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Contact Center Services I

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 CONTACT CENTER SERVICES MODULE MONTH 1
QUARTER 1 – Module 1

1.1 The Role of the Contact Center

A contact center is “a coordinated system of people, processes, technologies and strategies

that provide access to information, resources and expertise, through appropriate channels of
communication, enabling interactions that create value for the customer and organization.

Contact centers are focused on aligning and matching organizational resources with
customer demands through any channel of communication.

Contact Center Management

Due to the complexities of this demand-chasing environment, contact center management
takes knowledge, commitment and investment. Bringing together the people, processes,
technologies and strategies needed to consistently handle customer requests is a complex, multi-
faceted task. ICMI (International Customer Management Institute) defines contact center
management as:

“The art of having the right number of properly skilled people and supporting
resources in place at the right time to handle an accurately forecasted workload, at
service level and with quality.”

This definition can be boiled down to two major objectives: 1) Get the right resources in the right
places at the right times; and 2) do the right things. Or more concisely, provide service level with
quality.

Contact Center Profession

A profession is a vocation that requires training and specific qualifications. That certainly
describes the role of a contact center leader!

Effective contact center leaders possess the following skills:

• Leadership and management: A contact center leader establishes the strategic direction
of the center and ensures that operational results achieve the organization’s goals.

• Communication: A contact center leader must be able to communicate with multiple

groups of people within the organization in a manner that both gathers and disseminates
information. This requires strong written, oral and interpersonal communication skills.

• Project management: A contact center leader ensures that initiatives are accomplished
and commitments are met in a timely, consistent manner.

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 • Quantitative analysis: A contact center leader analyzes data from multiple sources and
determines action plans based on the analysis.

• Process improvement: A contact center leader designs and improves processes to ensure
consistent, quality handling of customer requests.

• Performance assessments: A contact center leader assesses the performance of the

center, agent groups and individuals to determine if organizational goals are being
accomplished.

• Technical knowledge: A contact center leader understands the fundamental principles at

work in contact centers and how to deploy the people, processes, technology and strategy
to operate successfully within that environment.

Activity 1
Directions: Identify the following and write the CORRECT answer on the space provided
before each number.

1. Who defines contact management as “The art of having the right

number of properly skilled people and supporting resources in place at the right time to handle an
accurately forecasted workload, at service level and with quality?”

2. A contact center leader understands the fundamental principles at work

in contact centers and how to deploy the people, processes, technology and strategy to operate
successfully within that environment.

3. A contact center leader must be able to communicate with multiple

groups of people within the organization in a manner that both gathers and disseminates
information.

4. A profession is a vocation that requires training and specific

qualifications.

5. A contact center leader ensures that initiatives are accomplished and

commitments are met in a timely, consistent manner.

6. A contact center leader analyzes data from multiple sources and

determines action plans based on the analysis.

7. Are focused on aligning and matching organizational resources with

customer demands through any channel of communication.

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 8. A contact center leader establishes the strategic direction of the center
and ensures that operational results achieve the organization’s goals.

9. It takes knowledge, commitment and investment.

10. A contact center leader assesses the performance of the center, agent
groups and individuals to determine if organizational goals are being accomplished.

Activity 2
Directions: Arrange the following jumbled words below. (BPO COMPANIES)

1. CONCNTERIX = 6. ACCENURET =
2. QRIO = 7. ZONAMA =
3. TELSI = 8. VRTEXE =
4. RIACLOA = 9. TECHELET =
5. STHERULNDA = 10. IVX =

1.2 Customer Expectations and Organizational Value

When interacting with a contact center, typical customer expectations include:

o Be accessible
o Treat me courteously
o Be responsive to what I need and want
o Do what I ask promptly
o Provide well-trained and informed employees
o Tell me what to expect
o Meet your commitments, keep your promises
o Do it right the first time
o Be socially responsible and ethical
o Follow up

Before customers pick up the phone or write the first word of an email, they hold a set of
expectations about that interaction. Surprisingly, what constitutes customer expectations has
remained stable over time. ICMI developed a list of ten customer expectations based on customer
feedback and surveys over 20 years ago. These customer expectations remain the same today.
What has changed, however, is how customers define each of these expectations.

Customer expectations evolve because customers’ experiences change. The service

customers have received from your center in the past influences the level of service they will expect

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during their next contact. Even the service customers receive from other centers will impact their
perception of good or poor service from your center. Contact center managers need to not only
understand what customers expect from the organization, but also identify when expectations are
shifting and know how to reposition the contact center to respond to those changes.

