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Contact Centers: Overcoming the 'Three Rs'

By JOHANNA LUBAHN AND EDWARD G. BROWN

Contact center conversations tend to be rushed, routine and robotic because managers often value speed over good customer service.

SYNOPSIS | Financial institution contact centers suffer from rushed, routine and robotic conversations, according to Johanna Lubahn and Edward G. Brown of Cohen Brown Management Group. The main culprit, they say, is the tendency for contact center managers to emphasize performance goals such as speed in taking calls rather than delivering a good customer experience. The solution, they say, is for management to cultivate a culture where genuine, helpful conversations with customers can occur while still maintaining efficiency.

Rushed, routine, and robotic: These are the unfortunate “Three Rs” of contact center interactions. It's what customers have come to expect from call center employees when they call in with a problem. A 2006 survey by Genesys found that 67% of consumers would stop doing business with a company due to poor customer service at a contact center.

Related Chart Consultative Selling? Not Much

Bankers will be happy to know that their contact centers are not considered the worst of the lot. In fact, Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CFI Group found in its inaugural Call Center Satisfaction Index that bank-ing facilities rank among the best of any industry. Bank contact centers achieved a score of 77 on a 100-point scale, just behind catalog retailers (80), but ahead of companies selling cell phone services (69), cable and satellite television (68), insurance (68) and personal computers (64). But as anyone who has dealt with a bank contact center can testify, the problem of rushed, routine and robotic performance from employees remains.

It doesn't have to be that way. Our experience with clients at Cohen Brown suggests that the fault lies not with contact center representatives but rather with the way they are managed. Most contact centers operate in a two-faced environment, where “customer service” is the stated ideal but “hurry up” is the real expectation. “Understanding customer needs” may get lip service from management, but training consists of “follow the script.” All too often, business objectives handed down by managers become insurmountable obstacles to providing great customer service.

By asking for one thing (service) while prioritizing another (cost savings), contact centers create four insurmountable obstacles for their reps:

1. They depersonalize what should be personal.

2. They emphasize numbers that measure everything except service.

3. They over-script interactions that beg for authenticity.

4. They invoke customer satisfaction without conviction.

Does this critique apply to your own institution? Just ask yourself the following questions:

In meetings with your reps, do you talk about happy customers or statistics? Do you talk about callers or calls?

Consider the language used by management to measure success. Contact centers are usually referred to as "units" that handle millions of “transactions” designed to “offload traffic” from the branch. The language is appropriate, as far as it goes, but it masks an important reality: the representative's first responsibility, day in and day out, is to help one customer at a time. From that perspective, each call becomes an entirely personal interaction.

Managers at one contact center complained to us about their productivity pressures: rapid turnover, too many calls and declining service scores. We asked them to take a more holistic view. “You have an awesome responsibility,” we pointed out. “Each call is a person who needs help with an issue of utmost importance to them. What could be more important than giving them peace of mind?”

By the end of the meeting, we were talking about callers, not calls; satisfying needs, not call times; rep tone, not product facts; rep satisfaction, not scripts. The language matters when you want to get different results.

How many systems do your reps have to open to take care of an ordinary customer call? Technology can leach the personal touch out of customer interactions. At one bank contact center, we were amazed to see a rep with 24 systems open on her computer! No doubt there was a technology or business reason for that. But as you can imagine, the rep had put all her concentration into working the systems instead of creating a connection with the customer. When technology disables rather than enables us, there is a problem.

Are you painting by the numbers? Is your measure for customer satisfaction about the clock or the customer? When we visit large contact centers, the focus is usually on the numbers. Managers talk about answer speed, abandons, blockage, longest delay in queue, rep occupancy, shrinkage, schedule efficiency, average handling time, after-call work and so on. We agree that efficiency is critical; all contact centers must track staffing levels, technology deployments and productivity. But as a starting point for improvement, the usual packet of numbers no more defines the performance or potential of that particular contact center than a Water Lilies paint-by-numbers kit defines Monet's genius.

Customers call with an emotion and a need. They are worried about a deposit, confused about a fee or excited about a purchase. How they feel when they hang up—like an insignificant stranger or like a valued customer—depends more on management's priorities than on the rep taking the call. Service should rank with efficiency as a top priority.

In fact, most C-level executives underestimate the emphasis their organization places on contact center efficiency, according to a global survey of 927 companies (in a variety of industries) that Daly City, Calif.-based Genesys conducted early this year. For example, 70% of call center employees said their companies use average-speed-to-answer as a critical metric while only 55% of C-level executives thought this to be the case, the survey found.

Do you hand over scripts or do you allow reps to collaborate on scripts? How do your reps sound on the phone—like a person or a talking brochure?

