How do you define quality in your contact center? How is quality impacting accessibility? What are the costs of poor quality to your organization?
The pursuit of improved quality and productivity has driven numerous management philosophies over the years, from Six Sigma and total quality management to more recent approaches like Lean, Agile, and customer journey mapping. Building on this rich foundation, the following three defining principles have emerged for contact centers:
- Quality must be defined around customer expectations.
- High-quality service is cost-effective.
- Quality and service level complement each other.
Perhaps the most important principle is that quality must be based on customer needs and expectations. Consider the old adage about building the best horse buggy in town: If the arrival of the automobile means that nobody wants a horse buggy, that can't be considered quality.
Similarly, your contact center's internal measures of quality might suggest everything is fine. But if you're not engaging with customers where and how they prefer, whether through traditional channels or emerging digital options, your organization's reputation and future are at risk.
Another defining principle is that high-quality service means proportionally lower costs. Poor quality is expensive. Consider a simple example of ensuring interactions are easy for customers. That means not making them repeat information, avoiding unnecessary transfers, and eliminating redundant account history reviews. Improvements in meeting these expectations translate directly into more cost-effective services. After all, transferring contacts, repeating information, and similar inefficiencies cost your organization time and money.
A third key principle is that quality and service level (accessibility) complement each other. Quality means fewer repeat contacts, less waste and rework, and customers who are more confident in your processes. These factors minimize unnecessary work that would otherwise tie up resources.
I've seen time and again that quality improvements are often the most effective path to greater efficiency and higher service levels.
I recall traveling through multiple countries on a rather involved itinerary. Somehow, the travel agency that helped me put things together had my passport expiration date wrong by one digit. The result? Hours of explanations to airlines and immigration officials. And a lot of unnecessary stress. And it took several agents and significant time to fix in multiple systems, all from one simple mistake that could have been caught by checking the input.
So, what constitutes a quality contact? The answer should be specific and incorporate essential components: The agent provides accurate information. Data entry is correct. The customer has confidence that the contact was effective. Needed insight is captured. (See the list below.)
Components of a Quality Interaction
- Customer can access the contact channels desired.
- Contact is necessary in the first place.
- Customer does not wait too long for a response, regardless of the channel.
- Customer is not transferred around.
- Customer doesn't get rushed.
- Agent provides correct response.
- All data entry is correct.
- Customer receives correct information.
- Customer has confidence contact was effective.
- Customer doesn't feel it necessary to check-up, verify or repeat.
- Customer is satisfied.
- Agent has pride in workmanship.
- Unsolicited marketplace feedback is detected and documented.
- Others across the organization can correctly interpret and effectively use the information captured.
- The organization's mission is furthered.
And how about the costs of poor quality? Repeat contacts, escalated contacts, employees working on waste and rework, negative publicity, and, potentially, lost customers are among the costs. (see the list below.)
Costs of Poor Quality
- Unnecessary service contacts.
- Repeat contacts from customers.
- Callbacks to customers for missing or unclear information.
- Escalation of contacts and complaints to higher management.
- Contacts to customer relations.
- Handling product returns.
- Expenses to re-ship.
- Wrong problems get fixed.
- Loss of revenue from cancellations.
- Cancellations causing inaccurate inventory status.
- Cost of closing accounts.
- Negative publicity from angry customers.
- Loss of referrals.
- Diversion of agents to activities that should be unnecessary.
- Agents "taking the heat" for mistakes made by others.
Remember that quality standards must evolve with changing customer expectations and new interaction channels. What defined excellence yesterday might be merely acceptable today and potentially inadequate tomorrow.
The good news is, you can count on these timeless principles to serve as a guide. My encouragement is to ensure they are understood by your team. Address misconceptions that quality is more expensive or that it conflicts with efficiencies or service level targets. Then tackle the important and ongoing work of defining quality specifically for your contact center in today's environment.
Brad Cleveland is a customer service consultant and senior advisor to the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI).