Johannesburg, 01 Nov 2002
A combination of technology and new approaches has changed face of the call centre market, says Paul Fick, MD of Spescom DataFusion.
Spescom boasts years of experience in this arena, with a unique insight into how customer service affects the success of any business, but specifically call centre management.
"The one constant remains," says Fick. "Customers expect good service. When customers' perception is that service is poor, they frequently do not raise the issue - they simply go elsewhere.
"This is the age of the customer. Organisations that do not make the customer 'king' in all respects, will not survive in the long-term. The customer is an organisation's single most important asset and, if the organisation does not have the correct processes to provide good service, there is no chance of survival."
The complaint from some businesses is that customers expect too much, but a realistic analysis shows the situation is not that simple.
"Customers are, indeed, more demanding," says Fick. "This is because customers are becoming more sophisticated and knowledgeable. They also have more choice today. Globalisation is making competitive businesses more accessible and available to people. They can move to another company almost instantly, using the improved communications infrastructure.
"This is not to say that the public is unreasonable. People are usually more reasonable creatures than we give them credit for. Seemingly unreasonable demands are often a result of terrible service, bad attitudes, and inability to access, control and understand what is going on in the business. Once this situation has happened, the only way to solve it is to have a limitless customer service policy."
Are local companies ready for the challenge?
"Unfortunately, the South African culture in customer service is frequently bureaucratic," says Fick. "It can be too focused on organisational efficiency, economies of scale and other traditional strategic issues, while the 'customer-centric world' requires a new mindset. Effective customer care starts with the management and the staff of an organisation and a whole-hearted belief in maintaining high service levels.
"With new technology, customers expect freedom of choice in terms of interaction channels (voice, e-mail, fax, face-to-face, etc) and do not appreciate it if a business does not support their channel of choice. Customer loyalty is then short-lived, after such disappointment.
"Most customer-facing organisations think that they know their customers' needs. Unfortunately, very few organisations really measure customer satisfaction properly. Customer satisfaction is measured by people who are quite often not directly involved in the rendering of the service that is being measured, and proper feedback on what the customer is saying about the service does not always reach the appropriate people."
Proper focus on customer service and management of the relationship is the real answer, Fick maintains. This doesn't have to be a costly investment.
"A feedback system, as supplied by a complete CRM solution, is vitally necessary," Fick says. "Also, if the feedback system does not include top management somewhere in the loop, how can management shape strategy around the customers' requirements? Even when organisations have clear goals and strategy, a CRM policy is needed to measure results.
"Focusing on the customer and the service levels being delivered to them, is essential for not only organisation interfacing with the general public but indeed all business concerns. This does not necessarily imply deployment of expensive technology. Indeed a fundamental change in people's attitudes, assessment of the business processes and usage of cost-effective technology can be a winning formula for any company wishing to place itself at the forefront of customer service," concludes Fick.
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