Call Recording to the Max
1 Mar, 2009
By: Dick BucciIn the most recent market report conducted on call recording by the PELORUS Group, 2008 World Contact Center Recording Systems Market, it was estimated that about 60 percent of contact centers currently have automated interaction recording systems. Why 40 percent do not is a bit of a mystery, but they seem to be concentrated in the very small contact centers where maybe it’s thought to be cheaper to run around refilling tape cartridges or silently sitting next to agents waiting for something really interesting to happen.
For the vast majority of contact centers firmly implanted in the 21st century, the reasons to record calls are very different today then went automated recording first came on the scene more than 20 years ago. To understand this, we need to start by recapping the four core missions of the contact center.
To delight customers
To increase revenue
To minimize operating costs
To provide valuable business insights.
Delighting Customers
A common misperception is that it is okay to provide “satisfactory” service. Not so. Eighty percent of customers who ceased doing business with a company were “satisfied” at the time they switched. Consumers expect to be satisfied. Customers do not expect to be delighted. If they are delighted – they will tell others. In this day and age of e-mail and blogs, the word can spread quickly. That’s a very good thing. But it also works in reverse. If the service is perceived as poor or worse, the service provider could easily end up on Emily’s List and before long, a thousand or so current and potential customers can hear about it.
Increasing Revenue
Growing revenue was not a common goal of inbound contact centers even five years ago. Times have changed. In these fiercely competitive times, every business function needs to carry its weight. This does not mean that service-centric contact centers need to become telemarketers, but it does mean that agents need to ask probing questions and be able to detect buying signals that indicate a hot lead for the sales department.
Minimizing Operating Costs
Contact centers contain operating costs through optimal scheduling, efficient call handling, use of part-time or remote agents, deploying modern technology, streamlining business processes, reducing turnover, tightly monitoring attendance and time-off requests, negotiating favorable rates from telecom carriers and taking other actions. Compliance is also a very important part of the equation. Violations can result in fines, costly litigation and perhaps permanent damage to the brand.
Providing Valuable Business Intelligence
Acting as a beacon to the customer may not appear on every contact center manager’s list of top priorities but, depending on your industry, it should. Senior management may not be all that impressed that you increased adherence levels by 15 percent, but they will be wowed if you e-mail consumer recordings that express promising new product ideas, competitor actions, unfair policies, quality problems or delight with the company’s customer service or products.
Contributions of Interaction Recording
Interaction recording supports the missions of the contact center as well as the broader objectives of the enterprise in four ways:
By assuring call quality
By improving sales techniques
By cutting operating costs
By extracting valuable consumer insights.
Call Quality
The primary objective of quality monitoring is to improve the performance of the contact center. It is not intended to provide an accurate indication of individual agent performance. There is a big difference between evaluating an agent on call quality and evaluating an agent on performance. Call quality is only one element of agent performance.
You will never be able to monitor and score enough calls to accurately evaluate the call quality of each agent. The average inbound agent handles 1,000 – 1,200 calls per month. You would have to monitor about 350 of these calls to have a statistically reliable indicator of how agents actually handle calls. For this reason it is important to monitor calls that present coaching opportunities. In other words, look for the outliers.
• Calls that are much longer or shorter than the norm for talk time or handle time
• Calls that involved multiple transfers
• Calls in which the customer was placed on hold two or more times
• Calls originating from specific customers or geographies
• Calls that were “tagged” by the agent
• Calls that involved certain key words or phrases (if you have speech analytics)
• Calls to or from the same telephone number within a short period of time
• Calls that involved specific screen activity on the agent’s PC, such as opening or closing an account.
So how many calls should be monitored? The easy answer is “as many as possible.” There is no clear pattern. According to reliable industry statistics, the median number of monitored voice calls per month per agent is 5.7. However, over 25 percent monitor three or fewer and over one in five contact centers monitor 10 or more calls per month
It is suggested that you disregard industry norms and monitor on the basis of recognized need. New agents should be monitored more frequently than experienced agents. Agents working in complex environments or high-compliance risk environments should be monitored more frequently than agents with more routine duties and highly restricted problem-solving authority.
