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Note to reader:
This article first appeared at the Call Center Learning Center in 1999 following Prosci's benchmarking study on call center best practices. Since its release, this article has been our most popular with more than 3000 paper reprints and thousands of online readers. Based on this response we have re-published the article with updates and revisions based on results from the 2001 call center benchmarking study with more than 270 organizations.
World-class call centers - the next generation
by Jeff Hiatt, author of "Winning with Quality" by Addison-Wesley and the new book " The Employee's Survival Guide to Change."
Background
In 1999 we presented the core principles around world-class call centers from our research with 102 call centers. This update of the orginal article incorporates the results from the 2001 call center study. Overall the core principles have proven to be lasting concepts for creating a contact center that delivers excellent customer service at the lowest possible cost (with only one addition to the list with this update). On the other hand, the top-10 process and technology areas reflect shifting priorities from 1999 and show the increased focus on multi-media contact handling as a core competency for the call center.
The one addition to the core list of principles is based on market growth and revenue generation opportunities. This principle addresses the changing role of the call center from a pure "cost center" for the organization to an integral part of the company's growth strategy in the marketplace. Call centers are migrating to "profit centers" for revenue generation or transitioning to a more visible role in creating customer goodwill and building a wealth of customer data for use by product development, marketing and sales.
Here is the updated list of principles for the next generation of world-class call centers.
The principles driving world-class call center design
Principle 1 - Give customers choice
Customers expect to choose how they interact with you. Your service must be by their standards and by the media of their choice. Telephone service cannot be the only media for customer service.
Principle 2 - Provide access anytime anywhere
Access to services will be every hour of every day, from where ever the customer chooses.
Principle 3 - Enable customers to help themselves
Customers will have access to information and can choose self-service or agent-assisted service. Many customers will prefer to find information or initiate transactions on their own.
Principle 4 - Personalize every customer interaction
Every transaction should personalize the service so that each customer is treated like the only customer. This level of customization may be based on the type of customer, their past transaction history, or other critical flags that are set by the business.
Principle 5 - Know your customers
Employees and systems will know the customer and build on that knowledge with every customer contact.
Principle 6 - Enable employees to deliver great service
Employees are the cornerstone to great service and must be enabled with the right tools, processes and information so that they are empowered to help the customer every time.
Principle 7 - Demand to be the best and measure your performance toward this goal
The only standard is excellence, and the only way to achieve excellence is to measure your success with every transaction and improve over time with both continuous process improvement and discontinuous (dramatic) process improvement through business process reengineering.
Principle 8 - Treat every customer contact as an opportunity for market growth or revenue generation
Every transaction, whether sales oriented or not, results in a direct impact on the future growth of the organization. More and more the contact center is the "face of the business" to the customer, and the impression and opportunities developed through that contact have a direct impact on market share, market growth and revenue generation opportunities. Upsell, cross-sell and customer segmentation strategies will result in overall growth for the business.
Top-10 outlook for processes and technology
Each of the opportunities listed below have process elements and enabling technologies. They bring to life the concepts for excellent customer service, low cost operation and market growth listed above. Since 1999, the emphasis has shifted and the list below represents that shift in focus and priority.
Opportunity 1 - Integrated multi-media queues
Integrate voice and electronic transactions into a single workflow with integrated queues that allow work blending and load balancing of multiple media types.
Opportunity 2 - Web-enabled contact centers
Create Internet sites for customer service that provide comprehensive information access and the ability to initiate transactions. Tightly link the contact information and processes from the Internet with processes, contact management systems and databases in the call center to ensure timely and synchronized data access.
Opportunity 3 - Email and text chat
Develop email and text chat as a reliable transaction channel in addition to inbound and outbound voice calls. Teach customers how to use this tool effectively and ensure that your email processes are responsive to your customer's expectations.
Opportunity 4 - Customer relationship management
Develop customer relationship management systems that can integrate email, fax, phone, and Internet transaction information into a comprehensive history of customer contact that flag opportunities for new products and services.
Opportunity 5 - Voice Response Systems and Speech Recognition
Tightly integrate ACD and voice response systems to allow seamless transfers back and forth between VRU and agent-assisted service. Simplify voice response interactions to make them fast and easy to use. Use automated speech recognition and voice recognition to reduce transaction times and enable greater functionality of voice response systems including faster transaction speed and security.
Opportunity 6 - Desktop applications
Provide employees with the capability to access internal and external (Internet) data rapidly, to see what the customer sees, and to execute transactions with a fully-integrated desktop such that all employees are fully empowered to deliver excellent customer service every time.
Opportunity 7 - Computer Telephone Integration
Use computer telephone integration (CTI) to provide personalized routing and work-object handling and to produce reports on both electronic and voice transactions.
Opportunity 8 - Quality monitoring
Implement quality monitoring tools and processes to enable a continuous improvement cycle for call center associates and ongoing improvement to hiring and training programs.
Opportunity 9 - Integrated Reporting
Enable full multi-media reporting capabilities to provide integrated reports across all media types.
Opportunity 10 - Virtual Centers and Management Tools
Create virtual centers that allow employees to choose work locations including remote offices and to provide the organization with follow-the-sun capability for international customer service. Develop new resource management tools for effectively managing resources that are geographically dispersed.
Summary
Achieving world-class performance for the next generation of contact centers will require call center managers to fundamentally rethink the value of the call center to the customer and to the business. Managers will need to drive strategic planning and design decisions from a set of guiding principles that are customer focused and that leverage new technology. Incremental improvements will not be adequate to keep pace with growing customer demands for service that is anytime and anywhere. The need to re-design or reengineer the basic business processes around customer service will be an imperative for call center managers who are planning ahead for the next generation.
About the writer: Jeff Hiatt has worked in the field of call centers, change management and strategic planning for more than 14 years, and is the co-author of "Winning with Quality" from Addison-Wesley and author of "The Employee's Survival Guide to Change" and "Reengineering Design." He works as both a research analyst and writer, and consults with customer service call centers with an emphasis on strategic planning and business process reengineering.
Other resources:
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