quality Certification??

[CFSUSA]

hi all,
Our call centre(with 400+ agents) is a spin off of Hutchitson Whampoa( One of Asia's largest conglomerates). While we were still a part of Hutchitson, we had a our ISO certification done. We now would like to do it for our new operations.
We are not sure which one is the right one--COPC or ISO? Also can someone throw some light on how much it costs and how long it typically takes.
Are there qulaity certifications specific to Call centres?
Thanks in advance

[mikael]

Choosing which of the available call centre certifications would be the best for your situation is reasonably easy. What would most impress your customers?

If you are an outsourcer, COPC is probably going to be a good bet since the purpose of that org and standard set is to assure quality from outsourcers.

If you are trying to impress your customers with a visible statement of your commitment to quality, get the one that *they* think is the best.

As for costs, that varies. The HDI standard is probably the cheapest one, since the standard is an open one that you can download yourself. You can send some of your people to the auditor's training course to learn the procedure so that they can prepare you for the audit. The Audit itself is going to be about $10-15K. As with all of them, the more substantial costs are going to be in the preparation.

Ask yourself what you are really trying to accomplish. Are your customers going to be impressed by a plaque on the wall? If so, go for it. If not, I suggest that you use the open standard as a quality benchmark for improvement inside your organization.

[flynnhan]

We are an outsource provider which has been COPC certified for 3 years and I can totally recommend the COPC standard. It would be equally beneficial in an non-outsource environment. That being said, COPC is not about having a plaque to hang on the wall - it is a major committment of time and money to go for the certification and COPC must become the life blood of your operations. The increased efficiencies and cost savings more than justify the investment (I can't give you ROI figures). Our initial certification process took 12 - 18 months and we are re-audited on an annual basis. The main benefits of the standard are that it forces you to focus on the right things to drive service and quality up and costs down, and requires that structures are in place for process and operations management without imposing what those precise structures must be. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Check out their website www.copc.com for details of the standard.

Aileen

[CCPro]

Our Call Center which has sites in Texas, Florida, Oregon and Washington state is COPC certified and has been for a year. I found the process grueling and laborious. I know we spent in excess of a quarter of a million dollars to become certified. We have not gained one additional cent of revenue since becoming certified and in fact are about to spend another bundle in December on another expensive audit. I can't say what it has done for other companies, but I don't know of one manager in our company with the exception of the one who's salary is paid to manage the COPC Program who would endorse this Ceritification. Perhaps others have had better luck with it, I can only comment on our experience.

[mikael]

<<"We have not gained one additional cent of revenue since becoming certified and in fact are about to spend another bundle in December on another expensive audit.">>

Understanding exactly why you are going for any certifcation is vitally important. Every center needs to improve on something. Every center should have a yearly operational review done by a qualified outside consultant, just as all of us should go every year to get a physical from our doctors. It's important to have another set of eyes look things over, for they have not fallen into the traditions and assumptions that are taken for granted by the employees. The most significant value that the consultant will bring is found in the questions that they ask and the possibilities that they uncover thereby.

You can get that benefit without going for the certification. The plaque on the wall is only of value to the customers who may be impressed by it into doing more business with you. But having somebody come in to take a thorough look at every aspect of your business and report their findings honestly allows you to make some informed decisions about the action you will take in your never-ending drive for improvement.

Some certifications require you to be "audited" (I don't like that word because of its very negative connotiations) every year, which certainly assures the certification provider of a steady income. That seems to me to be a conflict of interest -- is the "auditor" looking for opportunities for your improvement or their ability to sell you consulting services? Which you have to buy if you want to continue to be certified?

Make no mistake, certification is often a political issue. I know of some companies that went for certification simply because the CEO wanted something to brag about. They got what they paid for, the plaque and the bragging rights, and there is no problem in that transaction. Where there are problems is when the company thought they were buying the expertise to assist them in improving, but the consultant/certifcation provider was really selling the plaque. That's an important difference.

[CCPro]

It looks like the powers to be in our company are opting to stop paying any further monies for re-certifications. Through many contacts with current and prospective Clients, this certificate on the wall holds no real ignifiacnt value in their decision in selecting a vendor. Most have never even heard of it.