The primary output of quality monitoring is the agent scorecard (also known as agent audits). The intent is to gather the information required to gauge agent performance on “soft” skills. The monthly quality audits examine listening skills, voice clarity, accuracy, empathy, courtesy, call control, product knowledge and adherence to procedures, among others. The individual conducting the audits, typically the agent’s direct supervisor but in large contact centers it could be a quality control specialist, listens for cues that reflect congruence with these desired skills and rates the agent on each attribute, typically using a numeric scale.
Since we are dealing with subjective evaluations, inevitably there will be differences between how supervisors interpret the recorded calls. Calibration is a process that seeks to build consensus on what constitutes empathy, courtesy, and related soft skills. In calibration sessions, raters gather together under the tutelage of a rotating chairperson to jointly listen to a sample of calls then individually rate each call. The chair then directs a discussion among the group that seeks to identify common indicators of skill on each attribute.
Scorecards often take into account agent performance on hard metrics as well. These are typically metrics created by ACDs, workforce management systems and other contact center applications. Examples include calls processed; service level, answer time, adherence, occupancy and average handle time. While these metrics are easy to work with and are readily available, there is a danger in relying on them too heavily. First, the agent may have little control over the metrics. Productivity, occupancy, answer time, etc., are at least as much a function of call flow, call routing and scheduled staffing levels as individual agent performance. Second, and perhaps more important, these traditional metrics have never shown a direct correlation with customer satisfaction - which is a primary goal of the organization.
Second-generation metrics more directly measure agent and team performance against the key goals of the enterprise. These “Metrics that Matter” include customer satisfaction, revenue and costs/profitability. Examples include:
• Customer lifetime value
• Revenue per call
• Top box customer satisfaction
• Top box agent satisfaction
• First call resolution
• Revenue per agent
• Cross-sell attempts
• Cost per contact per channel
• Cost per agent
• Agent retention rate
• Customer retention.
None of this information resides in the ACD. You will need some ingenuity, superior technology and new applications like performance management software and automated survey tools.
We mentioned early in our discussion that all contact centers have the same four core missions. However, the relatively priority of each mission varies greatly with the type of enterprise. Contact center managers can accommodate these differing priorities by organizing rating questions and metrics around the four core missions we identified then applying weighting factors to reflect the relative importance of each mission. In this way the agent scoring process is in complete alignment with the broader enterprise goals.
Finally, it is important to recognize that customers and prospects interact with the contact center in multiple ways. Voice calls are by far the dominant channel, but in some businesses – like banking - more people interact through the IVR or Web than through live calls. As well, the use of e-mail is increasing. Your quality control process should address all channels – not just voice.
Recording to the Max – Call Quality
Record all calls and screen actions
Score as many calls per agent per month as you can
Recognize that you can never score enough calls to achieve an accurate representation of individual performance. Focus on the “coachable” calls and strive to make good agents better
Scorecards should include subjective and objective measures that include both traditional and next-generation metrics
Consider investing in automated survey technology so you can track customer satisfaction to specific agents
Apply weighting schemes that reflect the relative priority of each of your centers’ core missions
Don’t forget to evaluate the quality of your self-service tools and alternative contact channels.
Revenue Generation
According to a 2007 survey conducted by the research firm CSO Insights,
only 37 percent of contact centers are focused on service only. The other 63 percent are already focused on service and revenue or in the process of making the transition from a service-only operation. Agents contribute to revenue growth by identifying sales leads in the CRM system, probing for up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, collecting overdue accounts, direct sales through outbound calls and by improving customer retention. Independent research shows that it costs five to ten times as much to replace a customer than to take actions to prevent their defection. Management can empower agents to take actions to retain a customer like granting free minutes or waiving shipping charges. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a concept that recognizes the aggregate contribution of a consumer over the period of time they remain customers. As the first line of defense, agents can have a significant impact on customer loyalty and consequently CLV.
Interaction recording systems contribute to revenue generation in two ways; by helping train agents in sales skills and by helping to assure compliance with laws and regulations. Service-centric agents often have difficulty moving from service mode to sales mode. They need extensive training and coaching. An excellent way to learn is to listen to how others do it. Supervisors do this by saving model calls to their training files and folders then using them as teaching aids.
In many environments it is not practicable for an agent to actually close a sale. For example, in an insurance company, only licensed agents may be able to accept applications. In a bank, loan officers, credit checkers and others need to be involved before the loan can be approved. What the agent can and should do is probe for information that can produce a qualified lead or remind callers of any specials that the company may be running. Resulting leads should be tracked to the CRM systems.
