Podcast Transcript: Driving Customer Satisfaction - What Do the Best Contact Centers Do?
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FurstPerson (FP): Welcome to the FurstPerson pod cast, this is Jeff Furst with FurstPerson.
FP: Today we are speaking with Mark Miller, Senior Director at the Contact Center Practice for J.D. Power and Associates. Thanks for joining us today Mark.
Mark Miller (MM): My pleasure Jeff, glad to be here.
FP: So, Mark, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the voice of the customer research that J.D. Power conducts?
MM: J.D. Power has been around since 1968, we are a global marketing information firm and we have several different ways in which we gather the voice of the customer.
The first way, and the way that most people know us for is through our syndicated research that we publish independently over 20 studies. Thousands of brands are studied and we are really focusing on the different aspects of the customer experience in a multitude of industries from insurance and financial services, automotive obviously, healthcare is a big one, utilities, travel industry, etc.
And then the other way that we gather customer satisfaction data is on a proprietary basis. Clients will come to us wanting us to help them understand the voice of the customer. And so, we go out and we ask those customers about their experiences. And we do that across multiple channels, whether that it be over the phone, or retail interaction, or chat, or IBR or any of the number of channels that we all use today. In either of the studies, we really are focusing on customer satisfaction, understanding the diagnostics that drive that satisfaction, like in the call center world, speed of answer or how many times you have been put on hold or transferred etc., and then we dig in to loyalty and advocacy so that we can help folks know what levers to pull to create higher loyalty and advocacy.
FP: Great, thanks for that background Mark. You mentioned some of the research aspects both on the syndicated as well as the client specific. As you look across the spectrum of the research findings that J.D. Powers collected, what can you tell us what distinguishes the best companies with a more superior customer satisfaction?
MM: I am going to stick to contact center, as we obviously have different drivers within different environment, like retail will have slightly different drivers than the contact center experience. What we typically find is that the best performers are doing everything well and a few things really well. For example, there is typically five major drivers of satisfaction with the Contact Center. One is promptness in getting to the person who can solve the problem; courtesy of that person; the timing of the overall resolution, the knowledge and the concern of the agent. So, strictly speaking about the call center, those organizations that do those things all very well, typically do best, I know I am the master of the obvious on that. But, it is an amazing thing that if you fall short on you know, significantly underperformer of concern or knowledge or timeliness. You could be very, very quick and be really nice, but your scores are going to suffer and it is going to affect customer loyalty. So, the best folks are really trying to focus on everything and they are making the appropriate investments in technology and people to ensure that experience is consistently a good one.
FP: Great, thanks Mark. You mentioned five aspects of driving better customer satisfaction within a contacts operation. Are those the main drivers to that, is there anything else you would add?
MM: Well, yes there is from a strictly research prospective. Those are the five drives or attributes we call them in research lingo that are most highly correlated to a call center experience. So those are the things that we pick up from our sentiment research, but you know the IBR is incredibly important. In fact, the IBR in the front end now accounts for about 32% of total customer satisfaction with the call experience. But still, the preponderance of the importance is the CSR, so at the end of the day you have to have the right people in seats. You have to recruit them wisely, train them well, keep them well informed and the right information in front of them so that they can do the business of delighting their customer and really making an emotional link. That is one thing that we see really top performers do, is that the customers when they get off the phone feel like there is a connection, like they have been listened to and feel like “wow, I can trust these guys” and that trust is kind of the bottom line. If you want to build loyalty, you have to create trust at the front line.
FP: You talked about bringing people into the contact center from a hiring strategy standpoint. Are there any other suggestions you have based on the research findings?
MM: Yes, today there are few trends that are going on in the marketplace which kind of has required us to alter an ideal hiring profile when we look at certified companies. We have a large certification program here and we are privileged to go into literally hundreds of call centers over this period of time that we have been running the program. And we see them paying special attention to those folks who have high emotional IQ. So, today many of the calls are being deflected. The easy calls are being deflected to the different service channels. People will check a balance, or they will see when a bill is due either through their self-serve options on the IBR or web cell serve or mobile. Those easy calls are typically moving away from the phone channel in the sense of a human being talking to you. So, now the preponderance, what the data is telling us is that the preponderance of calls coming into the call center channels are typically more difficult, more complex. They are no longer simple. So, if you start thinking about that every rep who answers the phone has to have a much higher degree of knowledge. They must be able to pull in multiple data points and coalesce that and communicate the effectively, essentially on the fly. And so, as these easy and simple calls move out more important calls that are important to loyalty and advocacy. Highly emotionally charged calls are becoming more and more the norm and what we are finding is that the best centers are recognizing that, they are making some modifications to how they operate to ensure that the experience that folks get when they call on the phone is not only satisfying from a pure data perspective, but you get the right information that you are seeking relatively quickly, but that there is an emotional connection as well.