Organizational Value
For the most part, today’s contact centers are recognized for the strategic value they
possess. ICMI has categorized this organizational value into three levels.

Three Levels of Value Customer contact centers have the potential to create value on
three distinct levels:

LEVEL 1: EFFICIENCY. Because contact centers pool information, people and

technology resources, they are a highly efficient means of delivering service. Appropriate
forecasts, accurate staffing and schedules, and effective real-time management complement
and further the center's inherent efficiencies. And these disciplines retain their importance,
even as an ever-expanding array of contact channels become part of the mix.

LEVEL 2: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY. In recent years, research

has begun to reveal the powerful connection between high levels of satisfaction and
profitability. And given today's powerful social communities and the opportunity for
customers to share experiences, every interaction must be viewed as an event that can have
an impact, positive or negative, on the organization's brand reputation.

LEVEL 3: STRATEGIC VALUE. The contact center is the customer's moment of truth,
shaping how they perceive and will interact with the organization in the future. But there's
far more to it — in the course of handling interactions and capturing customer input, the
contact center can become a powerful source of intelligence (based on customer data and
insight), helping business units across the board improve products, services and processes.
Every day, more organizations are transitioning their centers from a rote focus on efficiency
to better harnessing their strategic potential. Having a greater business impact requires
objectives and measures that support organization wide contributions. It is essential to take
inventory of job roles, technologies, processes and organizational design, and align them to
deliver maximum value on all three levels.

Excerpt from Call Center Management on Fast Forward Third Edition by Brad Cleveland,
ICMI, 2012
Contact center leaders can use these levels to focus their efforts on improving the value of
their centers. Operating more efficiently contributes to the financial strength of an organization,
satisfying customers creates brand loyalty and increased profitability, and providing customer

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intelligence to other business units establishes the center as a powerful tool for the future growth
of the organization.

1.3 Inbound, Outbound, and Blended Centers

• Inbound contact centers handle contacts initiated by the customer. In general, their strategic
purpose is to respond to customer requests when the customer chooses and using what contact
channel the customer prefers. These requests are typically sales, service or technical support
related. Inbound only centers may handle some outbound contacts, but the center is still classified
as inbound only if those outbound contacts constitute work directly related to individual inbound
contacts. For example, if a roadside assistance contact center must call the customer back to
confirm that a tow truck will assist them shortly, this center would still be considered an inbound
center.

• Outbound contact centers handle contacts initiated by the center. Generally, their strategic
purpose is to proactively engage the customer to achieve a sales, service or technical support goal.
Organizations may have previously asked customers what time of day they would rather to be
contacted or which contact channel they prefer, but the contact center ultimately chooses when to
make the contact and which contact channel to use.

• Blended (inbound/outbound) contact centers handle both inbound and outbound contacts.
Blended centers may have separate agent
groups to handle inbound work and outbound work or they may have combined agent groups that
handle both inbound and outbound work as the inbound workload allows. The term blended center
can be confusing because it is sometimes also applied to centers that handle a variety of contact
channels (i.e., phone, email, social interactions). For the purposes of certification, a blended center
refers to a center that handles both inbound and outbound contacts.

The impact of whether contacts are initiated by the customer (inbound) or initiated by the
center (outbound) is greatest in the following operational areas:

• Strategic planning: Inbound and outbound only centers share a common limit of strategic scope.
They typically were created to serve one purpose or one customer base. Blended centers have
greater strategic scope of activities. They serve both an inbound strategy and an outbound strategy.
One of these strategies must be designated as the primary strategy and the other as secondary. The
fact that there are two strategies creates a higher level of complexity than inbound only or outbound
only.

• Performance measures: Due to the separate operational dynamics of handling an inbound

workload versus initiating contact with customers through outbound contacts, the performance
metrics required to measure the effectiveness of the center differ greatly.

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• Forecasting and staffing: Centers handling inbound contacts must forecast (i.e., predict) how
many contacts will be received at what time of day and staff accordingly, typically down to the
half-hour. Centers handling an outbound workload can decide how many contacts to make at
what time of day based on a variety of factors, such as time of day effectiveness, staff availability
and the strategic importance of the campaign.

• Real-time management: Managing the queue in real time is more complex in a blended center
than in an inbound only or outbound only center. Appropriate thresholds must be set for real time
analysts to know when to change dialer pacing or when to move agents between queues so that the
analysts do not react too quickly or wait too long to respond.

