Almost everyone hates call centres. Just saying the words “call centre” in any randomly composed group of people is enough to set off a rant. People hate waiting in queues. They hate being told “we are currently experiencing high call volumes” by a recorded voice at 8pm, when the voice is clearly lying. They hate being told “your call is important to us” when it obviously isn’t. They hate speaking to people who are too poorly trained to answer their questions, or simply not allowed to do so. They hate having their conversations scripted, and they hate being stonewalled.
If you’ve ever dealt with a corporate call centre as a customer, you know the feeling.
There’s something very puzzling about this, though. If customers are as important as everyone says they are, then why make one of their primary contact points with your brand a miserable, frustrating experience?
The cynical answer to this question is that customers actually don’t count at all – that once we’ve made a purchase or been locked into a contract we can safely be shunted off to the sidelines. If it’s too late to back out or change our minds, our lack of satisfaction can safely be ignored – although “unsatisfied” doesn’t begin to describe the intensity of the feelings a bad call centre experience can evoke.
It can’t be the whole answer, though, because businesses aren’t stupid. We all know it’s easier to keep a customer than to get a new one. And the costs of getting new customers are likely to be much lower if they hear glowing reports about you from all their friends.
So, what’s the real problem? Poor management is part of the answer; poor training is another. Call centres that are understaffed, or where managers don’t have time to supervise and coach staff properly, are very unlikely to deliver happy customer experiences.
A third part of the answer is poor technology – systems that simply aren’t up to the job, or can’t work properly together. Simply giving customers the option to leave a message and be called back later can make a big difference – but not if the technology doesn’t allow for it. Similarly, a call distribution system that’s not up to scratch won’t make the best use of available resources; and without accurate information about call volumes, call durations and caller behaviour, proper planning is a lot harder.
How do companies end up with sub-par technology? Part of the answer can be laid at the door of the communication gap between IT departments and the rest of the business. Line of business managers struggle to explain their needs in IT terms, and IT people whose main task is to keep everything stable may be reluctant to try new things.
Things are even worse when senior managers don’t actually understand how call centres work, or what their real costs are. Financial officers, in particular, who aren’t informed of the true costs of technology – and technology failure – may not make the right investment decisions.
Effective call centre technology not only provides better customer care, it also frees managers to spend more time on managing their staff, and less time sorting out technology issues. High-quality, easily accessible call recordings make supervision and coaching much easier – and time spent developing staff on the front line translates directly into a better customer experience.
The “we don’t have the money for all this” excuse has worn thin. Technology like this used to be very expensive, but with hosted platforms offering software as a service, it’s now within the financial reach of even quite small operations. More and more, organisations that don’t make the investment are going to start inviting the suspicion that they’re in the “customers don’t matter” camp.
