The Contact Center- Hub Of The Organization

By: Sean Hawkins

I was recently speaking with a colleague about the critical role the contact center plays within the organization. I explained that the contact center must be the hub of any organization if there is to be a genuine effort to provide outstanding service and products to consumers. This by no means suggests the contact center is the policy maker and authority on business decision. However, I do propose the call center have a seat at the table and a voice in the discussions. To forbid such involvement leaves out the most important stakeholder of any business, the customer.

Customer Service has one unique advantage over most other departments; the customer service department is the recipient of the customer’s feedback. When marketing and sales communicate to your customer base or engage potential customers, the chances are great that customer service agents will hear from them. New products and features introduced will certainly garner opinions from customers. Most often, this lands in support’s phone, email or chat queue. With more companies moving to social media support, the impact to support is now greater as the voice of customer is in the public. Let’s not forget about customer surveys! What better way is there to know the voice of customer.

As such, the contact center serves as the face of the company to the client base. It is they who relay the company message, receive feedback and build relationships. With so much information regarding the customer, it would be wise to glean this information and distribute it to the various departments. To consistently ignore the contact center and view it as a cost center rather than an asset is not wise. Marketing and Sales should be in communication with the call center seeking input concerning the customer’s attitude, behavior, spending habits and tendencies. This collaboration ensures the right customers are not only obtained but retained for years to come.

The way I see it, the contact center should be at the hub of communication. Why? Because the support center can gauge how customer-facing decisions will impact the customers based on past conversations and feedback. In the era of big data, it seems this is often overlooked. As the diagram illustrates, each department should be sharing information with the Contact Center and vice versa. I would suggest scheduling weekly meetings but, at the least, informal discussion will suffice. Also, customer feedback concerning other departments should be routed to the appropriate point of contact. I routinely forward customer satisfaction survey results to colleagues in other departments.

Also, our CRM I set up to collect customer feedback regardless of the channel received. Anyone with permissions can easily access the information. Valuable information can be gathered by reviewing this information. For example, technology can better prioritize software bugs or the development team will have a better sense of the new features/products customer are requesting.

In addition, the support staff can better assist customers based on the information they are receiving. Our marketing team provides the support leadership their promotional and newsletters in advance. Thus, we’re able to ask questions and get clarity to better assist the customer. Yes, it all comes back to the customer!

Those in the contact center are well equipped to communicate the voice of customer throughout our respective company. For the sake of the customer and the company, it’s worth the effort to ensure we are communicating internally and externally. To be done correctly, the contact center must be bridge the customer and all internal departments.

Sean is a Customer Experience, Contact Center and Help desk manager with over 12 years of experience. He has a terrific pulse on incorporating innovation into the contact center. He's implemented social, outsourcing partners, new technology, and new products, while maintaining an award-winning contact center.

In 2011, his team was awarded the ICMI "Global Call Center of the Year" for Small to Medium-Sized Centers. Follow on Twitter @SeanBHawkins

Pragmatic Leadership

by: Chris Truitt

It is safe to say that there is a good chance you’ll find unanimous agreement in the business community that leadership is a key component of a thriving organization. Peter Northouse defines leadership as ‘a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal’ (2007 p3). Such an essential business component as leadership requires cooperation from subordinates. It is vital to an organization’s success that subordinate teams understand the company’s vision and objectives. Good managers understand and respect the co-depended relationship between management and subordinates. A staff that buys into the corporate vision, works diligently and is committed to the team is a prerequisite of achieving organizational objectives.

Never Underestimate Your Staff

The knowledge and skill set of employees may vary, but the information that employees have regarding the day to day functions of an organization should not be underestimated. Employee responsibilities can be abundant in number, but generally they are called to follow through on the mandate set by leadership. Your staff knows what ideas work and which are ineffective, and they probably have very strong opinions about the things that don’t work. They usually know how your customers feel about various processes and changes. A staff can be the best source of information that a leader has. This is the reason that bottom up change is so practical and effective. A wise leader accepts that their knowledge is limited and can humble themselves to truly accept and consider feedback from subordinates.

Know your Team. Reward Good Performance

While we all can hope and wish that everyone will find it in them to show initiative, in reality, some people are more inclined to skate by and will only do enough work to stay on your payroll.  It’s easy to weed these people out. You must first identify your all-stars, the employees that gladly take on more responsibilities and tasks without question and truly care about the quality of their work. Once you’ve identified the crème de la crème of your group, reward them. We all have budget limitations, but a $25 dollar gift card to your local steakhouse shouldn’t be a great financial burden. This is also a core group from which you can promote.

 
Lastly, raise the bar. You can weed out under-performers by raising the support line of productivity above the performance parameters of your statistically (consistently) lowest performer. In other words, increase the lowest threshold for acceptable performance to make your weak links work harder. This may seem harsh, but it will motivate the staff one way or the other. This action will motivate them to improve or motivate them to find new job. Before you shake things up, remember that a good leader must first coach their staff and make a few attempts to help them improve. If this doesn’t work, alter trajectory. If properly implemented, a slight bump in statistical requirements should not affect the rest of your team (your all-stars). They never even think about the bottom because they are usually leading the pack.

Chris Truitt is a seasoned Email Deliverability Manager. He has spent the last six and one half years honing his craft with iContact and stepped into a leadership role shortly after iContact’s acquisition by Vocus. As Manager of Deliverability, Chris has tripled the size of his team, written policies and processes to improve inbox delivery to enhance the customer experience.

As a pragmatist, Chris has a result oriented approach to business. If a process does not render desired results, he will not hesitate to alter course or tweak his procedure. He is a proponent of interdepartmental cooperation and sharing resources. His community philosophy is appreciated by his colleagues, as he looks to assess how the change he implements affects others. In cooperation with several department leaders, Chris helped increase inbox delivery for iContact and Vocus senders. Chris knows that strong decisive leadership is the cornerstone of a thriving organization.