Industry Competency Standards for Contact Center Representatives
1 Mar, 2007
By: Fredia BarryThe business environment for contact centers is more complex and challenging than ever. Customers not only expect the best from an organization¡¦s products, they demand the best in service. Every customer interaction counts. Delivering an outstanding customer experience is not an option, it's essential for business survival and success.
It must be understood that people are the key to service excellence. Advanced technology and well-designed processes are useless if skilled and motivated people aren¡¦t meeting customer expectations. While those who manage and lead the center are responsible for instilling a customer-focused culture, skilled representatives are essential to the delivery of outstanding service. As the face of the organization to customers, representatives influence their satisfaction more than any other job role in the center.
When customers contact an organization to do business, they have typically already decided to buy its product or service. To build their loyalty and retain their business, the contact center must meet their expectations for service. These expectations transition beyond the organization¡¦s product or service to the quality of the interaction they experience with its customer service representatives.
Call Out: Equipped with the right knowledge, skills and abilities, representatives can consistently be at the top of their game and deliver superior service to every customer, every time.
Just as bad representatives are a liability who can cost an organization dearly in terms of lost business, competent representatives are one of the most valuable assets a contact center can possess. Equipped with the right knowledge, skills and abilities, representatives can consistently be at the top of their game and deliver superior service to every customer, every time.
In recognition of the importance of the representative role to contact center success, Call Center Industry Advisory Council (CIAC) has facilitated the establishment of the specific knowledge, skills and abilities that enable these professionals to successfully perform their work responsibilities.
Following on the positive impact made by its first contact center industry competency standards ¡V published in 2003 for leaders and managers --- the new competency standards are designed for contact center representatives working in contact centers of every size, genre and industry segment. The competencies are universally written in scope for worldwide application and to accommodate country-specific regulatory and cultural requirements.
The competency standards are a foundational component of upcoming CIAC Industry Certification for Contact Center Representatives. The standard that set the benchmark for excellence in contact center leadership and management will soon be available for representatives. Linked to certification testing, the competencies will serve to ensure higher-quality and more profitable customer interactions across the industry and around the world.
The standards delineate a comprehensive set of measurable core and mastery-level competencies that identify the specific knowledge, skills and behaviors representatives require to effectively perform the following frontline customer interaction activities within a contact center environment:
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Deliver superior customer service and generate revenues
SALES: Sell and provide services across multiple channels
COLLECTIONS: Secure customers¡¦ payments and retain their business.
To define the standards, input was obtained from industrial-organizational psychologists who specialized in competency modeling and validation, supported by input from a broad representative body of contact center practitioners, educators and industry experts from around the world. The development process included review of training curricula, research on emerging characteristics of contact center representatives and workforce trends, analysis of various country and internationally recognized skill sets, and extensive profiling of representative job roles, work responsibilities and identification of outcomes indicative of superior performance. Validation of the standards included verification of the legal defensibility of the competencies correlation to successful job performance.
Industry-recognized competency standards are important for several reasons. Most notably, in addition to establishing the knowledge and skills contact center representatives need to be able to apply for successful job performance, the standards are an explicit directive from contact centers worldwide to individuals and education/training providers about the competence they require from representatives in the workplace.
Call-Out: Research indicates the skill sets representatives need for successful job performance are changing as a result of the changing contact center landscape. The competencies that were needed for transaction-based centers are inadequate in the customer-focused centers of today.
The Competence of Your Representatives Affects the Future of Your Center
The transformation from back-office transactional processes to strategic asset is one of several factors that have changed, and will continue to change, the way contact centers operate. Research conducted during the development of the competencies standards indicates the skill sets representatives need for successful job performance are changing as a result of the changing contact center landscape. The competencies that were needed for transaction-based centers are inadequate in the customer-focused centers of today where customers have multiple channels to interact with the center and the types of customer interactions are more complex. A new breed of trendsetter organizations has upped the ante for all contact centers by finding new, faster, more efficient and effective ways to interact with their customers. This has caused other centers to follow suit or suffer the consequences. The issue here is that far too many times the representatives at these centers are not equipped to take on the higher-level customer service demands suddenly forced upon them.
Globalization, self-service technologies, multi-channel communications and customer valuation are additional factors that are changing the work responsibilities of representatives. Nonetheless, resolution and preferably resolution on the first contact remains the primary goal of representatives. And although understanding telephony services and contact center technology, possessing product and service knowledge and providing excellent customer service will remain as foundational skills --- the depth and breadth of these competencies is expanding, as is the overall scope of required knowledge and skills that now go far beyond the basics of thinking, talking, typing and reading a script.
The ability to quickly learn, whether it's new information, new procedures or new technology, and the ability to successfully apply new knowledge on the job are now essential competences for all representatives. This, in addition to the ability to quickly adapt to change, is being driven to a higher level of importance because of the constantly evolving contact center environment.
Call-out: Customers have more power than ever before and just as they will not tolerate long wait times in queue, they will not accept anything short of being treated with courtesy and respect by representatives who they expect to have the knowledge and ability to service their needs.
Advances in technology are now enabling many types of routine customer interactions to be successfully serviced without human intervention. This is changing the work responsibilities of representatives to be more focused on handling complex customer interactions and is also fueling a shift to representatives who provide specialized service, and representatives who can perform multiple tasks ¡V from customer service to sales to support. The universal representative is increasing in contact centers worldwide largely due to the organizational benefits in terms of cost reductions and business value.
The representative¡¦s ability to project professionalism, in all aspects of the customer experience, is absolutely essential. Customers have more power than ever before and just as they will not tolerate long wait times in queue, they will not accept anything short of being treated with courtesy and respect by representatives who they expect to have the knowledge and ability to service their needs.
Representatives must fully master the competencies that deal with the emotional and human side of customer service. Often referred to as "soft skills" these competencies have the most impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. They include the ability to:
- Effectively communicate with customers
- Actively listen to determine customers needs
- Solve problems by utilizing resources
- Work effectively with team members
- Negotiate positive outcomes with customers.
These capabilities in conjunction with a broader set of critical knowledge, skills and abilities constitute the competencies contact center representatives must possess to help organizations meet the unique needs of their customers in a highly efficient and responsive way, while making a positive impact on the bottom line.
Commitment to standards and certification for contact center professionals, with the goal of promoting and enabling service excellence in contact center organizations and their people, is essential to the future of quality in contact centers worldwide.
