Organisations are increasingly understanding the significance of the contact centre in creating customer value and achieving commercial returns.
This is highlighted in the Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006, by the finding that now 70% of contact centres report to director level, including 25% now reporting directly to the CEO.
The eighth Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report reveals that organisations are placing higher importance on contact centres, as they interact with an organisation`s most important resource - its customers. As such contact centres and their strategies are slowly maturing with 51% of participants in the study aligning their contact centre development strategy with the corporate strategy.
Along with closer alignment to organisational objectives, contact centres need to be able to articulate and quantify the costs and value of delivering their services. Contact centres that are properly managed from a commercial and financial perspective, will be able to show direct value to the organisation.
However, the report indicates slow progress from cost to profit centre financial status and no improvement in the ability to measure key financial indicators since the 2005 report. Less than half of contact centres can measure the key financial indicators needed to understand the cost and value of services, although two-thirds can measure cost per customer contact per channel, which does show some commercial orientation.
Although the report indicates large gaps that need to be addressed with regards the commercial focus of contact centres, there are a number areas where strategies to improve customer experience have been addressed.
In placing the customer first, contact centres are moving away from multiple telephone numbers to address the consumer requirement for a one-stop shop for all their needs. More contact centres are moving towards a single number strategy with an increase from 22% in the 2005 report to 36% in this year`s findings.
Contact centres are also slowly personalising service to their customers, although this is dependent on campaigns being run by the contact centre rather than customisation per segment being the norm. Overall, 28% of contact centres are personalising the service that they deliver the majority of time, 14% for specific campaigns and 17% for high value customers.
Cara Diemont, customer interactive solutions, Dimension Data commented: "The way businesses perceive their contact centre can to a large extent be judged by the way their contact centres relate to customers. Similarly, if organisations adopt segmentation and provide customers with a tailored and relevant service, they are truly adding value and will continue to play a valuable strategic role in the business and continue to have boardroom representation."
Customer satisfaction is a fundamental output measure for contact centres. For many board-level executives, measuring customer satisfaction is key to determining whether their contact centre operations are delivering effectively. Disconcertingly, 12% of the sample does not know their overall customer satisfaction score for their contact centre.
Diemont continued: "Although contact centres are saying customer satisfaction is a top strategy, it is customer dissatisfaction or complaints that continue to be the primary customer measure used.
"The low levels of use of more strategic measures, such as customer retention, sales opportunities and customer lifetime value, is indicative of the challenge many contact centres have in demonstrating value."
Cara Diemont is editor of the Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006 and author of Chapter Five: Performance Measures and Metrics.
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Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a specialist IT services and solution provider, helps clients plan, build and support their IT infrastructures. Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, security, operating environments, storage and contact centre technologies and its unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services to create customised client solutions.
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 communication centres in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and South Africa, Merchants manages the outsourced customer contact operations of some of the world`s best known and most respected brands. Merchants is a Dimension Data group company.
Synovate
Everyday, across five continents and 24 time-zones, 4 000 smart people driven by endless curiosity, go to work at Synovate, the world`s most dynamic global market intelligence company.
Synovate provides clients with industry specific and branded solutions utilising best-in-class research tools and proprietary practices. Synovate harnesses the latest technology and thinking in both its methodologies and knowledge delivery to ensure solid scientific, independent and objective research. Synovate in South Africa was formerly known as Proactive Insight.
Visit www.synovate.com for further information.
The Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
First published in the UK in 1997 by Merchants, Dimension Data`s specialist contact centre outsourcing and operations division, this year`s edition is the eighth in a series of the industry-renowned benchmarking reports. The report has balanced global and industry representation from 363 contact centres located across 38 countries and five continents, and is an invaluable reference for all contact centre professionals. It provides managers with a set of best practice standards and benchmarks, including staffing and training, performance metrics, technology usage, budgets and development plans. The report is published by Dimension Data and researched in conjunction with Synovate, a global research company. For more information about the report, please go to www.ccbenchmarking.com.
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