FP: It certainly correlates well with some things we are seeing on the Furst Person side and you mentioned about the more difficult calls becoming more prevalent coming into the contact center. Instead of thinking about those organizations and how to go back and re-examine the job and think about a shift and maybe the competencies that drives successful call performance. That sounds like what you are seeing in your research then, is really reinforcing the need to keep revisiting the hiring process and make sure you are lining up well with the business outcomes, particularly as you look at the customer satisfaction data that you see in your research.
MM: For sure, at the end of the day the call center as a channel is getting more important, not less important. Despite the fact that our research shows that there is fewer interactions now in the pure call center channel than there were in years past for the reasons we already discussed. And it is just absolutely critical that folks spend the extra time, effort, energy and investment in ensuring that you get the right people. One of the dynamics that we believe that are going to go on in the market place is the fact that attrition right now for most call centers is not as high as it has typically been. But once the market moves and turns around, you are going to have a much higher attrition rates to more traditional levels. So, one of the ways to mitigate that is to really match your particular environment with the right person to achieve not only high levels of customer satisfaction, specifically related to that is high levels of employee satisfaction which then will lead to lower attrition levels and once you have people who have been on the phone a while your new on stability to deal with the customer’s needs not only on a factual basis, but on also on an emotional basis. Because they are trying to figure out the system, they can actually interface with that customer in a real and genuine way that is what is driving so much loyalty and advocacy within this channel. It is just very difficult to do unless you have the right talent and skill set for your particular business environment.
Yes, absolutely important that people really look closely as to how they staff out to ensure that the customer experience is maximized.
FP: Thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us today on the pod cast. We have been listening to Mark Miller who is the Senior Director Contact Center Practice at J.D. Power Associates.
FurstPerson (FP): Welcome to the FurstPerson pod cast, this is Jeff Furst with FurstPerson.
FP: Today we are speaking with Mark Miller, Senior Director at the Contact Center Practice for J.D. Power and Associates. Thanks for joining us today Mark.
Mark Miller (MM): My pleasure Jeff, glad to be here.
FP: So, Mark, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the voice of the customer research that J.D. Power conducts?
MM: J.D. Power has been around since 1968, we are a global marketing information firm and we have several different ways in which we gather the voice of the customer.
The first way, and the way that most people know us for is through our syndicated research that we publish independently over 20 studies. Thousands of brands are studied and we are really focusing on the different aspects of the customer experience in a multitude of industries from insurance and financial services, automotive obviously, healthcare is a big one, utilities, travel industry, etc.
And then the other way that we gather customer satisfaction data is on a proprietary basis. Clients will come to us wanting us to help them understand the voice of the customer. And so, we go out and we ask those customers about their experiences. And we do that across multiple channels, whether that it be over the phone, or retail interaction, or chat, or IBR or any of the number of channels that we all use today. In either of the studies, we really are focusing on customer satisfaction, understanding the diagnostics that drive that satisfaction, like in the call center world, speed of answer or how many times you have been put on hold or transferred etc., and then we dig in to loyalty and advocacy so that we can help folks know what levers to pull to create higher loyalty and advocacy.
FP: Great, thanks for that background Mark. You mentioned some of the research aspects both on the syndicated as well as the client specific. As you look across the spectrum of the research findings that J.D. Powers collected, what can you tell us what distinguishes the best companies with a more superior customer satisfaction?
MM: I am going to stick to contact center, as we obviously have different drivers within different environment, like retail will have slightly different drivers than the contact center experience. What we typically find is that the best performers are doing everything well and a few things really well. For example, there is typically five major drivers of satisfaction with the Contact Center. One is promptness in getting to the person who can solve the problem; courtesy of that person; the timing of the overall resolution, the knowledge and the concern of the agent. So, strictly speaking about the call center, those organizations that do those things all very well, typically do best, I know I am the master of the obvious on that. But, it is an amazing thing that if you fall short on you know, significantly underperformer of concern or knowledge or timeliness. You could be very, very quick and be really nice, but your scores are going to suffer and it is going to affect customer loyalty. So, the best folks are really trying to focus on everything and they are making the appropriate investments in technology and people to ensure that experience is consistently a good one.
