Opinion - Our view on the industry
31st August 2008
Why Leadership Matters in Delivering Customer
Service ExcellencE, by James L. Tanner
From my personal experience of working with UK contact centres and help desks I believe that strong leadership is vital in delivering the customer service excellence. At least 60% of the problems could possibly disappear over-night with the right individual on top driving and motivating the teams while focusing on improving the customer service, especially call handling quality and efficiency. However the challenge is in finding such individuals as well as making the UK boards recognise the importance of the customer service operations and elevating them to the board level.
When we look to improve contact centre or help desk performance, it is of key importance to have a strong control of the operation and quality management skills. High standards of quality control are needed with at least 5 call performance targets, well understood by staff and regularly monitored by management. All too often, these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are poorly or misleading defined producing conflicting reports, which are misunderstood by the stakeholders.
Additionally, the individual teams need to be motivated and properly incentivised to ensure that the business unit achieves their KPI targets each month. No significant investment in ‘Technology’ and ‘Processes’ is initially needed to make the ‘People’ element work effectively.
James Tanner
Managing Director
Communications Department Ltd
For more information call 020 8127 8302
Email your comments to James at jtanner@communication-department.co.uk
Communications Department Ltd is a telecom & call centre consultancy based in the UK. Communications Department helps organisations maximise the efficiency of call handling teams across Europe to become leaders in their industry.
For more details on how to improve contact centre performance click here »