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10 top tips How to improve call handling performance by 25% and reduce call handling staff cost, by James L. Tanner
Despite the fact that seven in ten people prefer the phone to any other method of contact according to Keynote research, there are some common errors that companies continue to make managing their customer contact operations, including inefficient staff resourcing and complicated caller menus. Not only does this impact customer service but it can also make the cost of dealing with customer calls as much as double the cost that it should be.
Our results demonstrate that whilst maintaining customer service levels, call handling performance can be improved by over 30% and call handling staff costs reduced if the below 10 tips are deployed effectively.
1. Communicate the goal
Define and measure 5 contact handling performance targets on the phone, for correspondence and face to face communication e.g. to answer 90% of incoming calls within 20 seconds and reply to incoming correspondence within 2 working days . Ensure that your contact handling teams know how to achieve them and report results to the board on a monthly basis. Set up an internal culture of achieving or exceeding the performance targets, incentivised by rewards.
2. Encourage self-service
The customer contact costs: A recent survey found that the average cost per contact is £15 for face to face, £12 for postal enquiries, £5 for phone enquiries and 6p for online. For 120,000 contacts it would cost £1.8million to manage face to face contacts, £1.44million to manage postal enquiries, £600,000 to manage the phone enquiries and just £7,200 to manage the online self-service. Please see the chart below:
More and more call handling teams have welcome messages on the phone to inform callers about self-service options; i.e. where frequently asked questions, payments & download forms can be found.
Self-service options are perfectly suited for simple enquiries across all contact channels (phone, correspondence and face to face). They can be set up using the following methods:
Interactive web site, Recorded messages, Telephone automated payments, Pro-active automatic alerts by email/SMS, PC terminals and in-house telephones in receptions for customer access.
To reduce simple enquiries we should automate, eliminate and simplify them monthly using well executed self-service options.
3. Clear and short messages
Many call centre messages are too long and confusing. Less is more; the shorter and simpler the messages, the more likely the caller will select the correct option.
4. Call handling staff performance
The key KPIs (key performance statistics/indicators) applied to measure the call handling team members call performance should include: number of calls answered per person and an average call duration. Our clients’ statistics, illustrated below, demonstrate the discrepancy in quality of service delivered by individuals.
The below chart shows the efficiency gain from reducing average call duration:
5. Unique callers
It is important that customers only need to contact you once to get what they need. You should focus on eliminating repeat callers, and ensuring you have enough staff to answer the volume of unique callers on the phone rather than total number of callers, see chart below:
6. Managing peak call periods
Good call handling team management practice is to be prepared for the busy periods and should ensure the right staffing levels. Average staffing levels required by hour of day, day of week and month of year can be easily calculated and should assist in forecasting future staffing requirements. According to the Netcall research based on analysing 2m inbound calls, a caller waits an average of 12 minutes during peak times, 30 minutes in the public sector.
Often 9am – 9.15am is one of the busiest 15 minute periods of a weekday, which means that all call handling team members should to be logged in and ready to answer calls by 8.55am. Good supervision and the right incentives can make this work effectively. Some of our clients take advantage of available staff from the non telephone pool, i.e. from the correspondence team, and encourage them to answer the phones during the peak times.
Call handlers should be cross trained to answer different cross-departmental queries to reduce queue times and abandoned calls in any one section. Longer calls, e.g. specialist inquiries, could be transferred directly to a specialist team to free them up for the next available call.
7. Prioritise urgent calls
Identify and prioritise the different types of customer contact so that the most important ones are answered 100% of the time and no calls are abandoned.
8. Screen popping
By deploying screen popping software, call handling teams can view the telephone number of the caller, and if it is an existing customer (or prospect), their name, address, account number, and any notes/history.
9. Real-time statistics
Call handling team members and supervisors need to have constant visibility of their individual and departmental call statistics in real time, i.e. the number of live calls waiting in the queue. This can have an immediate impact on their behaviour and performance.
10. Independent call handling specialists
There are many reasons why an external and independent call handling specialist can offer better help in auditing your call handling performance. Their independence, in-depth subject expertise and clear focus will help you deliver results faster than any internal resource.
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Author:
James Tanner, Communications Department Ltd. ©
Tel: +44 (0)20 8127 8302. Email: jtanner@communications-department.co.uk,
Web: www.communications-department.co.uk
James Tanner is the Managing Director of Communications Department Ltd based in the UK. Communications Department helps organisations maximise the efficiency of call handling teams across Europe to become leaders in their industry. Both Great Western Ambulance Service and Driver Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland implemented these 10 Tips which resulted in improved call handling performance by 50% and substantially increased numbers of calls answered