A new report from Dimension Data, which surveyed over 200 contact centres across the world, reveals that two in three companies (63%) are failing to provide their contact centre agents with any selling skills. The Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report highlights a concerning training gap in selling skills at a time when many businesses are attempting to transform their call centres from "cost centres" into "profit centres".
The survey also revealed that a staggering 77% of businesses do not measure the cost of training against the overall benefit to their contact centre. Given this lack of measurement, it is not surprising that contact centres in some regions have succumbed to financial pressures and reduced the amount of agent coaching time. Europe dedicates half the amount of coaching (4.5 hours) per agent per month than the US (9.2 hours), which may contribute to the US`s lower attrition rate.
Contact centres hit by cost containment measures are turning to new training methods such as e-learning to supplement their training programmes. The survey shows that the number of contact centres (43%) using e-learning has doubled since 2001, while both classroom learning and external training courses have been scaled back.
Written communication skills are becoming more important, with more than half (55%) of contact centres citing them as an essential agent skill compared to only one in five (21%) in 1999. Over a quarter (27%) of businesses state they experience problems in recruiting agents with adequate written skills. The largest gap in skills is unsurprisingly "industry-specific" knowledge as the contact centre industry`s image and low remuneration fails to attract agents with commercial experience.
Martin Dove, General Manager of Merchants, South Africa commented: "Training is one area that has been hit harder than most by companies` wider budget restraints. Businesses must begin the journey of measuring training against benefits realised. Unless this process is commenced and a link can be demonstrated between agent development and performance improvements, the pressure to cut costs in this area will continue unabated. The long-term damage and knock-on effect of training cuts will be the attrition of employees and a loss of intellectual property and reputation in the marketplace."
First published in the UK in 1996 by Merchants, European contact centre specialists and a subsidiary of Dimension Data, this year`s edition is the sixth in a series of the industry-renowned benchmarking reports. The report has balanced global and industry representation from over 200 contact centres in 19 countries and five continents, and is an invaluable reference for all contact centre professionals. It provides managers with a set of benchmarks with which to measure their operations against, including contact centre staff salary levels, performance statistics, technology developments, CRM trends and training needs.
Share
Dimension Data Holdings plc (LSE: DDT) is a leading global technology company. The group provides solutions and services that optimise and manage the performance of IT infrastructures to enable business to build competitive advantage. To achieve this, the group delivers solutions using its proprietary `Application Network` architectural framework and its expertise in networking, application integration and managed services.
Dimension Data, founded in 1983, had revenues of $2.1 billion in 2003 and operates in 30+ countries with over 7 500 employees.
Merchants
Merchants Limited is one of Europe`s leading customer contact solutions companies, providing a full range of innovative managed services to enable the successful generation of customer value in real-time, every time. From communications centres in the UK, Ireland and SA, Merchants manages the outsourced customer contact operations of some of the world`s best-known and most respected brands. Merchants is wholly-owned subsidiary of Dimension Data Holdings.
Editorial contacts