Many modern recoding systems have the ability to attach flags to particular calls. The supervisor can then determine if the recorded interaction should be forwarded to the sales team. Most systems also have the capability of presenting prompts or scripts to help guide the agent through the sales process.
Agents engaged in order solicitations or collections need to abide by several state and federal statutes; principally the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. Management should record all interactions, both voice and screen actions, to check for compliance.
Recording to the Max – Revenue Generation
Use model calls as training aids
Flag calls that represent sales prospects
Track direct sales and leads provided
Provide financial incentives for new sales, up-sells, cross-sells and high-quality leads
Use the recorded interactions to confirm compliance with pertinent laws and regulations
Use the recording systems to verify sales and promises made to or by company sales personnel.
Cost Control
Automated recording is a must-have for any contact center, regardless of size. The payoff will be greater for larger contact centers that enjoy economies of scale, but productivity improvements and reducing compliance exposure are essential to every operation. The PELORUS Group has conducted extensive research on the cost benefits of interaction recording, basing analysis on actual case studies – not theory. It was found that the greatest cost savings came from reducing (actually, eliminating) the many hours of supervisor time spent sitting side-by-side with an agent waiting for a coachable call. This alone produced savings of over $80,000 per year for every 100 agents. This was followed closely by the reduced supervisor time required to conduct evaluations and by the cost savings of delegating the monitoring function to quality assurance specialists rather than supervisors. Each factor produced savings of over $70,000 for every 100 agents.
For contact centers that already have interaction recording systems, take full advantage of its capabilities. Most systems today also record screen interactions. You can use this data to discover shortcuts use by best-performing agents that can be shared with others, spot knowledge gaps in using the desktop applications, find weaknesses in the forms or work processes that can be corrected, and help assure that private information is used in accordance with laws and regulations.
Compliance is playing a larger role in contact center performance than ever before. Violations can be very costly. For example, each violation of the Telemarketing Sale Rule brings a fine of $11,000. The largest violation to date of the fair Debt Collections Practices Act was against LTD Financial Services, which paid $1.3 million in civil penalties to resolve charges that it misled, threatened and harassed consumers. There are hundreds of local, state, federal and international laws and industry standards that apply to telephone interactions with consumers. The most prominent ones are:
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
• Telemarketing Sales Rule
• Truth in Lending Act
• Consent to Record
• Health Insurance Portability and Protection Act.
In general, these laws and regulations seek to eliminate fraud and abuse in consumer interactions. Managers should be familiar with the key provisions that directly affect contact center activities. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) require that only specifically authorized personnel should have access to debit and credit card numbers. These numbers must be masked or encrypted if card information is provided by phone. If your company accepts payment by these means, then you need to check how your recording systems can prevent private information like this from being viewed at the point of data entry, recorded (by voice or by screen), and accessed. The PCI-DSS have become law in some states, but perhaps more important, your firm could lose its rights to accept debit or credit cards issued by the major card companies.
The Health Insurance Portability and Protection Act also has very rigorous rules over the disclosure of protected health information. Several laws require specific disclosures. Contact centers should train agents on what these are and provide scripts and related aids to assure that the disclosures are made.
Finally, recorded speech is very valuable for liability protection. A lot of business is conducted by telephone. Lacking a tangible record of what actually transpired, disputes may devolve into unpleasant he-said, she-said arguments where nobody wins. Liability protection is especially important to smaller call centers as litigation can be very costly and agents are often pressed to become experts on multiple subjects. Scripting tools are also valuable to help assure that mandatory disclosures are accurately communicated.
Advanced tools or options available on modern interaction recording systems include e-Learning, e-Coaching and speech analytics. All are very helpful in conveying essential information at the right time and quickly spotting potential violations.
Recording to the Max – Cost Control
Automated interaction recording systems offer substantial cost advantages and performance advantages over manual methods
These economic advantages increase with the size of the contact center. Fortunately, today many vendors provide solutions designed and priced to the small to mid-size contact centers. Additionally, some vendors provide recording on a pay-as-you-go basis, with little or no upfront investment
For contact centers that already have automated systems it is wise to take full advantage of all the features such as the embedded agent scoring and reporting tools.
