In the current economic climate, many businesses today are concentrating on achieving high levels of operational efficiency, making their activities more profitable by cutting operating costs. This works very well, as long as the business retains its customers.
Contact centers constantly grapple with the problem of how to cut costs without ruining the customer experience. The classic example is the contact center managers’ desire to reduce Average Handling Time (AHT), the length of time is takes an agent to deal with a customer, while retaining First Call Resolution (FCR) – the percentage of calls where the customer’s request is fulfilled on the first call, and customer satisfaction scores.
If an agent adheres to the process too strictly, the customer will say s/he is “robotic”. If an agent doesn’t give the customer time to explain the problem, or s/he doesn’t work his/her way through the problem solving questions, then the customer may need to call again, because his problem wasn’t solved. The customer may also think that the agent didn’t listen and was rude.
This dilemma is not going to go away. More organizations will progress to voice activated IVRs. Customers will be routed through automated processes to meet simple requirements. They will only speak to a human for the complex tasks. Customers are not going to like talking to machines. I’ve never met anyone who enjoyed dealing with an IVR saying “Press 1 for….., press 2 for… etc.”
As long as all the competitors in a specific industry follow this trend, the customer will have no choice.
All it takes is one player to move in the other direction, give superior human service and operational efficiency will be turned on its head.
Think carefully about your projects to improve operational efficiency, and make sure you don’t get so efficient that you lose your customers in the process!
