Executives: Customer Satisfaction the Key to 2014 Contact Center Strategy

The following article was constructed based on data from Call Center IQ’s 2014 Call Center Executive Priorities Report. Download your complimentary copy now!

Aware that any hesitation on the matter will bring them into the crosshairs of angry Tweeters and Facebook users, executives know that they must tout an unflinching commitment to the customer experience. If their rhetoric gives any reason to believe that customers are a secondary priority, they give buyers all the reason they need to gravitate towards alternative providers.

How that rhetoric translates into action, however, is an entirely different story.

While businesses know they must invest heavily in the customer service function—and know the contact center is the embodiment of that function—they are not necessarily initiating that investment from the right state of mind.

No matter how much they publicly scoff at the old world notion that the call center is a "cost center," few businesses and business leaders can shake their preconditioning to approach the function as such. They see the call center as a net negative, and while they recognize that they can no longer eliminate or skimp exceedingly on its budget, they are always looking for shortcuts. They are always looking to minimize spend.

And because concepts like process improvement and operational efficiency are so revered by business leaders, even those who do appreciate the importance of customer service struggle to take their eyes off internal performance.

Granted, efforts to optimize performance are not inherently destructive to the customer experience. Contrary to absurd notions touted by customer management idealists, few customers want to devote much time to brand interactions. They want agents who respect them and satisfy them, but they are not itching for these lengthy "strategic" calls.

Customers have respect for their own time. Every moment devoted to a customer service interaction, therefore, is a moment they wish they had back and cost they wish they did not have to endure. Operational efficiency, therefore, benefits customers. It assures that they are not devoting any unnecessary time or effort to the interaction. It optimizes their experiences.

Before concluding that measuring internal performance is the key to call center success, executives are advised to re-read the preceding sentences. "Assures they are not devoting any unnecessary time or effort." "Optimizes their experiences." The key takeaway is that operational efficiency is valuable only insofar as it improves interactions for customers. Optimizing processes for optimization’s sake—without considering the implications for the customer—is not a good business practice. It is not customer-centric.

And that is why ongoing attention to internal metrics like average handle time is incompatible with a culture of customer centricity. It is not as if such metrics do not matter—they do—but they only matter insofar as they drive customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. If average handle time increases in a given month, the business should evaluate how customer satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy and revenue fluctuated before condemning the pool of contact center agents as poor performers.

Internal metrics should always be monitored, but they should only inform strategy when evaluated in the context of customer-facing, "satisfaction" metrics.

Advocating and implementing this approach are two vastly different things. While it would be easy to say all businesses that focus primarily on internal metrics simply do not understand customer service, it would be misguided.

Many chief customer officers and call center leaders would love to manage based on the voice of the customer. Unfortunately, they might be struggling to gather reliable performance data from the customer base (surveys, one common method, possess many flaws). They might lack the resources (or at least believe they do) to effectively transform their customer service culture. They might also be operating within an organization that, due to business convention, requires them to value internal metrics above all.

All very real and widespread, these inhibitors will remain relevant throughout 2014. If businesses have their way, however, they will be far less damning by year’s end.

According to Call Center IQ’s 2014 Call Center Executive Priorities Report, executives are staunchly committed to improving performance against customer satisfaction metrics this year.

Rating their existing performance against such metrics a 3.06/5, executives, on average, rate their commitment to improving that performance at a whopping 4.32/5. An impressive 57%, meanwhile, call improvement against customer satisfaction metrics an absolute top priority.

To get there, businesses will focus on better understanding their customers and better adapting service offerings based on that understanding.

They will turn to customer feedback, CRM, mobile support and self-service systems to achieve those objectives.

While the intense commitment to improving customer satisfaction reflects a growing wave of customer centricity, it does not, however, reflect the impending extinction of business norms. Cost containment will forever be important, and as such, efficiency metrics will remain a key priority in 2014.

According to the report, executives, who rate their existence efficiency performance at 3.26/5, assess their commitment to improving operational performance at a 4.21/5. 45% call it an absolute top priority.

The report reveals that the focus on satisfying customers is not eliminating the concern for operational performance. And insofar as that is true, successful executives will begin approaching the associated metrics not in silos but under the holistic banner of customer service experience. He will consider all metrics that determine whether or not a business ‘ call center function is best serving customers.

At the 2014 Contact Centres Asia (March 24-27, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), eBay Singapore’s head of APAC customer service Ronald Jones will address this challenge and discuss the metrics most important to that holistic view of the customer experience.

He will reveal why metrics like First Call Resolution, Call Volume, Net Promoter Score and Call Quality must take precedence over those like Average Handle Time and Response Time.

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Customer service advocates have long claimed that what is best for the customer is what is best for the business. If there is validity to that adage, performance that drives satisfaction should also drive increased revenue and profitability.

Metrics that give businesses a window into both, therefore, are the answer for success in 2014.

Businesses should never ignore the internal operations and factors that drive their businesses. But they must never forget to evaluate those operations in the context of customer satisfaction.