Contact centres are putting customers first by addressing service levels as a priority from an interaction, technology and processes perspective. Seventy-five percent of contact centres are now including customer satisfaction as part of their strategy, according to the Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006.
Contact centres across the globe are realising that loyal customers and customer satisfaction levels have commercial implications. They are moving away from a one-dimensional cost focus perspective to an approach that addresses quality/process improvements that deliver an enhanced customer experience, through agent empowerment.
This is a marked shift from last year`s report findings that indicated budgets and headcount targets as key drivers for contact centres.
The focus on customer satisfaction and quality/process improvement suggests a move away from cost orientation to a situation where customer experience is not only acknowledged as being important, but rather receives direct and ongoing operational focus.
"In the first instance, the objective of the contact centre must be to drive customer satisfaction and to retain profitable customers. Contact centres must look at their service levels and their customer base to determine the most effective and efficient ways to both satisfy and retain customers," commented Paul Scott, customer interactive solutions, Dimension Data.
Progress in enhancing the customer experience is already being seen throughout the contact centre industry. This year, overall, contact centres are resolving 82% of enquiries received within the first call, compared to 71% last year. And this year, the average speed to answer has improved by six seconds from 28 seconds in 2005 to 22 seconds in 2006.
Addressing customer satisfaction levels will also require a commitment from contact centres to service level agreements (SLAs). The 2006 report suggests that this is a key area needing attention to improve customer satisfaction levels. Currently only 41% of the contact centres taking part in the study have defined, documented, fully enforced SLAs, with a further 34% having SLAs in place that are not enforced.
In order to deliver excellent customer services, identifying customers should be fundamental to the operations of a contact centre, while also providing security checks and preventing fraud.
Identifying a customer at the beginning of the call will enable the effective delivery of the appropriate services, yet only 72% of respondents in the survey identify customers on calls.
Customer authentication seems to have a higher priority in emerging contact centre markets; 49% and 51% of contact centres in Africa/Middle East and Asia Pacific respectively authenticate callers on some or all calls compared with only 39% and 37% in Europe/UK and North America.
Scott comments: "The higher priority of customer authentication in emerging contact centre markets may be due to centres in emerging markets having to overcome higher or more hurdles to play in the international market than equivalent centres in developed markets, where security is taken for granted. Delivering service in line with customer segmentation and its associated value propositions cannot take place without identifying customers."
Paul Scott is the author of Chapter Four: Customer Knowledge and Management of the Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006.
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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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