At the end of October 2011, Customer Relationship Metrics published its quarterly Real-time Customer Experience Benchmarking Report to business partners. One of the more interesting findings that emerged from analysis of the benchmarking data was a relatively unexplained spike in problem-related calls to contact centers that provide support to the automotive, appliance, and electronics industries after the point of sale. The percentage of calls in which the customer is calling because of a (perceived) problem is a Key Indicator about the customer experience and operational costs for our business partners, especially in benchmarking, because it speaks to the relative level of challenge inherent in the calls handled by the call center, and therefore the call center’s opportunity to perform, delight, resolve, and retain customers during that time period. An increase of the magnitude seen in the figure below represents a significant “hardening” in doing business for our partners.
Analysis of unstructured customer comments in the Survey Calibration process revealed two primary drivers to this trend:
- Economic hardship is causing customers to seek to repair instead of replace products.
- There is a growing perception on the part of customers that things are no longer “made to last.” Continue reading “Customers are demanding greater product quality in tough times.” »
In late May, the QATC (Quality Assurance, Training and Connection organization) published the results of their quarterly survey on critical quality assurance and training topics in call centers, focusing on quality monitoring call calibration practices. Having worked for a third-party call monitoring company for 8 ½ years, I found the survey results to be quite interesting (sometimes scary), but for very different reasons than highlighted in the QATC report.
1) Quality Monitoring Calibration requirements – According to the survey, 24% of respondents indicated that calibration participants were not required to review calls prior to the call calibration meeting. In these cases, it is a feel-good, group-think exercise and not a true call calibration session. Yikes! Assuming the Quality Assurance team in the call center does not grade every call by committee, such an exercise is ineffective at gauging the degree of disparity that exists within the current call monitoring process. And since disparity is not being measured, the effectiveness of call calibrations cannot be quantified. Result: Waste of time.
Continue reading “Why the Quality Assurance and Training Study Results Scare Me” »
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