Improving Customer Satisfaction

[Dave123]

I currently work for a company that sells high end products. As a call center, we do not handle the sales end of the product only the customer complaints and inquiries. On occasion, in order to provide exceptional customer service, a representative may have to stay on the phone for 5 minutes or more with the customer and then make several follow-up phone calls before the problem is resolved.

The problem is the representatives are encouraged to handle and close as many customer calls per day which in some cases does not allow them to spend as much time working on an issue as they should.

Is anyone else faced with this issue? Any feedback would be appreciated.

[sealink]

At the call center I am at we troubleshoot for the customers and provide support only. Therefore, each tech is encouraged to solve the customers problem before anything else. Some calls take up to 40 minutes to complete. Yes we try to tell them to promptly solve the issue but not at the expense of quality. Also follow-up calls to the customer are not allowed because they are telemarketer like and generally frowned upon. So for exceptional customer service try to solve the problem and limit the number of customer callbacks you get and that will keep your service level high, not just how many phone calls the call center can answer in a day.

[Michcall]

If your products are high end, then your customers are a different breed who have higher expectations of service. You are measuring your staff on performance criteria (handling as many calls as possible) that are contrary to what your customers expect (individualized service). My bet is that this creates problems at the agent level. You'll have those agents who strive for exceptional service at the cost of productivity and others who cut corners to keep their numbers up. Perhaps start measuring one-call resolution or customer satisfaction as a performance metric. Are your internal processes streamlined enough to support the call center without causing them to make multiple calls or follow numerous steps to resolve a situation? Are the resolutions to your most common calls documented and trained? There is a constant struggle in any call center between quality and quantity. Successful call centers establish where on the spectrum they want to be and develop processes, procedures and reward mechanisms to support that direction.

Good Luck.

[ranjanik]

Great answer Michall!!
Further to that:
I dont have too much info so I am grouping in semi light.But...
Do you do any kind of cust.sat. measure? This could give you an indication of where you stand.
Do you have stringent call closure SLA's? that could be the only excuse for sacrificing quality. Under the circumstances you should re-negotiate with the Client.

what metrics & measures do you have, other than call closure?
do you measure & score agents on softer aspects like empathy, tone, completness of information given etc? if not you should relook at your quality scoring.

For the agents appraisal give equal scores for quailty as for productivity.

If the issue is with the Client expectations then do some regression analysis & go back to him with concrete trends & co-relations that could give him pause.
Ranjani
ranjani@thinkharbor.com