Contact center challenges continue to surface focusing on cost containment, achieving customer loyalty and turnover reduction. Although these obstacles are being addressed by moving to on-demand solutions, advancements in training, and employee satisfaction programs, call centers ultimately seek to maximize the outcome of each customer contact.
Through years of research, the industry has resolved that the time frame to capture customer loyalty is multiples greater than the time frame it takes to lose a customer. In a report published by the Portland Research Group in June of 2005, it was noted that customer loyalty drops by 76% when a contactor is less satisfied with a response he or she receives when contacting a call center. Additional studies, as noted by destinationCRM.com in April of 2004, state that a customer’s future purchase intent drops between 55–76% if it requires a second contact to resolve an issue. High visibility and millions of dollars are spent each year to increase the quality of customer care and to understand the psyche of each customer type in an attempt to cater to their needs by determining mechanisms for increasing customer loyalty.
This article is written to address a topic that seems to hit my desk daily and will address one method for building customer loyalty. The following diagram is my view of the customer loyalty continuum based on industry research. This continuum shows us that there are sales opportunity points in the loyalty cycle that when acted upon correctly, can reinforce customer-company relationship, resulting in a longer overall loyalty term.
The objective of the continuum is to understand the importance of customer experience management on each customer contact. Assuming a customer service model, additional customer transactions usually mean that the customer has an issue or a lack of understanding of the product or service. Customers tend to get less tolerant with contact centers, unless they have positive experiences. Additional customer transactions are the result of a reinforcement of satisfaction, regardless of the initial call purpose. One time transaction customers cannot be considered “captured customers” if no additional transactions occur.
Customer contact points can be far and few between, giving your agents a powerful place of position; being able to make or break your business in a single phone call. Maximizing these opportunities is a must and requires a deeper look at the call flow process and identifying ways to create the best possible customer experience. Continued points of loyalty will only reinforce the long term staying power of each customer. Convenience and pricing are always important buying criteria, but consistent quality of service and predictable outcomes from an experience will increase customer retention numbers over time. This challenge has high visibility in the market today.
More contact centers are integrating sell opportunities into their customer service calls (two very different paradigms), which pushes more responsibility to the single point of contact. The single point of contact can be the one-stop measure for gaining or losing customer loyalty. The obstacles in making this shift are large and include some of the following, which I consistently hear from our contact center customers and prospects:
- Product or service knowledge does not exist across agent job functions.
- Customer service and order entry are completely different systems requiring costly training and technology interfaces.
- Custom call flows to create these opportunities do not exist.
- Customer dependencies and types cannot be tracked in a call to determine when to make a sales pitch and what the best offer is for that customer at that moment.
- Turnover and agent training costs are too high to support the knowledge base for agents to understand multiple disciplines.
- Measurements to determine success rates are very difficult to capture.
- The enterprise has too many systems and inputs. It is much easier to transfer the call to another agent to handle an order or create a sale.
The challenge is implementing the one point of contact strategy while eliminating the negative transaction risks. The noted concerns can be addressed through a number of solutions with their still being a main focus on reinforcement of customer loyalty. My process for turning the contact center into a revenue generator, while increasing customer retention is as follows:
- Align the strategy of the business around the customer, which puts the contact center front and center. Customer experiences are recognized as the leading driver of customer retention leading to repeat purchases. Corporate strategy and vision, when considering the customer, has to flow through the contact center. Increasing customer loyalty and repeat transaction opportunities must include the contact center in order for the shift to become plausible.
- Outline the contact center measures to be used for customer loyalty and revenue generation. Customer retention rates, up sell or cross sell ratios, repeat customer rates and contact center profitability are just a few.
- Determine ROC (return on customer) when looking at the contact center as a profit center versus a cost center. The philosophy of viewing the center as a money maker shifts the mindset for its existence. Measures around the ROI may become fuzzy, but the end result will force customer retention and new revenue as its main focus.
- Build the process around each customer contact flow. Process analysis is vital in designing efficient customer interactions. Quick issue resolution and smooth customer sell transitions need to be well planned. Single agent contact is imperative, which cuts costs of the center and decreases average call time.
- Acquire the tools to make this an efficient and effective business driver. Many products exist to aid in the ability to turn a positive ROI. The critical path in this strategy is the ability to ensure that the customer’s need is met with the ability to deliver the right information to the agent at the right moment during the interaction.
- Determine the required agent skills. If the plan plays out correctly, the agent skill base required will be far less than what was previously in place. The objective is to keep costs low with a high return, which means that the tools and processes in place will give the agent every means of driving customer loyalty and retention.
To make this strategy work for any organization, the investment will need to be in the people, process, and tools. People without knowledge can create vulnerability, leaving the company at risk to lose customers. Contact centers need to develop consistency in the customer interaction with built-in flows that deliver excellence with each and every customer interaction. The result will be increased customer loyalty and repurchase decisions. This strategy, once in place, will be highly dependent on the agent desktop and will work across inbound, outbound or blended contact centers.
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Kevin's experience spans 15 years of leadership positions in technology and business strategy companies. Kevin spent the early part of his career building organizations and business units for international technology and strategy consulting firms such as Coopers & Lybrand and Renaissance Worldwide. More recently, he launched and led two companies funded by investor groups. His expertise is in managing large operational, sales and technology teams toward profitable and scalable growth. In his current role, he is the COO for RiverStar Software, which provides contact flow management products to companies across the globe. Kevin's educational background includes a bachelor's degree from Illinois State University.
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