Over-scripting remains the most common caller complaint. In some cases, poor training can keep reps glued to a script, lacking the knowledge and confidence to offer personalized assistance. Alternatively, a “stick to the script” emphasis by managers lowers reps' expectations regarding their own performance and encourages them to limit the demands they place on themselves. They may not venture beyond the script, even when common sense dictates.

Scripting clinics offer a solution for robotic interactions derived from script dependence. By giving participants an opportunity to practice their responses in a range of different scenarios, clinics build the confidence contact center reps need to offer personalized service. Reps learn to be more relaxed, stay in control, acknowledge the caller's emotion and understand when and how to go off-script. Through effective training, managers can empower their reps to use scripts correctly—as a starting point for perfect client interactions.

If managers do not trust their reps to contribute to the script, how can they expect the script to be delivered with confidence and energy? Is there a better recipe for a bored, impersonal delivery? Contact center reps should also be allowed to collaborate on their scripts and practice with each other before they go live. If given the right training and knowledge and allowed to be part of the process, we find that contact center reps will rise to the occasion, empowered and proud.

How do you define great customer satisfaction? Do your reps share that view? It is perplexing to us that many contact center directors still report customer satisfaction in terms of how quickly calls get answered. This is like awarding the Pulitzer Prize to the fastest writer. Contact centers may have gotten their start as a way to reduce costs but today the mantra is (or should be) differentiated service.

We know a director whose bank contact center became top-rated in terms of customer service while delivering a high percentage of the retail bank's revenue. One of her first tactics was to take the time monitors out of the contact center so that only managers and supervisors monitored call time. This allowed the reps to focus on service.

When you coach your reps (you DO coach them, right?), do you ask about numbers or do you ask why a call was or was not a good conversation?The annual turnover at contact centers is a margin-busting 25% on average and can range as high as 80%. The problem often lies in how reps are rewarded. At one bank, starting pay was poor but the incentives were sizable for reps who could take twenty or more calls an hour. There was burnout from the pace but also burnout from the role itself. Who wants to work for a company that pays people to treat customers poorly?

The time has come to shift the focus from cost savings alone to providing great service in the most cost-effective way. Research conducted by Cohen Brown in 2007 revealed that during 250 calls to 21 bank contact centers in North America, a majority of contact center representatives were just providing the basic information to clients in response to their requests (see chart “Consultative Selling? Not Much”). Our research shows that few reps were trained or coached to have a consultative conversation that focused on the client's needs.

One of the most common interactions in a bank contact center is a customer's balance inquiry. An untrained rep might bring up the balance, tell the caller the number requested, say "Have a nice day" and take the next call. One well-trained in customer satisfaction, however, might ask in an interested tone, “While I am getting that information, is there a particular transaction you are concerned about?” Assuming there is an additional concern—and there almost always is—the rep can answer in full, solving the entire concern that prompted the customer's call rather than simply conveying the balance. It is during routine, simple transactions that reps can most easily create a connection with the caller without sacrificing productivity.

The monthly “Social Security day” is another service opportunity where employees tend to get caught up in rushed, routine and robotic performance. On the day that Social Security payments get direct deposited, the lines are flooded with calls from senior citizens worried about whether they can make a certain purchase. In the contact center, there's an attitude of, "Here we go again, it's the same old calls from the same people who are too stubborn to go online and get the information themselves."

Instead, a rep might envision such a request as an educational opportunity and a chance to improve a relationship. They can say, “While I am looking up your balance, may I explain how Social Security deposits work? Deposits are made on the last day of the month. But if that day falls on Saturday or Sunday, they make the deposit on the Friday preceding. So you never have to worry about it being later than the last day of the month.” This is not only great information; it is evidence of caring. It addresses the customer's real concern.

We urge our clients to reflect on what they are saying to customers. When the employee tells the customer, “Your balance is $150,000,” they need to think about that. It's because of large-balance customers such as these that the rep has this job. They need to convey that understanding by adding, “Thank you for being such a valuable customer. I want to make sure we are doing a good job for you. Is there anything else I can do for you at this time?” Customers enjoy being recognized for their contribution to your business.

High productivity does not rule out polite, caring, genuine conversations, but these conversations will not happen accidentally on a large scale. Unless managers deliberately conceive and cultivate a culture of good service, thoughtful questions will be the first casualties. The environment, the measurements, the training and the daily interactions with management must be supportive of a high-service culture.

Admittedly, contact center directors often feel caught between the mandates of senior management and the needs of their customers. We remind them that it is their leadership, more than any other factor, that will determine the success of their organization. And we challenge them with these questions:

1. Are you encouraging or discouraging positive customer interactions?

2. Do you cultivate an environment that promotes genuine, helpful conversations?

3. Are you making sure that "rushed, routine and robotic" does not apply to you and your staff?