• Technology: Outbound only centers require the addition of dialer technology that can dial the
number of telephone numbers that are required in order to achieve the desired right party contact
(RPC) rate. It should also be noted that blended centers typically have a higher reliance on
technology than inbound only or outbound only centers as they need to balance the inbound calls
with outbound dialing.

• Regulations: Inbound and outbound contacts are regulated differently depending on their impact
on the customer. Most regulations on inbound contacts are concerned with customer wait time and
access to live agents. Regulations on outbound contacts most often refer to which customers the
center can contact and how much silence a customer can hear before being connected. Blended
centers have the responsibility of following both kinds of regulations.

Activity 3
Directions: Write your own personal understanding about the following concepts below.
1. INBOUND

2. OUTBOUND

3. BLENDED

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 Module 2 The Driving Forces of Contact Centers

2.1 Three Driving Forces of Contact Centers

Contact centers operate in a unique environment. The workload does change from moment
to moment. And when customers don't know how long the queue is, they often become impatient
much more quickly than in settings where they can "see" the line and the progress they are making.

In any center that handles contacts initiated by customers (versus only outbound), three
major driving forces are at work:

• Workload arrival types: smooth, random or peaked

• The visible or invisible queue
• The seven factors of customer tolerance

These driving forces help explain why the contact center environment is so unique.
Understanding them is a prerequisite to making good decisions on everything from staffing and
scheduling requirements to establishing the right performance objectives.

2.2 Workload Arrival Types: Random, Smooth and Peaked

There are three types of workload traffic arrival that represent how contacts arrive
moment by moment:

• Random traffic represents the moment-by-moment ebb and flow of contacts typical in
inbound contact centers.
• Smooth traffic is when contacts arrive in an even flow, which is virtually nonexistent in
incoming contact centers, but can apply in outbound environments.
• Peaked traffic is a surge of contacts beyond random variation within a half-hour.

The traffic arrival type determines the formulas used for staffing calculations, impacts performance
standards and dictates which real-time strategies make the most sense.

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Random (Normal) Arrival
Customer contacts arrive randomly in most
contact centers most of the time. Take a look at a
monitor or a reader board on the wall. Watch the
dynamics. In comes a call. Then one, two more ...
there's another. And two, three, four more ...
Exactly when calls arrive from moment to
moment is the result of decisions made by
customers who are motivated by a myriad of
individual needs and conditions. Put another way,
calls bunch up!

There is an important distinction between random call arrival and predictable call arrival patterns.
Virtually all centers — even those of the more volatile type, such as emergency services centers
— have distinctive calling patterns, which are usually detectable down to at least a half-hour. For
example, it can be predicted that the center will receive around 240 calls next Tuesday between
11:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. What can't be predicted with any precision is how many of those calls
are going to arrive in the first minute, the second minute and so forth. There are several important
implications to random call arrival:
• First, staffing must be calculated by using either a queuing formula that takes random
arrival into account or a computer simulation program that accurately models this
phenomenon. Other approaches almost always lead to inaccurate staffing calculations. And
unfortunately, it's not just staffing that will be off. Because staffing affects the load the
network and systems must carry, miscalculated staff inherently leads to miscalculated
system and network resources.

• Second, centers that handle customer-initiated (inbound) contacts operate in a "demand

chasing" environment. At any given time, there are either more calls than staff to handle
them or more staff than calls. That means contact centers must augment good forecasting
and staffing plans with real-time management. A solid understanding of random arrival is
necessary to avoid overreacting to normal variation in traffic arrival and underreacting to
bona fide trends.

• Third, performance objectives and standards must take random workload arrival into
account. For example, a standard of "N widgets per day" makes no sense in an environment
where the workload arrives randomly. Unless the queue is always backed up and service is
lousy, your agents will spend a portion of their day just waiting for calls to arrive.

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Smooth Traffic
Smooth traffic is virtually nonexistent in centers handling incoming contacts, but can apply
in outbound environments. For example, a group of people may be assigned to make outbound
calls (e.g., for surveys, political interests, non-profit donations, etc.), one after another, for the
duration of their shift. In that case, staffing requirements can be based on a units-of-output
approach common in many manufacturing and service settings, and the number of trunks
(telecommunications circuits) required will be equal to the number of agents placing the calls.

Peaked Traffic
Another type of call arrival — peaked traffic — is a reality in some centers. The term
"peak," in a general sense, can refer to contact center workload: What's your peak time of year?
Peak day of the week? Peak time of day? But the term "peaked traffic" specifically refers to a surge
of traffic beyond random variation. It is a spike within a short period of time.

