Managing Customer Complexity
Call centers respond to customer needs in real-time. The need that any given customer may present when contacting the call center vary in proportion to the complexity of the function of a call center. Regardless of the complexity of your call center, you need to have processes in place to respond to complex customer needs. The complex customer call may happen infrequently. Inevitably a customer with a complex or unique need does call. How do you respond? Do you have a process to respond to that customer in a timely way even though they present a unusual need?
The most efficient point to deal with a customer who has a complex need is in the call center. Contacting the call center is a “moment of truth” on your ability to respond to the need of that customer. This reinforces the need to ensure that you have put together a simple yet effective approach to handle complex customer needs. You need a process
- quickly identify a customer with a complex need
- resolve the complex need efficiently
Call centers often struggle to ‘just answer the phones’ and don’t necessarily spend time at differentiating customers who might present a complex requirement. Not all calls are equal. Complex calls can be disruptive to normal operations if there is not a specific process developed to handle them. Increased time with the customer, ineffective resolution which irritates the customer and increased costs can be the end result.A recent experience with a large financial institution portrays the problem. Upon calling the listed number on the web site because a transaction failed, the call center agent responded that they were unable to assist and suggest we try again later. Not to be undaunted, we looked on the web site to find another 800 number. Calling this number resulted in us having the unique problem resolved immediately. What we discovered is that the problem was unusual and rarely occurs.This financial institution needed to better equip the first call center agent with a process of escalating the need for resolution when they realized that the type of call received was outside of the procedures. Hearing a “try again later” message as an answer is less than satisfying when you are trying to manage your entire life savings of $3.26!A solution? Set up procedures to allow call center agents to identify the complex or unusual need being presented by the customer. The identification process has to be quick – within a few minutes of the customer explaining their problem. In our situation, it took about 10 minutes to get to the point of hearing “try again later”. It should have been 120 seconds!
Identification is not enough. Make sure your process to resolve the complex need is fully functional. It takes trained staff to ensure that they can actually solve the customer’s need. Sometimes it is a supervisor or manager that is required but generally this means that the cost incurred to solve the need is higher. One simple solution, create a SWAT team of call center agents specifically tasked with being the ‘problem solvers’. They can perform regular call center duties until the problem call surfaces. One of these hotshot agents, given the right training and job tools, should be capable of solving the problem efficiently and at the right cost. It is also an excellent way to recognize and reward high achieving call center staff.
Posted: January 28th, 2007 under Customers.
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