get this done is to train phone agents and reverse the flow of calls. That is, change from getting incoming calls to processing outgoing call connections.
Consider this…
Many credit card companies have call centers that generate more than half of all new revenues and income.
Retail banking is starting to move from a service to sales model.
At the very least, many companies are testing the idea of cross selling or promotional selling to customers who call in for service. The risk of course is alienating the customer who asks for help with a product and the focus back on selling something else. Of course, cross selling can be a benefit to the customer if, after satisfying the customers initial issue, other offers or products are discussed.
To be truly effective, companies must first focus on delivering consistent and high quality customer service. All the happy talk and “your important to us” fluff sent to customers must have a solid infrastructure of good customer service behind it. It’s not enough to sent a greeting card to the customer claiming how important they are to the company only to provide poor service when there’a a problem .
It’s only after a positive experience can anyone expect a customer to consider additional products from a company. Unfortunately, today’s business focus is on doing LESS for the customer which in many cases limits the up sale potential to current customers calling into a contact center.
Outbound Call Centers and IVR’s
I recently had the unfortunate experience in dealing with a company that uses call centers as the boogie man for their company. They don’t answer their calls and it’s the fault of the call center they contract their support to.
The company doesn’t offer email or web based direct contact, only thru the call center. Again, they claim it’s the fault of the call center that I cannot get in touch with anyone at their company.
Finally there’s the BS of calling the company, getting an automated voice response (IVR) you know punch 1 for this and 2 for that, etc. etc.
Which no matter what you select the first time, goes to another IVR which again doesn’t matter what you select goes to yet another one, which ends up with the customer being told no one is available to take your call, try again later.
I’d like to get a hold of anyone in the company to find out how this is the call centers fault that they can’t provide an email address? What garbage!
Call centers have enough problems and bad press and shouldn’t be used as the scapegoat for poorly run and operated companies.