Old Metrics, New Customers

The metrics may be traditional, but the contact profiles are not. Even leaving aside the nascent percentage of customer contacts that arrive via email and Web chat, the very nature of the "typical" call center inquiry changes the moment self-help enters the equation. As more mainstream customers adopt self-help and solve the simple problems solo, callers tend, on aggregate, to have more challenging issues, meaning that even entry-level support agents may not be able to resolve today's entry-level questions. Further complicating matters, some agents must also be prepared to act as tier 1 support for the Web site itself. But agents teaching customers to use online self-help is a time investment that can pay off manyfold, based on the proverb about teaching a man how to fish so he can eat for a lifetime.

In short, the call for agents who can juggle several responsibilities is becoming louder. "It used to be that you could get away with an agent doing one process, one product, all the time," says Ken Cross, director of operations for call center operator Inktel Direct. "With price points dropping, legislation and other issues, and clients wanting more out of agents, agents may have to answer an inbound phone call and provide service while multitasking, doing a Web chat, and answering an email."

Some CRM vendors have begun bandying around the term resolution management to describe the tools and processes their customers are asking for to smooth the road between customer problem and satisfactory solution. The key mindset shift for agents--and managers--in a resolution-management model is to use the tools and abilities at their disposal to optimize the result of the current call, rather than using them to speed to the next call.

Mary Jo Lichtenberg, director of business process excellence for call center provider Telvista, says that her clients have come to realize the value of accurate resolution, and are building it into service metrics. "When we first started, first-call resolution was not even in our contracts. Now, it is probably the number one key performance indicator," she says.

The Perfect Agent

The profile of 1994's model contact center agent is very different from the model agent of 2004. With more channels and more challenging inquiries coming to bear, and support tools that are both more informative and more complex, agents and management's expectations must evolve.

"You're looking at a profile of people not just with basic product knowledge but with a background in handling and building relationships with individuals," Arussy says. By way of example he lauds a British branchless bank that hired not seasoned call center professionals, but nurses and social workers, to staff its telebanking lines.

Some organizations today choose to hire on sales skills and teach the technical side, while others prefer to hire on problem-resolution skills and instill the sales techniques at a later date. The most important step is to make a choice and develop a plan that will give agents, new and veteran, the skills they need to handle more complex requirements.

"We ask our representatives certain questions--How many tasks can you handle at one time? Do you get frustrated when you can't perform a task in a quick fashion?" says Inktel's Cross. Inktel starts all its agents in a "straight-sell" outbound calling environment, then promotes those who show a customer service aptitude for the multitasking world of inbound support and upselling.

Even service-minded call center organizations have had to shift gears in recent times. "In the past we had a number of people who basically took orders, but those people are becoming more focused on inside sales, contacting customers to identify selling opportunities with them," says Candyce Anderson, business analyst for ADC, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer based in Eden Prairie, MN.

The move was motivated as much by evolution as by need--with the global telecom market depressed, ADC went two years without adding call center personnel and reduced its staff through attrition. The company decided to make better use of the cream of its crop by putting those experienced agents to work on a broader range of business problems. "We know they have so much experience with our products that literally anyone can do level 1 support [in addition to sales tasks]," Anderson says.

For those who cannot count on such long-term stability, training is key. Agents are hitting the floor better prepared than ever. "Training has gone from days or weeks to a month or month-and-a-half, up-front," says John Bartholomew, executive vice president of business development at call center-- provider Livebridge. Training time is also up 50 percent on average at Telvista. With turnover rates lower industry-wide due to the shaky economy, higher training expenses have been easier to justify.

Pay for Performance

All the posturing about call center responsibilities, and all the training to support them--will be meaningless without the proper inducements. "We've seen companies hire agents based on their ability to sell, and put fancy CRM behind those agents, but the real key is compensation and incentive," Reservoir Partners' Selland says. Pay agents to sell, and they will sell. Pay agents to solve problems, and they will solve problems. Pay them to keep queue times low, and they will--one way or another.

Employees are more perceptive than many managers give them credit for being. Send one message in training and another in the review, promotion, and retention process, and they will discern the truth readily enough. If a change in contact center policy is designed to save costs, say so, rather than blowing smoke about how customers will be happier. The agents fielding the calls will know soon enough if customers are happier or not, and in the end it is the messages managers send about reward and advancement that will dictate their response. "The majority of companies are talking about [contact centers] as a profit center, but are paying agents to hang up on their customers," Selland says. "If they're paid to get off the phone as quickly as possible, that's how they're going to behave."

Above all, if you want agents to resolve complex problems or upsell and cross-sell, stop handing out trophies to agents based on handle times. It says nothing about what you, or your customers, should expect from the contact center experience. "Your best agent will not be your most cost-effective agent," Selland says. "It will be an expensive agent, a well-trained person who understands your customers' problems and how your [product] solves them......"