ICMI's Executives and the Contact Center Report - Key Findings

Original Publication: Customer Management Insight - July 2007
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ICMI recently conducted a survey to take a glimpse into the executive suite to see how contact center leaders are evaluating the future and responding to the call to change. More than 300 global contact center professionals from a variety of industries participated. The research provides input on key strategic activities from many different vantage points throughout the operation. Following are some of the key findings of the survey:

• A key role of the contact center executive is to identify customer needs and wants. There are a number of tools available in centers to get this information, with the most popular today being satisfaction surveys, followed closely by call recordings. Other tools commonly used to identify customer feedback include CRM/call-tracking systems and escalated call reporting tools.

• While 73.4% of centers reported having a call-recording tool in place, only 23.2% of centers said that executives actually listen to recordings of customer-agent interactions. Likewise, 34.2% of centers have a CRM/call-tracking tool in place, but only 18% indicated that executives consult the data and reports generated by these systems when identifying customer needs.

• There are two tools that get substantial use when available – customer satisfaction surveys and escalated/ complaint call reporting tools; 74% of participants report satisfaction survey results as one of the top three ways to get input from customers – nearly all of the 77.1% that have them available. Likewise, 39.5% of participants indicated that escalated/complaint call reports were in the top three, while only slightly more than that (44.5%) have them available.

• The explosion of blogs and other outlets for customers on the Internet does not seem to have influenced executives to take this as a credible source for feedback. Only 2.9% of respondents reported this as a top-three method for assessing needs.

• We asked the survey respondents questions concerning the organization’s ability to meet customer satisfaction needs. Most (61.5%) described themselves as competitive within the industry, with another one in three centers (30.7%) considering themselves to have industry-leading results with regard to satisfying customers. The remaining centers stated that they were either below average or at the bottom of the industry.

• When asked to rank executive leadership’s understanding of the unique dynamics of the contact center (e.g., how it works, what is measured, what impacts what, etc.), more than half of respondents said “good” or “very good,” with most of the remaining respondents indicating that execs’ understanding of contact center dynamics was “fair.”

• According to respondents’, leadership’s understanding of the contact center’s value to the enterprise is a little better: More than two in three ranked executives as “good” or “very good” in this area. Only 8.9% ranked them as “poor” or “very poor.”

• In the majority of centers surveyed (60.5%), executives either never walk the center floor or do so less than an hour each week. Even when executives do spend time in the contact center, very few take the time to “plug in” and listen to live customer calls (or listen to call recordings): Nearly three in four respondents (73%) reported that executives are not expected to do so, and another 21.2% indicated that listening to customer calls is expected but not required.

• Over two-thirds of respondents indicated that company leaders are “absolutely” or “for the most part” providing the support and resources the center needs to succeed. Still in all, that leaves one in three centers that are insufficiently supported by executive leadership.