Call Center Audience Measurements

[Seymour]

We talk so much about "audience and call center measurements" that we often miss an enormous fact that is 'under the noses' of most large call center managers.

That fact is this: More often than not , the caller on the line--- customer/paitent/member/client--- whatever you call the person who telephones the call center, is likely to spend MORE TIME waiting on-hold for CSR than he will acutally talking with one.

This waiting time is really about a measurable, targeted and attentive 'audience.' It's an opportunity for the call center to be a 'hero' to the marketing and public realtions people.

A well designed, well produced program on the gateway and menu announcements of the IVR or ACD that processes and assignes incoming calls, and the the hold queue announcements that callers hear while waiting for that 'live CSR' present a huge opportunity to present things like brand voice, corporate image and tell the story your firm.

How big is this audience? In advertising jargon, which unfortunately is foreign to too many call center managers and IS profesessionals, it can be enormous.

My company analyzed these factors for a large national bank, which at the time, operated a dozen large call centers around the country. In just two of these centers, those that handled consumer issues in English, the audience on-hold accumulated to more than 27-million gross impressions per-year!

In these two centers alone, use of a 'brand stamp' audio production logo on the IVR's gateway announcements added another 15-million plus exposures.

Together, these two call centers alone, provided an extra forty-two million exposures per-year.

Talk about audience!

Of course, this audio needs to be written, voiced and produced by professionals rather than having 'somebody who works with the phone system' pick up a handset and start recording into a voicemail box.

Professionals cost money. Then again, most marketing people would think a large, targeted, attentive audience is worth the investment. This is a good reason for call center managers, Information Systems managers and marketing managers to meet regurlarly. These folks really need to know each other. Too often, we find, they're not on the same page.