Today, yesterday, and for decades previously, contact centers have been measuring productivity through metrics focused on speed. But now, we’re asking, are these the right numbers to look at?
Productivity-based metrics like speed to answer and handle time are very individualistic measurements and promote a headcount-based mentality. If you’d like more calls completed, then you hire more people – but does this really improve your productivity?
And as we trial new methods for measuring our agents’ productivity and progress, we’re finding that there are better ways to improve productivity, reduce your costs, and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
So how do we truly improve productivity, satisfaction, and outcomes? In our latest article, we delve into the two big problems with how contact center agents are measured, how Omada One is turning the formula on its head, and the impressive results achieved by this.
The problems with current contact center metrics
In many cases, contact center agents are driven by measures that aren’t actually based on the outcomes that customers are looking for. This leads to two big problems:
- Lagging measures don’t help customers get their desired outcomes
When we consider typical contact center measures, we might believe that they’re driven by outcomes. On the surface, a quick handle time may look like the agent solved the customer’s problems promptly – but if you dig deeper, this could simply mean that the agent passed the customer onto another department or that the customer left the call without a resolution.
The drive to speed through interactions affects both the customers and agents:
- From the customer’s perspective, it brings up questions like, “Are you really trying to solve my issues, or are you simply trying to get me off the phone?”
- And from the agent’s perspective, it reduces the quality of their work, adds stress as they watch the clock tick, and reduces morale across the team.
And after the call is completed, customers are asked to rate their agents and whether they’d recommend the business’s services. We ask this to try to understand if the customer got what they wanted – but how likely is the customer to give a good rating if they didn’t get their desired outcome?
Instead, we should be trying to figure out what the customer wants at the beginning to make sure we help them get the outcome they need.
- Lagging measures lead to siloes and broken journeys
Contact centers have been made into part of the customer journey, which has reduced them to one small part of an entire process – for example, a center that deals with service/product cancellations.
This means that for customers to get what they want they may transition through four or five contact centers or teams. And each one will ask them the same question, “Did we service you? Were you happy? Did you get what you were looking for?”
(And if a customer is rehashing their problem the fourth or fifth time, their response to the survey will most likely be negative.)
There’s a mismatch in what the customer wants and what the contact centers can do, and that’s because they’re pushing forward a siloed approach.
So how should contact centers process customers?
We sat down with one of Omada One’s agents to learn more about the new way she works and the results she achieves with the new methodology we’ve utilized.
Rica Andrea Atienza works as a Customer Service Representative in supply chain management, where we’ve changed how customers get serviced:
- We ask customers more open questions to better understand what they want
- We’ve started creating teams that cover the entire customer journey so that one team can focus on the customer’s entire journey together, rather than individual parts of it.
This means that Rica works with each of the various teams to supply one entire outcome.
Rica says that this methodology has changed her entire working life. “Before I was driven by metrics. Now I’m measured on my output, on my outcomes, and what I actually can get done for the customer,” she says.
“My work and life balance are better than before, and I can say that my professional life is no longer within the four walls of our office. I’m under less stress because I get to express my own working style – it used to be all scripted, but now I’m able to do it on my own. It’s like, ‘You do you,’ and I have my own processes and I finish faster.”
Rica started as Omada One’s first agent – and now she’s grown our teams and continues bringing in new team members as needed.
While it takes an immense amount of trust to allow agents to apply their own individual methods to resolving customer problems, this also gives agents far more meaning and responsibility in their work. So does working together to oversee the entire customer journey. We’re seeing our agents grow in skill and confidence, as well as improve as a team to achieve better outcomes and work more productively.
An outcome-based methodology improves customer satisfaction
While Omada One’s new ways of working are still developing, we’re already getting fantastic feedback from customers. Customers are giving Rica 5 out of 5s – and this is seen across the board for all of our customer service teams.
And from the customer perspective, we’re seeing their relationships deepen with the businesses that serve them. And this is the true measure of customer satisfaction – whether they want to continue engaging with your business.
Customers are getting more engaged because of the way our agents work and look for different types of outcomes.
When you get the right people and you give them that trust, the outcomes are absolutely obvious.
How can you start changing your own customer service methodology?
The status quo can be hard to change – but if you’ve noticed that you’ve been failing to provide consistent outcomes, it may be time for a new direction.
The key to evolving the way your agents work is to focus back on the customer:
- What does your customer really want?
- Are you using a siloed approach?
- Are your current measures helping or hindering your customer’s satisfaction and outcomes?
By asking these questions, you can understand where your gaps are and how your customers are affected by them – as well as learn where to improve.
At Omada One, we help organizations do exactly this, either by working with you or doing it for you. Our expert teams can help you identify solutions to customer service challenges as well as provide motivated and competent agents if you need them.
You can contact us to start a conversation about your needs today.
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