Is Your Contact Center As Good As You Think?

In the vision of our organization and our contact center, we always like to think that we offer a good service to our clients. That can change at any moment, considering our current environment of constant evolution. For one thing, customers’ expectations are increasing. They want a perfect experience on their terms, and this challenges our speed and effectiveness.

Because of this dynamic environment, it’s important to establish a continuous improvement model that includes a reality check of our operations. We should determine a framework of specific verification points with enough detail to have a good diagnosis and performance indicators to know the current state of our performance.

One relevant advantage of creating such a framework is that you have a recognized reference. Its consistency is defined by a committee that should update it on a regular basis, according to the evolution of technology, services, and customer expectations.

Such a framework should consider:

• The strategic, operational, and support planes
• The people, technology, and processes
• The customer experience

Figure 1 includes a map of different modules that a high scope framework could include.

Once we carry out a reality check, the next step would be to address the areas of opportunity to take our center to a better shape in our services and customer experience.

It is important to point out that, at all times, we will seek to evaluate the required investments with a model to estimate the return on investment. It is also important to note that you do not necessarily need to go the certification route to seek out continuous improvement.

The following questions could arise:

• When is it appropriate to do an assessment of my center?
• How many frameworks are available? What differences do they have and what investment does it imply?
• Should the assessment include the entire framework or can it be modular?
• How can I estimate the necessary budget in my center, to maintain/increase customer satisfaction?

Here are some factors to consider:

• As a continuous improvement process, we should consider a periodical review of our center’s health.
• There are several frameworks to review and decide which one is convenient for your organization, according to its scope, modularity, and investment.
• It might be important to define if the self-assessment alternative is valuable to your organization.

The immediate benefits of self-assessment include:

• A culture of quality, and compliance with good practices is created or reinforced
• Alignment of the support areas with operations according to the company's strategy
• A starting point for immediate improvement actions

Change in this industry is constant, and so we should constantly seek ways to improve. A methodical method for seeking that improvement can help.