CRM software in the contact center reveals as much about its maker as it does about the customer.
Denis
Pombriant has an examination of employee attrition rates in the contact
center – as high as fifty percent. He suggests that inordinate stress
in the occupation comes because many centers are asking the agent to
make up for too many deficiencies in the processes, both programmed in
the system and prescribed by the company protocols.
“What the attrition crisis in the call center tells
me is something different. Products – especially new technology
products – are to one degree or another hard to use or understand or
they are outright confusing, especially if they do something new.
Companies appear increasingly bureaucratic as they attempt through
self-service to get answers to people without the need for
person-to-person interaction. In our increasingly difficult to realize
efforts to constantly grow business, we may be overshooting the
customer’s ability to consume.
“If that is true, then it helps to explain the
situation in the call center and how to fix it. Very simply, we may be
asking the call center representative to make up for flaws in product,
service and after-purchase processes design. To go back to Drucker, the
way to split the call center agent’s job and manage it more effectively
may be to go upstream to build better, simpler and more elegant and
intuitive products. In other words, the split should happen with
product designers and developers. – Call Center Attrition
The agents who staff the contact centers are
like the canaries sent into mines to see if the air is breathable or
not. And if one out of two of them are leaving the business, then the
message coming back from the actual world of customer service and
support is that CRM development has a long way to go yet.
It was supposed to be such a perfect system:
“Although much has changed over the past 2 decades,
the goal of sales automation software remains the same: make it easy to
help sales reps help themselves, and their customers, to increase
sales. CRM software is designed to
accomplish this goal in two ways: by automating redundant parts of the
sales process, which saves time, and by putting all the necessary
information right at the fingertips of the sales team.” – 10 Tips To Help New Reps Increase Sales with CRM
VladS at ITToolbox gave the perfect
explanation two years ago of how the relationship works between
customer and service agent, and how much more easily the service agent
(Charlie) can upsell a customer than a sales agent (Bob). He also shows
in this quoted passage the downside of getting too greedy and
destroying customer trust.
“If you are like me, you will be more trusting of
Charlie then of Bob. I know for a fact Bob is there to sell, but I have
a feeling that Charlie is there to help me, not sell me stuff I don’t
need. Why do I feel this way? Well, most of the time I call a contact
center, they try to help me with the problem I call about, without
trying to up-sell or cross-sell me on other stuff. In other words, past
experience.
“Now, what would happen if the typical help desk call
always involves a pitch for something I may or may not need? In other
words, if we tried to convert most contact centers into profit centers,
the line between Charlie and Bob will blur. The end result? I will be
less trusting, and finally, less loyal to the company. Making a profit
is a good goal to have, but having it at the expense of diminishing the
total service experience and customer trust may not be worth the extra
buck.” – The Contact Center cost center, the Contact Center profit center
Tomorrow we’ll continue to examine what’s going on with the contact center and its CRM….
