Call
Center
Balanced Scorecard
More and more
Call Centers are adopting Call Center Balanced Scorecard. When
applied effectively, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a
value-based proposition for both you and your customer, ensuring
satisfying customer interactions that promote enduring customer
loyalty. If your organization has adopted CRM, you know that this
approach is a strategic tool for discovering value to and value from
the customer.
Business goals
for customer service have shifted dramatically in recent years, from
delivery of low-cost service to delivery of value-based CRM, yet the
methods used to measure call center performance have not kept pace.
These changes have likely had an impact on all customer interactions
within your organization, not only in customer service, but also in
sales and marketing. And they have also impacted the way these
departments relate to each other. Although there has been a
proliferation of CRM enterprise solutions during this period,
measuring the impact of CRM in the call center remains problematic.
Call centers that fail to measure CRM success metrics (those
measures that define good CRM) keep the organization from
opportunities that could ultimately contribute to their success and
longevity. Here comes the concept of Call Center Balanced
Scorecard.
The Call Center
Balanced Scorecard approach to call center performance measurement
is based on the success metrics that define good CRM. With this
approach, indicators of customer experience and loyalty are balanced
against indicators of costs attributed to delivering good CRM. The
Call Center Balanced Scorecard approach starts with a blank slate
and asks:
·
What measurements are needed in the call
center to provide the necessary focus on what makes customers more
loyal?
·
What measurements relevant to the customer
experience impact loyalty and how do these measurements impact the
cost to deliver CRM?
Customer
loyalty and associated costs to deliver a CRM initiative can be
gauged best by measurements of customer satisfaction, first contact
resolution, and employee satisfaction. Additional measures include
customer repurchase, revenue/customer by segment, profit/customer by
segment, cost of sale/segment (cost of up-sell/cross-sell),
cost/case, and cost/call. All of these indicators can be measured,
monitored, and managed through the call
center.
Customer
Satisfaction and Call Center Balanced Scorecard: Customer
satisfaction provides valuable information about the customer
experience, yet customer satisfaction surveys used by most
organizations seldom include assessment of those aspects of the
customer interaction that drive defection or loyalty. The Call
Center Balanced Scorecard defines a good customer satisfaction
survey as one that references specific interactions with the call
center and is conducted close enough in time to the interaction to
be actionable. Since most customers never tell the organization why
they defected, questions are designed to get at this information.
Instead of the typical questions such as how long customers were on
hold, their reactions to the message or music played during the
wait, or how easy it was for them to navigate the organization’s Web
site, a good survey will ask questions that determine if the
encounter with the CSR will influence customer loyalty.
The best survey
instruments are those that get the largest number of responses with
the greatest amount of detail from the customer base. These surveys
are brief and to the point, and are conducted using the channel that
provides the best fit for the customer. A telephone survey is most
appropriate when speed of contact is the priority, while a Web-based
tool is best suited for customers of an online firm. If the customer
base is young, an impersonal channel is typically preferred, while
older customers usually prefer a more personal
channel.
Call Center Indicators: Customer satisfaction is
measured at the call center level by value segment and profit level.
At this level, customer satisfaction is defined by the net profit of
the customer to the organization, not by the amount the customer
spends. Survey questions focus on what makes high-value, high net
profit customers loyal. Interactions are referenced by date and
customers are asked if, based on the interaction, they would be more
likely, about the same, or less likely to repurchase goods/services
from the organization. Customer retention is a key indicator of
customer satisfaction that can be trended to identify retention
rates (positive values) and defection rates (negative values). These
trends are evaluated to assess whether customer satisfaction goals
are being met or whether improvement is needed with the help of Call
Center Balanced Scorecard.
