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2010 Benchmarks in
Call Center Operations |
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How does your call center
measure up? |
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Module 4 -
Setting customer satisfaction goals
Call Center Learning Center Tutorial Series |
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The Call Center Learning Center is pleased to continue the tutorial series
on measuring customer satisfaction. This tutorial series
pulls from Centerserve's research-based e-toolkits and
best practices reports.
Module 1 explained why customer satisfaction surveys are a sound
business strategy.
The
Module 2 provided guidelines for how to
accurately measure customer satisfaction.
Module 3 explained
how to report customer satisfaction survey results. This module will focus on setting and achieving customer satisfaction goals.
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Setting goals for customer satisfaction success
The best contact centers have established
goals based on business needs that everyone works towards.
Goals help you determine what success means to your organization -
otherwise you won't know it when you get there. Establishing goals and assessing performance is an ongoing process
that defines how well the center is doing over
time in the important area of customer satisfaction.
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Base
your customer satisfaction goals on the following areas: |
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Business goals
The call center goals must be aligned with the the overall
business goals of your organization. This will ensure that
the organization as a whole will see how the call center
contributes to achieving the big picture goals set by the
company.
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Competitive position and overall market performance in
your industry area
A good working knowledge of how your competition treats their
customers will give some insight into what your customers expect
of you. Set your goals to be at the same level or a higher
level of customer satisfaction than your main competitors.
Benchmarking is the first step to staying competitive!
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What customers indicate they value
on the customer survey, such as:
- short queue time or Web response time
- courtesy
- few or no transfers
- knowledgeable, accurate transaction handling
- quick delivery of products or service
- first contact resolution
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Additional guidelines for setting customer satisfaction goals include:
- Be clear about what you are measuring and why.
- Set your goals and standards so they are ambitious but
attainable.
- Performance objectives should be expressed as a range, such
as 90% or greater satisfied or very satisfied.
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2010 Benchmarks in Call Center Operations findings...
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14% of participants do not survey for customer
satisfaction. One third of participates only conduct
corporate-wide customer satisfaction surveys which cannot offer the same
call center specific data you need to be a best-in-class call center.
More than half of participants either survey call center customers only
or corporate-wide with call center-focused surveys. In order for call
center management to have a realistic view of how satisfied customers
interfacing with your agents, Centerserve research suggests you must at
least have a corporate-wide survey with a call center focus.
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Impact of technology on customer performance objectives
Technology is impacting customer satisfaction data collection in two
ways:
- Technology enables different
methods
of customer service,
including email and Web service, and with these channels the
task of collecting and evaluating customer service changes.
Measuring customer satisfaction for email is different than with
online Web services. Moreover, both measurement processes
for these contact channels are different than those used for
voice transactions.
- Technology also enables different
tools for measuring
customer satisfaction. These tools include such features
as:
- Automated VRU surveys after a caller speaks to an agent
- Automatic call back of selected customers for a customer
interview with an agent
- Web surveys
- Auto-reply email
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Just remember - measuring customer satisfaction is
critical for
business success regardless of the media used for the contact.
Be sure to consider your method of customer contact when setting
customer satisfaction goals and formulating your measurement process.
You may find it necessary to develop a separate set of goals for each type
of customer contact. Also, take advantage of the
technology-enabled tools for collecting customer data. Determine
which collection method will be most cost-effective for your
organization and also the most convenient and non-imposing
for your customers.
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Revisiting customer satisfaction goals
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Customer satisfaction performance objectives will again
be important when you are reporting the results of your measurements.
(Module 3 in
this tutorial series covered the reporting component of this process.)
You will need to compare your current performance with your performance
objectives. Routinely missing the target or goal is not acceptable
and a new improvement plan would need to be enforced.
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