Industry Research

Page 2 Industry Research

An organization's contact center agents are usually a customer's primary and sometimes only contact. However, their role has changed lately from being the guardian of the relationship between the customer and the corporation to the keeper of the hold and handle times.

There are many reasons for this change in customer service roles. Driven by everything from sophisticated tools to brutal cost pressures, the role of the contact center agent is changing, in large part to create more business value from a smaller, more highly skilled workforce. Do-not-call efforts, real-time analytics, and personalization tools are placing great pressure on contact centers to sell during any appropriate inbound contact. Fear of customer defection in these trying economic times also has increased the pressure to resolve, rather than deflect, customer issues.

Many in the contact center industry fixate on the significant role labor plays in the cost of operating a call center--70 percent or more, according to some estimates. Technological advances allow companies to do more with their labor dollars than ever before. Virtual call center networks allow ad hoc teams to be created with at-home workers or multiple sites, even offshore locations. Web self-help and IVR not only offer more opportunities to resolve problems before they reach the contact center, but they provide invaluable sorting and routing assistance to the call center. Unfortunately, some remain too focused on squeezing the payroll to see the flaw in the numbers game.

Page 3 Industry Research

The metrics may be traditional, but the contact profiles are not. Even leaving aside the growing 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 average, 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 be beneficial in many ways, using less man-time as customers become more proficient in helping themselves with smaller problems.

The skill set for agents is changing as well. The perfect agent in today's call center has to multi-task as well as make the most of every customer contact, most often by providing sales as well as service. 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.

Page 4 Industry Research

In the modern contact center first-call resolution and incremental revenue are taking center stage. Whether you believe your organization can train and retain the perfect agent for both tasks, or you choose to split the responsibilities between tightly trained teams, understanding the building blocks for each skill can make the difference between success and costly inefficiency.

Agents Who Solve...

Ð'* are given, and trained on, the tools they need to promptly diagnose customer problems across a wide range of products and possible points of failure;

Ð'* are rewarded not simply for minimizing escalations, but for accurately addressing issues on the first contact;

Ð'* feel genuine passion for the product and camaraderie with the customer, so they know they can solve problems the way they would want their own concerns addressed.

Agents Who Sell...

Ð'* are given tools to allow them to make cross-sell and upsell offers that will resonate with customers, rather than an obligatory, stale, do-you-want-fries-with-that pitch for the end of each call;

Ð'* are measured and rewarded on their sales success;

Ð'* have some selling experience--which is particularly valuable for scenarios in which agents may need to overcome objections.

Page 5 Industry Research

Even service-minded call center organizations have had to shift gears in recent times. Agents are hitting the floor better prepared than ever. Training time is up on average 50 percent. With turnover rates lower industry-wide due to the shaky economy, higher training expenses have been easier to justify.

It is very important to take a look at how monetary policy affects the globalization of the call center, but first it is important to define globalization so it can be looked at more closely.

Globalization is an ecosystem in which economic potential is no longer defined or contained by political and geographic boundaries. Economic activity knows no bounds in a globalized economy. A globalized world is one where goods, services, financial capital, machinery, money, workers and ideas migrate to wherever they are most valued and can work together most efficiently, flexibly and securely (Levy 2006).

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In layman's terms, globalization means businesses can sell their goods, or have services provided wherever they are going to get the most value, and borders are not an issue. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses with call centers. With factory jobs moving to China and call center operations moving to India and China, outsourcing is a very hot issue. America produces approximately $12 trillion in economic output, and as with new technology, American business managers have taken advantage of globalization (Levy 2006). Because labor accounts for approximately two thirds of the cost of producing most goods and services, a smart business manager will go where the labor is cheapest, even if it means setting up a center for processing calls in India. Globalization has such a profound impact on labor pricing. The opening up of new labor markets revolutionizes the economic structure and upset all conditions of location, cost calculations, and production functions (Levy 2006).

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