Best-in-class
call centers: Scorecards for success
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How does your call center stack up?
The first step toward delivering world-class customer
service in today's environment is to separate the different
components that contribute to a successful call center and
evaluate your performance in each area. This series
will focus on the Contact Center Model, which breaks the
call center into its five key components - Strategy,
Processes, Technology, Human Resources and Facilities.
Each section will include a short scorecard to evaluate your
current call center performance.
Module 1: The Contact
Center Model
Module 2: Strategy
Module 3: Processes
Module 4: Technology
Module 5: Human
Resources
Module 6: Facilities
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If
you don't see the penguin, it's not Centerserve. |
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Click here to download tutorial as PDF
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Module 2: Strategy
This tutorial
continues our evaluation of the Contact Center Model and
provides a scorecard for examining the first component, Strategy.
Context
The Contact Center Model,
shown in Figure 1, illustrates the importance of strategy in the overall
health and success of a call center. To learn more about the
Contact Center Model, see
Module 1 of
this tutorial series.
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Figure 1 - Prosci's Contact Center Model
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Strategy
Is your call center making the best
possible contribution to the success of your
organization? Evaluating call center strategy is
not just for new centers.
All call centers must
continually reassess their business strategy to stay competitive in
the marketplace.
Evaluate yourself on the following questions. All questions
are on a 1 - 5 scale, with 5 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest score. For
each statement, circle the appropriate score for your call center.
1. Our
call center's strategy
is defined and is aligned with our overall business
strategy.
1 2 3 4
5
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2. Our
call center vision
and mission
are defined and well communicated to all call
center employees.
1 2 3 4
5
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3. The
needs and
expectations
of our customers are understood and updated over
time based on data from customers.
1 2 3 4
5
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4. The
performance goals
and objectives
of our call center are defined and clearly
communicated.
1 2 3 4
5
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5. Our overall contact
center strategy
is revisited and updated on a regular basis (at
least yearly).
1 2 3 4
5
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Total points you received out of 25 possible = _____
Total your score for this short assessment. This score will
give you an overall indicator of the "health" of your call center
strategy:
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Score |
Rating |
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21-25 |
Excellent |
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16-20 |
Good |
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11-15 |
Fair |
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6-10 |
Poor |
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5 |
Failing |
Updating your call center strategy
Based on your score from the assessment above, you may find it
necessary to reexamine and update your call center strategy.
This section will focus on how to update
your center's strategy to align with where your
organization, industry and competition are headed in the future.
Reevaluate key elements of current strategy
The key elements fundamental to updating strategy in your call center include the following:
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Strategy
Element |
Description |
Mission
statement
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A mission statement
succinctly identifies
the end result of your efforts, and it functions as a
"sanity check" to ensure that all work and planning support the
vision. It provides employees at all levels with a quick
reminder of what your organization is all about. |
Know your customer
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You cannot meet the needs of your customers if you do not know who
they are. This may sound obvious, but a surprising number of
contact centers do not have a good handle on their customers.
You must understand exactly who your actual
and target audiences are, their relationship with your
organization, their likes, dislikes and expectations in order to
deliver the highest level of customer service and retain them as
customers. This information can become outdated in a short period of
time, so you should frequently update the data. |
Learn about the competition
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Always keep an eye on your competition.
Your customers have relationships with a variety of businesses and will likely compare their experiences with your contact center
to every other customer service experience they have ever had.
Just like your customers, this group is always
changing and needs to be continually monitored. |
Customer
contact strategy
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A customer contact strategy
defines the
desired customer experience and how the contact center
fits with the organization's overall process of serving
customers. It is a high-level description of the
call center that can be read by anyone in the
organization to learn about who you are, what you will
be doing and how you relate to
the operation as a whole. |
Measures
and goals
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Define what success means to your organization. If you fail to do
so, you won't know it when you get there. Establishing goals
and assessing performance is an ongoing process that
defines how well your center is doing over
time. |
Sourcing
options
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How you provide the
people and technology
to run your call center can be referred to as "sourcing"
options. There may be very good reasons to choose another organization to provide or manage some elements of your call
center. |
Budget
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Budgetary planning is crucial to help
scope
your call center project and make decisions and
tradeoffs. How you choose to build your budget or utilize your
current budget will influence your options for staffing, facilities
and technology. |
Summary
This tutorial focused on the important components of call center
business strategy and how to reevaluate and update your center's
strategy to align with where your organization is headed in the future.
The
Call
Center Planning and Design Toolkit contains a
Master Planning Guide to lead you
through the process of reassessing your strategy. It will help
you identify the areas for improvement, and it gives you detailed
steps on how to evaluate each identified area. The toolkit
provides step-by-step instructions, templates and checklists for
developing your own specific Contact Center Model - including your
strategy, processes, technology, human resources and facilities. Key
aspects of the
Call
Center Planning and Design Toolkit include:
- a comprehensive planning checklist and design guidelines for
successfully setting up a new call center or redesigning your existing call center
- the approach and tools to help you create a contact center strategy
and manage the implementation effectively
Find out more about the Planning and Design Toolkit by visiting the webpage, emailing callcenters@prosci.com or by calling 970-203-9332
to speak with an analyst.
Coming up...
The next tutorial in this series will provide a
scorecard for evaluating processes in your call center.
Recommended
resources:
This tutorial
provided information from Prosci's
Call Center Planning and Design
Toolkit. This toolkit can be used for starting or
reengineering call center operations for improved performance.
More information on this and other call center products can be found
in our Bookstore.
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Call Center Planning and
Design Toolkit |
A comprehensive guide to call center
strategy, planning and design;
an excellent resource for new contact center
start-ups, existing call center
improvement and future planning with detailed
templates and planning roadmaps. |
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Best Practices Reports |
Over 240 call centers from around the world share
how they have improved service quality, productivity and
customer satisfaction. This report shares
lessons learned by
call center managers regarding their
most effective management
practices. |
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Call Center Business
Performance Packages |
Find a call center package to meet your needs and
save 20-25% off the
list price. |
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