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 Can Your CRM Staff e-Satisfy? The number of companies with formal CRM programs is on the rise. A recent CRM Census Research survey indicated that 42% of the 100 companies surveyed have a formal CRM program. The rest planned to implement one by 2002. While CRM or Customer Relationship Management means different things to different people, it generally encompasses some of the following components:
While the world feverishly designed web sites in 2000, most do not offer the option to communicate with a "live" agent. According to a recent Datamonitor survey companies lost $1.6 billion by neglecting to offer live on-line representatives in a contact center. Less than 1% of all e-commerce Web sites currently offer live assistance. While CRM holds many promises - lower costs, efficiency gains, better service and scalability, it also creates new challenges. One of the most significant is the creation of a CRM model that will meet the business needs and create customer contact points to improve service and retention. It takes proper planning to align people and processes to optimize your CRM investment. The best companies will hire the best talent to ensure an effective foundation for successful CRM. A skilled agent will still provide that important link between the customer and the corporation. A good model lets customers choose whether to self-serve or interact with a real person. A successful closure and is dependent upon the skills of the agent to satisfy the customer's needs across any of those contact points. The typical skills needed in a CRM environment are:
Those that are starred (*) exist in today's contact center, while the others are additional skills needed to effectively implement CRM programs. Technology can channel phone, email and web access into the same queues, but most contact centers separate skill groups for the following reasons:
Different skill levels within a specialized skill group are often created to provide growth opportunities, more choices for the agent and better service. Growth opportunities lead to increased retention. Segmenting the skill groups also expands the range of qualified hires whereas expecting agents to have all the requisite skills reduces the range. Just adding portals can pose problems. For example, SOCAP surveyed client companies in 1999. They found that 57% of companies polled who had enabled email experienced a 148% increase in email contacts per week. Many experienced service problems and/or had their servers crash due to unexpected volume. What they had expected is that about 30% of customers who normally call might use email. So CRM can be a management challenge with such issues as:
A starting point, therefore, is to ensure that managers have the training needed to manage these new multi-channel centers. Incoming Call Center Management Institute (www.incoming.com), Call Center Coach (www.callcentercoach.com), Purdue's Call Center Campus (www.e-interactions.com) are all resources. Another resource is the Call Center Industry Advisory Council (www.ciac-cert.org). This non-profit group is developing Call Center certification and certification training, which will greatly enhance the professionalism of the industry. Once the management skills are in place, the agent planning can take place. This planning can be organized along three key strategies:
The current skills sets of your agents are likely to be centered around phone activities. CRM service will require expanded capabilities. Look at the skills list above. Determine both the skills of your current agents along with the depth of those skills. For example, if your center provides basic information exchange without much data to help the agent understand the history and value of that customer, CRM will require a higher level of interaction, removing the simple transactions to some self-serve mode such as the IVR or web. An audit of your current agents helps determine what CRM strategies can be implemented and where the skill gaps are. Good assessment tools will be key to determining the potential of existing agents or new ones. One fact is true. Not all phone reps can handle email or web transactions and not all email or web agents can handle phone contacts. So, your direction may be to upgrade the skills of some agents and hire new ones to cover the skill gaps. Finally, communicate, communicate, communicate. It is essential before, during and after CRM implementation. Get your agents involved and excited about the changes. They will be given an opportunity to grow and growth opportunity is the number one motivator of employees. Assure your agents that change will not translate into the dreaded D-word, Downsizing. Involve agents in the planning. It's part of the "empowerment" strategy. It will help raise enthusiasm, even though CRM may not be a smooth process, and it will ensure that customer issues will be addressed. No one knows your customers better than your agents. The most important communication of all is with your customers. Let them know you are making changes to enhance service. Then equip your agents to listen and document any problems that they detect through their customer contacts. Audit the contacts for quality and ask your customers for feedback. Then, most importantly, be sure to review these issues regularly and communicate how you plan to process improve. A successful CRM strategy can get you on the fast track with customers. Proper planning, particularly around the contact portals that are supported by your agents, will ensure that you move forward and realize the benefits that CRM offers. About the Author To develop "Best Practice Strategies, Ms. Lauritzen served on a "Best Practice" project team with other companies in a formal American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) study. She also conducts annual Global Surveys to define staffing trends. Ms. Lauritzen is a featured speaker at many Call Center Forums, Workshops and Conferences in North America, including Purdue Call Center Conference, IQPC conferences, Call Center Demo and ICCM. In Canada, she has spoken at the Welland, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Toronto Call Center Forums. She is a past Advisory Board Member for the Customer Support Management magazine, President of the International Customer Service Association's Call Center Chapter and a Board Member of the Call Center Advisory Council - a group developing International Certification for Call Center Staff. Ms. Lauritzen has a M.S. in Educational Psychology. She can be reached via e-mail at linda.lauritzen@manpower.com.
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