Best-in-class call centers: Scorecards for success
 

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		If you don't see the penguin, it's not Centerserve.
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Module 4: Technology

This tutorial continues our evaluation of the Contact Center Model and provides a scorecard for examining the third component, Technology. 
 

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.
 

Figure 1  - Prosci's Contact Center Model

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Technology
 

Technology will play a key role in the success of your call center.  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.

 

Total points you received out of 20 possible = _____

Total your score for this short assessment.  This score will give you an overall indicator of the "health" of your call center strategy:

Assessing your call center technology

Not all technologies are right for every call center; there are no "right" or "wrong" choices that fit all call centers.  Still, with call center technology evolving so rapidly, it can be difficult to determine when to update or upgrade and when to stay with your current system.  However, failing to implement the right technologies may be costing your call center money and impacting your ability to deliver great customer service.

The "right" technologies for your call center should be based on the following three criteria:

1. Business objectives
   The technology choices made in your call center must align with achieving the "big picture" goals set by the company.  For instance, if your call center or company goals include increased customer satisfaction, you should look at what technologies can help you improve that important metric.  This factor also includes the budget.
    
2. Competitive position and overall market performance in your industry area
   A good working knowledge of the types and levels of technology that your competitors use will give you insight into what your customers expect of you (see Module 2 for more information on monitoring your competition).  It is a good idea to set your goals at the same or higher level of technology than your main competitors.  To be considered "best-in-class," call centers must be leaders in technology, with multi-media options for customers and new technologies to improve the call center's overall performance and efficiency.
    
3. Customer needs and expectations
   Customers expect to choose how they interact with you. Your service must be by their standards and by the media of their choice.  Make sure that you have a clear understanding of your customers' preferences and that your technology can support those needs and expectations.
    

If you need to do detailed planning, we recommend the Call Center Planning and Design Toolkit.  

Key elements of call center technology

The number of different call center technologies in use and available for use are many.  In order to deliver a high-level description of these technologies, the table below presents four distinct technology elements:
 

Summary

This tutorial focused on important components of call center technology and how to determine if your current technology is appropriate for your organization.

The Call Center Planning and Design Toolkit contains a Master Planning Guide to lead you through the process of reassessing your call center performance and 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 human resources 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.