Can Customer Focus and Cost Reduction Co-Exist in the Contact Center?
By Becky Carroll, President and founder,
Petra Consulting Group

As anyone reading the SSPA News knows, there is tremendous pressure on customer support organizations to reduce costs in the contact center. However, there is also a growing shift in many organizations to become “customer centric”. Can these two ideas co-exist? Yes! This article will explore how they can co-exist along with steps that can be taken by a support organization towards making a harmonious existence possible.

One Begets the Other

Do you remember the movie, “E.T.”? This little alien was clearly more advanced than those of us on Earth, yet he became ill in our atmosphere. Many scientists rushed in, running tests and conducting analyses, but they just couldn’t save E.T. A similar scenario is happening to our customers in the atmosphere of contact center cost reductions. As we see the dwindling health of our support customer base, we come rushing in to run many tests and analyses but find it difficult to keep the patient going. 

Cost reductions such as cutting headcount, outsourcing, pay-for-performance, and call-reduction strategies are a short-term approach to improving contact center operations. Such an internally-focused approach can lead to higher costs and poor operational performance as customers are alienated. It can also lead to employee churn, which incurs additional costs. A customer-focused approach is almost impossible to maintain in that environment. 

Customer focus and cost reduction co-exist and thrive when the final objective is not solely about cost. If the desired end-goal is about customers, a reduction in cost usually follows. Support organizations with a customer focus see cost improvements resulting from more complete customer information, improved decision making, improved contact center effectiveness, as well as from agents empowered to satisfy the customer. These support organizations have one thing in common: they are proactive about their customers. Managing the customer experience, while improving processes and capabilities in the contact center, can bring balance between customer focus and cost reduction.

Questions to Ask Yourself

As you move along the journey to shift the balance of your organization towards customers, you will need to answer some key questions for yourself and for your organization.

• Do we have a customer strategy for the customer support organization?

While most organizations have a contact center strategy, many do not have a customer strategy. A customer strategy addresses who our customers are, how we can differentiate them from one another both in value and needs, and how we will treat them.  This strategy should be built around the interactions and relationship that the customer has with your organization. The right customer strategy in your support organization lays the groundwork for the rest of the journey.

• Are we proactively managing the customer experience?

The customer experience takes place through all touch points with a customer, including agents, web sites, newsletters, and automated systems. We can think about each interaction as an opportunity to either increase or decrease a customer’s value to us. Let’s look at a customer service example: I recently moved to a new house and needed to contact multiple utility companies.  In the first instance, I called the customer service line and waited on hold for nearly 30 minutes in order to tell an agent I would not be able to make the installation appointment that was previously scheduled. At the end of that half-hour period, I was not having a very good experience! The next day, the second instance but with a different utility, I called to cancel the service at our old residence. Wait times again were high, but in this case I was given the choice of receiving a call-back from an agent.  An agent called me 25 minutes later, exactly as they had predicted, and a recording of my own voice validated the call.  My elapsed time to deal with that call was 3 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes the day before. In both cases, the contact center was scheduling agents to take calls as they come in; however, in the second case my experience was optimized to make the interaction as convenient for me as possible. Which one built a stronger customer relationship and increased customer value? 

• Has your organization formally linked rewards with customer-centric behavior?

A hard look at customer-based metrics is necessary in order to retain a balance between customer focus and cost reduction in the contact center. Activity in the contact center should be reviewed based on measures of both efficiency such as call handle time, and measures of effectiveness such as first contact resolution, the number of repeat contacts, and the share of customer data. These measures have the greatest impact when they are linked to performance improvement opportunities including coaching plans and training as well as root cause analysis activities. The wrong measures can cause behaviors which reduce cost but also reduce customer value. For example, if an agent is measured solely on average talk time but not on how well the customer’s concern is resolved, that agent won’t care that the customer has to contact the organization again.   In addition, these customer-based measures need to roll up the management chain so the success of all members of the contact center organization is tied closely to customer success.

Living Together in Harmony

If you have honestly worked through the above questions, you now have the makings of a plan for customer focus which can reduce costs.  The steps for execution include analyzing the contact center and its processes from a customer perspective, creating a strategy to manage and continuously improve the customer experience, putting customer-focused metrics into place alongside existing operational metrics, and aligning the contact center behind the strategy. A key to the rebalancing of customer and cost is getting contact center employees involved in discerning the issues, as well as in creating the solutions.  Organizations that include contact center employees in this process find improved adoption of new ideas, as well as improved employee morale and retention. 

Ultimately, creating customer focus in the contact center is accomplished through strategically designing and managing the customer experience. Results include improved customer satisfaction, strengthened customer relationships, and improved employee efficiency and retention, all leading to lower service and support costs.  This strategy has already been successfully adopted by many leading organizations, resulting in measurable improvements at reduced costs.

What does a “customer focused contact center” really mean? Does it mean, “Customers are important; pay attention to them!”? No. It means we need to be proactive about maximizing the value of each customer interaction, both from the organization’s perspective as well as from customer. It is then that we can best reap the benefits of being customer focused while reducing costs.

About the Author..................................

Becky Carroll is President and founder of Petra Consulting Group, a strategic consultancy helping companies achieve business growth by building on the solid foundation of their customer base. With her more than 20 years of experience in the industry, Becky has helped her clients bring about success in their customer strategy and accompanying initiatives, including companies such as HP, Fujitsu, Electronic Arts, and Ford Motor Company. Prior to founding Petra Consulting Group, Becky was a Senior Consultant with industry-leading Peppers and Rogers Group. Previously, Becky worked at Hewlett Packard for 14 years including roles as Director of Marketing, UK and Ireland and Worldwide Customer Loyalty Marketing Manager for HP Services. Petra Consulting Group recently won the inaugural Silver Senet Video Game Marketing CRM award for its work with Electronic Arts. 

For more information, Becky can be reached at becky@petraconsultinggroup.com or visit petraconsultinggroup.com.