Future Trends in the Customer Care Center
1 Jan, 2009
By: Linda Driscoll-DobelAn exclusive Contact Professional interview with Chris Tranquill, managing director of ACS
Contact Professional (CP) recently caught up with Chris Tranquill, managing director of ACS’ Consumer and Commercial Goods line of business. Chris has served as a call center director, VP of information technology, VP of operations and has focused most of his efforts on the wireless industry. ACS is a global Fortune 500 company with approximately 63,000 people supporting client operations reaching more than 100 countries, providing business process outsourcing and information technology solutions to world-class commercial and government clients.
CP: What does the future hold for customer care centers in light of the current economic situation?
Chris Tranquill (CT): There will very likely be more outsourced customer care centers in a variety of industries. Companies that have been hesitant in the past to embrace outsourcing are now likely to look at new opportunities and will also be willing to outsource higher-tier services. Companies are looking at short-term solutions that can bring savings in 30 to 60 days. Companies will be looking for partners that will immediately deliver significant savings while enhancing quality. Once these new customers experience these new solutions and are comfortable that they are not losing quality, and are actually saving money, they will see that what was once viewed as a short-term solution actually also adds long-term value to their bottom line.
CP: What are some of the specific trends we’ll be seeing in customer care in 2009?
CT: Callers will be talking to customer agents who might be right next door to them. The number of at-home agents should increase dramatically. Some estimates state there could be as many as 300,000 work-at-home agents by 2012.
Working from home has its advantages – employees enjoy reduced commuting costs, lower business expenses for lunches and dry cleaning and flexible work hours; while employers benefit from reduced attrition, tardiness and absenteeism, and the ability to attract a more educated workforce. This translates into higher-quality calls and increased customer satisfaction.
A recent survey found that when compared to traditional call center agents, at-home agents were much more likely to have attended college, were older, had more experience and the turnover rate was significantly lower. Again, this means callers should experience better customer service.
CP: Will governments be more open to enhanced customer care options?
CT: Customer care is critical, because it is a key method citizens use to interact with the government. However, it is not their primary focus and any time spent answering the phone is time taken away from mission-critical functions.
Because of the economy, budgets are being scrutinized at all levels of government. Agencies are looking for ways to create cost savings through efficiencies, and relying on an outside vendor can lower costs and increase service by using technology and trained customer service representatives to handle phone inquiries.
CP: Will callers notice any other differences?
CT: With the unemployment rate as high as 10 percent in some areas, more people will be looking for work, or possibly looking to add a second job. With more people looking for work, recruiters looking to hire customer care agents will be able to be more selective in their hires. More skilled employees and those with a strong desire to keep their jobs will provide callers with better customer service.
CP: If it’s cheaper to keep a current customer satisfied then to recruit a new one, what will companies do at the customer care level to keep current customers and keep them happy?
CT: Research indicates that customers whose problems are resolved with just one call have only a three-percent risk of churning. The risk of churn rises to 12 percent after two or more calls, and reaches 38 percent if the problem remains unresolved.” (Service Quality Measurement Group, First Call Resolution Benchmark study.)
One change will happen without callers ever knowing about it. Companies will start using newer and better technology to provide better customer care center data to businesses. Using newer speech analytics tools will provide business owners more accurate customer data in significantly less time. These programs can assess data from a larger sample size of calls, giving businesses more confidence in the data collected. This information can be leveraged to improve customer service for any business, which reduces customer churn.
Using questions that are predictive of customer churn, the system can identify which customers are likely to be considering other service providers. These customers can then be proactively contacted to resolve any issues and persuade them to stay. This is the ultimate customer retention tool.
