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The greatest myth in customer-driven support organizations is that technology is the ultimate driver of productivity and that a CRM system packed with all the latest bells and whistles is really all your company needs to jump ahead of the competition. While it’s true that CRM systems promised results – the kind that can shift markets and move stock prices, in many real world executive suites, the day after admission is that most CRM initiatives have disappointed, and in some cases even hurt relationships with valued customers. In survey after survey, consumers confess that they are still hugely dissatisfied with their support center experiences –often characterized by long wait times, repeated transfers, lack of email responsiveness, and uneasy cross-selling pitches. The key cause of this mess which so many companies find themselves in today is that all of the investment in CRM went into technologies that would help manage the “work” and little thought has been given to managing the “people” who would interact with the technology and, most importantly, the customers. Technologies promise transformation. Early on, CRM futurists envisioned a world where, customers would solve their own service issues with a push of a telephone button, and service agents would become sales agents -- quickly switching gears to cross-sell and up-sell based on CRM’s 360 degree view of the customer. Perhaps most importantly, the dream was that customer information would foster customer intimacy providing insulation from competitive assaults. The reality today is much different. Instead, the same service agent sits in a cube with a new job description, a training binder, and very complex technology. Managers and supervisors are in the same boat – their scope has expanded, but so has the complexity associated with running the center. Given these marketplace realities, how do you get results? How can you extract more value out of your CRM initiative? The answer is by improving operational performance by better managing people. Managing people begins with information. Today, without a supporting system, managers rely on reports from disparate systems and experienced gut feel. They look at call volume, talk time, email volume and much more. They use their instincts and track record with the teams. But, with all of that, the questions still remain – how did that one individual perform? How did 250 individuals perform? With a performance management system, which overlays CRM systems, managers can begin the crucial work of managing people. Managers can begin to answer critical questions like how productive were my agents today? Was each agent fully utilized? Where should my coaching time be spent? How do I balance quality, service and cost?
First, process enhancements and training make sure people are competently executing the right activities in an efficient way. Second, development of new management information, created from data found in silos across the organization, provides a critical set of metrics that support managing operational performance in a whole new way. CRM technologies provide key metrics for managing the “work”, such as revenue, customer rankings, and average speed of answer. What they don’t provide is any indication of how those executing the work are performing and specifically what opportunities exist for improving performance. Improve Results from CRM Initiatives Where should a company start, and how can performance management deliver on the CRM promise? For those companies that are in the trenches with new technologies or planning new technology investments, delivering answers to these 5 questions can mean the difference between qualified successes and dissatisfied customers. 1.
Do You Know How To Measure Productivity? Performance management systems give managers power. Today’s best performance management systems are built on Activity Based Costing principles that call for a structured approach to identify and analyze center activities. Those activities are then married with “time to complete” to produce a universal productivity measurement. Regardless of activity mix or volume, management is able to apply these numbers to better plan work and evaluate performance. A critical underpinning to realizing the benefits of an activity based costing approach is to make sure the foundation being measured is a strong one. Business processes must be logically ordered and streamlined. Activities must be value added. In essence, the quantum productivity improvements come first from improving the foundation and then from applying the right toolset to measure and manage on an ongoing basis. 2.
Can You Effectively Manage Individual Performance? Performance management systems play an integral role in providing insights to managers and individual agents. Reports from these systems spit out key metrics including productivity, utilization, quality and cost, for each agent as well as each team. Managers can use these reports to solve problems quickly and motivate agents to extend performance. For individuals, they function as personal scorecards inspiring agents to do better. For one telecommunications company headquartered in the Midwest, consolidation of five service centers into one virtual center spurred management to raise the bar on overall performance. The work performed at each center was nearly identical, but agents were managed very differently. When center consolidation took place, a performance management system was implemented. Fair and consistent measurement was the goal for all agents regardless of the activities they performed or their mix of work. Results were dramatic. Agents immediately believed in the credibility and fairness of the information coming from the performance management reports. Motivation, combined with management attention on individual problem areas, took this new virtual center to the next level. 3.
Can You Predict And Measure The Impact Of Change On People? The engine that drives changes down to the desktop level is a performance management system. Desktop level change is difficult for centers. Every activity must be understood at a granular level – call types, call lengths, call complexities, call volumes, employee skill sets, scheduling requirements to name a few. Hours of observation and analysis are needed to establish this information before the system can use it to support the planning, management and measurement of performance. Once
that baseline is in place, new changes can be planned for and implemented
with predictable results. Managers have answers to questions like “what
will be the impact of adding a new product screen and pitch to our up-sell
portfolio?” Without sound predictions from a performance management system, the only path management could see was to increase staffing, which they did. With costs up and sales flat, this initiative fell short of expectations to say the least. 4.
Does Your Training Keep Pace With Needs? Earlier this year, change was happening very quickly at one insurance company’s contact center. A new front-office system had been implemented and classroom training had been conducted. However, the center was vastly under-performing in attempts to cross-sell and up-sell customers on a series of new homeowners policies. A review of the performance management report indicated that as a team, productivity was sharply down. Upon closer observation, thirteen new hires were struggling to use the customer product history function in the new system and were extending call lengths and creating backlogs. Desktop level training was quickly developed for this function and agents were trained in a fifteen-minute conference room session. Results improved immediately. This is a great example of training being executed at the speed of business. 5.
Are You Willing To Take A New Approach To Achieve CRM Results? Realizing Performance Management Benefits Performance management systems are already changing the way service centers are managed. And as we look to finally realize the true promise of CRM, we can see that getting down to the desktop level and managing people is how we are actually going to build the bridges that connect us with our customers in the future.
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