FP: Great, thanks Mark. You mentioned five aspects of driving better customer satisfaction within a contacts operation. Are those the main drivers to that, is there anything else you would add?
MM: Well, yes there is from a strictly research prospective. Those are the five drives or attributes we call them in research lingo that are most highly correlated to a call center experience. So those are the things that we pick up from our sentiment research, but you know the IBR is incredibly important. In fact, the IBR in the front end now accounts for about 32% of total customer satisfaction with the call experience. But still, the preponderance of the importance is the CSR, so at the end of the day you have to have the right people in seats. You have to recruit them wisely, train them well, keep them well informed and the right information in front of them so that they can do the business of delighting their customer and really making an emotional link. That is one thing that we see really top performers do, is that the customers when they get off the phone feel like there is a connection, like they have been listened to and feel like “wow, I can trust these guys” and that trust is kind of the bottom line. If you want to build loyalty, you have to create trust at the front line.
FP: You talked about bringing people into the contact center from a hiring strategy standpoint. Are there any other suggestions you have based on the research findings?
MM: Yes, today there are few trends that are going on in the marketplace which kind of has required us to alter an ideal hiring profile when we look at certified companies. We have a large certification program here and we are privileged to go into literally hundreds of call centers over this period of time that we have been running the program. And we see them paying special attention to those folks who have high emotional IQ. So, today many of the calls are being deflected. The easy calls are being deflected to the different service channels. People will check a balance, or they will see when a bill is due either through their self-serve options on the IBR or web cell serve or mobile. Those easy calls are typically moving away from the phone channel in the sense of a human being talking to you. So, now the preponderance, what the data is telling us is that the preponderance of calls coming into the call center channels are typically more difficult, more complex. They are no longer simple. So, if you start thinking about that every rep who answers the phone has to have a much higher degree of knowledge. They must be able to pull in multiple data points and coalesce that and communicate the effectively, essentially on the fly. And so, as these easy and simple calls move out more important calls that are important to loyalty and advocacy. Highly emotionally charged calls are becoming more and more the norm and what we are finding is that the best centers are recognizing that, they are making some modifications to how they operate to ensure that the experience that folks get when they call on the phone is not only satisfying from a pure data perspective, but you get the right information that you are seeking relatively quickly, but that there is an emotional connection as well.
FP: It certainly correlates well with some things we are seeing on the Furst Person side and you mentioned about the more difficult calls becoming more prevalent coming into the contact center. Instead of thinking about those organizations and how to go back and re-examine the job and think about a shift and maybe the competencies that drives successful call performance. That sounds like what you are seeing in your research then, is really reinforcing the need to keep revisiting the hiring process and make sure you are lining up well with the business outcomes, particularly as you look at the customer satisfaction data that you see in your research.
MM: For sure, at the end of the day the call center as a channel is getting more important, not less important. Despite the fact that our research shows that there is fewer interactions now in the pure call center channel than there were in years past for the reasons we already discussed. And it is just absolutely critical that folks spend the extra time, effort, energy and investment in ensuring that you get the right people. One of the dynamics that we believe that are going to go on in the market place is the fact that attrition right now for most call centers is not as high as it has typically been. But once the market moves and turns around, you are going to have a much higher attrition rates to more traditional levels. So, one of the ways to mitigate that is to really match your particular environment with the right person to achieve not only high levels of customer satisfaction, specifically related to that is high levels of employee satisfaction which then will lead to lower attrition levels and once you have people who have been on the phone a while your new on stability to deal with the customer’s needs not only on a factual basis, but on also on an emotional basis. Because they are trying to figure out the system, they can actually interface with that customer in a real and genuine way that is what is driving so much loyalty and advocacy within this channel. It is just very difficult to do unless you have the right talent and skill set for your particular business environment.
Yes, absolutely important that people really look closely as to how they staff out to ensure that the customer experience is maximized.
FP: Thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us today on the pod cast. We have been listening to Mark Miller who is the Senior Director Contact Center Practice at J.D. Power Associates.
