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CALL
US INDISPENSABLE
by John
Cargal
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When most of us think
of call centers, we think of utilities, airlines and direct mail catalog companies.
While these industries were the cradle to call center services, call centers now
play an integral part across a swath of diverse - and increasingly smaller - businesses.
In fact, today, organizations in virtually every sector of the economy depend on
effective call center services.
There are an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 call centers in the United States, employing
more than three million agents. Growth in the industry is expected to be about 20
percent a year. In addition to telephone calls, many call center services now include
e-mail messages, Web-based transactions and other types of customer contacts, making
call centers the hubs of customer service in today's economy.
Why should you care?
Because in the current economic downturn, call centers have become a critical means
of attracting and retaining financial services industry customers.
The Benefits of a Call Center - The Service in Financial Services
Call centers offer the financial industry flexible customer relationship management
and a marketing alternative that minimizes time to market and cost. In tandem with
direct mail, call centers consistently produce results. One of our clients reported
a 50 percent increase in response rate on a direct mail piece when it was followed
up by a phone call.
Call centers also offer a cost effective means of retaining customers. According
to recent studies, a 5% improvement in customer retention improves profitability
by 25 to 100% (Bain & Co.), and cutting customer defections by just 5%
has the effect of boosting profits between 25% and 95%. (Harvard Business Review.)
Some of the many services call centers can fulfill for the financial industry
include:
- Proactive calls to
individuals with new account features, benefits or higher spending limits close to
expiration date
- Toll-free customer
assistance lines
- Upgrade offers
- Toll-free financial
account assistance (for those common questions, financial help, etc.)
- Answering customer
email
- Acting as an after-hour
messaging and dispatch center
- Welcome calls to
new customers
- Follow-ups to a promotion
Customers reward those organizations that are easy to do business with and those
that support their lifestyles. According to an industry study, 80 percent of consumers
who called with a complaint will purchase again if the complaint is handled properly,
and 86 percent of U.S. consumers associate a toll-free number with high-quality products.
Today's sophisticated financial service customer requires the kind of attention and
responsiveness that only a call center can cost-effectively provide.
The Benefits of Outsourcing a Call Center
As many companies face a slowing economy, they are increasingly outsourcing non-core
competencies, such as the call center function. Companies that outsource demonstrate
greater average return to investors and higher growth rates, resulting in better
earnings per share than companies that don't outsource. For the financial services
industry, outsourcing isn't just a good idea, it's a winning business strategy.
Outsourcing offers speed to market and the most up-to-date technology and legal compliance.
Telemarketing legislation changes frequently, and varies from state to state. Your
outsource partner will track current legislation and ensure that your programs are
in compliance. Additionally, by outsourcing, you save on capital investment, technology
maintenance and staffing costs.
What to Look for in a Call Center
So you're ready to work with a call center, how do you find the one out of 90,000
that is right for you? Here are some things to look for.
1. Find a call center
that will work with you proactively to identify the best opportunities and projects.
Flexibility and a can-do attitude are important determiners of success.
2. Find a center that has the capability to run return on investment analyses of
your programs in real time. The ability to access real time reports will enable you
to run trending reports. For the financial industry, this kind of reporting can reveal
important information. For example, if credit card purchases are down during a certain
month, a trending report could reveal that awareness about new card promotions was
low that same month. The correlation could point to a need to increase proactive
calling to customers.
3. Find a center that will provide real time, 24-hour access to up-to-the-moment
call statistics.
4. Find one that will provide real time, 24-hour access to call monitoring.
5. Look for project management expertise and a dedicated agent team.
6. Find a call center that features customized applications/programs.
7. Find a call center that has the ability to provide email responses.
8. Select a call center that will work closely with you for the first few months
a new program is getting up and running. The best call centers provide client offices
on-site during training.
9. Look for a dedicated on-site training center separate from the call center floor.
Quality training cannot occur on the call floor, no matter what anyone says.
10. Make sure the center has the ability to transfer customers to other phone numbers
outside the call center. For the financial industry, client service hinges on the
ability to connect customers with agents, brokers, account representatives and other
amenities.
A call center's consistency
and quality (two words worth their weight in gold in this industry) are determined
by three key factors: the right people, the right technology, and the right processes.
A buyer should really test whether a call center can do all they say they can do.
Ask to see current client examples. Say, "show me how you do this for another
client." Ask to talk to references. Ask about turnover. The industry average
is 50 percent. Don't even consider a call center with a rate higher than that. It's
industry standard to pay to train agents. The best centers only charge you once to
train a team, and absorb the cost of training new agents due to turnover. This is
a call center's incentive to keep people. The longer your team works for you, the
better they will be. Ask about recruiting, hiring and career path programs. Ask if
the call center is profitable. You want a partner that will be with you over the
long term.
When it comes to negotiating your contract, don't be afraid to ask for service level
commitments and a quality assurance policy. Be specific about service levels such
as average speed of call answering, abandonment rate and one call resolution. Make
sure the center has a quality assurance policy. State quality assurance guidelines
in your contract. Don't back down from requiring that the center notify you when
service levels are not met.
A major differential between call centers is technology. Real time reporting, and
24-hour access to call monitoring are critical to your ability to monitor programs
and make necessary adjustments quickly. A call center might offer call monitoring,
but then ask you to set up an appointment so they can get their best agents or a
supervisor on the phone. Does this represent their average service? No. Insist on
24-hour access and a real time quality assurance score sheet. You should be able
to patch into a line at anytime to make sure that your messages are getting across
in the way you intended. This allows you to make changes "live" if the
messaging seems confused. You can immediately call a supervisor who will immediately
gather your team and make the appropriate adjustments. Similarly, you should have
access to real time reporting.
Some other "hot" call center services to look for right now include a combination
telephone and Web-based service, so that customers can click a button on the organization's
Web site to reach a customer service agent "real time;" handling calls
completely when they first come in with no need for follow-up or repeat calls, thereby
contributing significantly both to customer satisfaction and the operation's efficiency
(the "first call resolution" goal in the industry is 90 percent or greater);
accurately forecasting call volume and staffing requirements as well as managing
effectively in real-time, so that the call center is able to adjust to constantly
changing workloads; upgrading recruiting, hiring and career path programs to attract
capable agents to call centers; and developing better self-service systems so that
more customers are willing to use Web or interactive voice response (IVR) systems
to conduct business without ever talking to an agent.
When you've found a call center you want to work with, take advantage of all the
qualities you've insisted upon. Sit in on calls. Read reports. Stay on top of internal
hiring statistics. Communicate. Utilize the call center for all manner of outreach
services. Then sit back and wait for your phone to start ringing.
John Cargal
is founder and CEO of encompass TeleServices. For more information visit www.encompass-ts.com.
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