Almost all modern systems either provide screen recording as a core function or as an add-on module. Screen recording is very valuable for finding ways to improve workflows and cut handle time
Perhaps the greatest potential savings is the one that is impossible to quantify. That is the fines, court settlements and customer loss that could result from compliance violations
Interaction recording should not be limited to the contact center. There are many other functions within the enterprise that can benefit from the compliance and liability protection afforded by automated recording systems. Examples include purchasing, human resources, sales and investor relations.
Business Intelligence
Large call centers have thousands of hours of verbal interactions that may contain extremely valuable insights about competitor actions, potential quality programs, service deficiencies, buying motives and causes of customer defection. Too often, senior management is oblivious to the fact that they may already have the answers they are looking for -- and not in sterile tables but in the full richness of the customer’s voice. Unfortunately, too many contact centers don’t see disseminating critical business intelligence as a high priority. In a recent survey conducted by the International Call Management Institute (ICMI), contact professionals were asked, “When monitoring agents, how important is each of the following?” Respondents were given 11 choices. “Educate other departments about customers and the call center” rated dead last with only 16 percent of contact center professionals rating information sharing and self-promotion as “Very Important.”
The vast reservoir of recorded interactions in the contact center is one of the most valuable intellectual assets of the enterprise. It needs to be mined, condensed, interpreted and shared with senior management and the marketing department. A major constraint is the inability to cost-effectively search through this massive data store looking for the kernels of wisdom that can really make a difference. Contact center management does not always know precisely what to look for and they certainly don’t have the time and personnel to literally listen to each recorded call.
Advances in speech analytics now make this more feasible. Speech analytics contributes to accomplishing the four core missions of the contact center by:
• By understanding customer expectations and the factors that motivate satisfaction.
• By helping identify the key expressions that signal sales opportunities and assessing how well agents transition into selling mode.
• By drilling down into calls that exceeded pre-determined thresholds to identify and rectify causes of sub-par performance.
• By isolating and evaluating interactions that can help senior management spot significant competitive actions or help determine if costly marketing campaigns are getting the message across as intended.
Speech analytics is most appropriate for compliance-sensitive enterprises (such as collections, health care, telesales, ecommerce, insurance, pharmaceuticals, government, etc.) and companies that sell branded products or services. Costs have come down and some systems are incredibly easy to use.
If speech analytics is not a realistic option, you can still train and motivate agents to listen for critical business intelligence. One suggestion is to enlist the support of your product management or market research team to guide you in finding the information most useful to the firm at that time. Agents can then use the flagging tool in their software to identify calls that contain the type of information management wants to see. Examples are evaluating campaign effectiveness or identifying reasons for customer loyalty or defections. Senior management will be much more impressed with this type of information than changes in obscure (to them) performance metrics.
Recording to the Max – Business Intelligence
The vast storehouse of recorded consumer interactions residing in the contact center is a veritable treasure trove of invaluable business intelligence that all too rarely gets mined, digested and shared with people who have need-to-know
Speech analytics is an innovative and potentially valuable tool for identifying, extracting and summarizing critical information
Contact center managers, depending on the nature of the enterprise, need to see this as an important priority and train agents accordingly.
Summary
Automated interaction recording systems are essential for all but the smallest contact centers where manual quality and compliance control is still feasible. Rather surprisingly, a large proportion of contact centers – primarily small to mid-size operations, still have not made the necessary investment.
Interaction recording systems contribute to achieving all four of the primary missions of the contact center. For larger centers the investment can be quite substantial but is readily justified due to savings in supervisory hours and other factors. The cost-benefit case is not as clear-cut for small to mid-size contact centers. Vendors understand this and have responded with offers designed and priced to their specific needs.
While call quality remains the primary motivator for investing in these products, compliance and verification are also very important and impact all contact centers regardless of the size of their businesses.
Businesses and nonprofits that have already made the investment should strive to maximize the return on their investment. Their missions are changing, from a primary focus on service to management demands for customer retention, revenue growth and strategic business intelligence. Modern systems provide advanced features that contribute measurably to achieving this expanded mission. Speech and data analytics are particularly promising new tools.
Interaction recording forms the nexus of what has come to be known as the workforce optimization (WFO) suite. When selecting an initial or replacement system, consider not just today’s functionality but what the system can become as you add new applications. Just about all vendors now provide additional suite components, either through their own in-house development, through acquisitions, or through strategic alliances.