Television and radio ads will often generate peaked traffic. For example, QVC, Inc. gets a
surge of calls when new products are advertised on its home-shopping channel. Disaster relief and
humanitarian organizations, such as the Red Cross and World Vision, get peaked traffic when their
television or radio ads are aired, as do mobile phone providers when they send SMS messages to
a large portion of their subscribers. And because of the proliferation of always-on Internet services,
email promotions that are sent in batches can also generate an initial surge of contacts (as well as
traffic that will arrive in subsequent hours and days). The (typically) large centers that handle
peaked traffic can go from zero to hundreds of contacts a minute, almost instantly.

It is important to correctly distinguish between random and peaked traffic. When catalog
companies send out thousands of new catalogs by mail or send email offers to their lists, they begin
getting calls associated with the promotion. But that's not peaked call arrival. It's random arrival,
but at a much higher level than recent history. Similarly, a utility that has a power outage will get
a lot of calls until the problem is fixed. But other than the few minutes following the outage, calls
will arrive randomly, albeit at a much higher level than usual.

Activity 4
Directions: Write the letter of the correct answer on the space given before each number.

1. It is a surge of contacts beyond random variation within a half-hour.

a. Peaked b. Random c. Smooth

2. What are the 2 ads that often generates the peaked traffic?
a. Laptop and Radio b. Radio and Cellphone c. TV and Radio

3. It is virtually nonexistent in centers handling incoming contacts, but can apply in

outbound environments.
a. Peaked b. Smooth c. Random

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 4. Customer contacts arrive randomly in most contact centers most of the time.
a. Random b. Peaked c. Smooth

5. It determines the formulas used for staffing calculations, impacts performance standards
and dictates which real-time strategies make the most sense.
a. Arrival b. Time arrival c. Traffic arrival

Additional Activity
Directions: Differentiate the following concepts below.

Random Arrival Smooth Arrival Peaked Arrival

2.3 The Visible or Invisible Queue

• How much callers know about their place and progress in a queue impacts their
perceptions and behaviors.

• Callers who wait longer than they feel is appropriate often voice their complaints to
agents; this takes time, drives up average handling time and further backs up the queue.

• Contact centers can offer visible queues to their customers through the use of predictive
wait announcements that announce expected wait times to individual callers. These
predictions are generally accurate in straightforward queues, especially large agent groups.

• Callers who abandon a visible queue usually do so immediately after hearing the
prediction; those who decide to remain generally do not abandon before reaching an agent.

Queue comes from the word cue, a term from Old French that means "line of waiting
people." It is common in everyday British English (less so in North America, where "line" is
typical) and appears frequently in contact center terminology.

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 Queues are a fact of life in contact centers. After all, answering every call at once would
be about as practical for many centers as it would be for airlines to check in every passenger at one
time. But an important difference between a contact center and the lines at an airline counter,
grocery store or sports arena is that callers usually can't see how long the queue is and the progress
they are making in it.

The top row of faces in the figure Visible or

Invisible Queue, reflects a queue that the
customers can see. Few would choose to wait in
line so, as they enter the queue, the first face
represents them. As they move forward, the
subsequent faces illustrate their progress. The final
face reflects the fact that they "made it." They are
at the counter, hearing the sweet words, how may
I help you?
The second row of faces represents a setting where customers are ignorant of the queue
they are entering. "Ignorance is bliss," and expectations are initially high. But after some amount
of waiting, say 10 or 15 seconds of ringing, they begin to doubt that they are going to get right
through (second face). The third face illustrates the transition from doubt to mild frustration. By
now, they have probably heard the first delay announcement and it confirms that they are in a
queue.

The fourth face represents callers who, from their perspective, have waited too long. Often,
the first thing they do when they reach an agent is tell him or her about the miserable experience
they just had. That's a bad situation because it lengthens call-handling time, which will back up
the queue even more (and may cause even more callers to unload on agents once their calls are
answered). Callers who have waited a long time in queue also tend to "dig in their heels" as they
attempt to squeeze all the value out of the call that they can. Customers seeking technical support
are a classic example: "Geesh, I waited this long to get through, I'd better go over a few more
things while I have you."

Turning the invisible queue into a visible queue by providing predictive wait time
announcements may cause some callers to hang up immediately after hearing the message, if wait
times are long, but those who stay in queue are more likely to remain until they get an answer.

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2.4 Factors Affecting Customer Tolerance

There are seven primary factors that affect customer tolerance:

1. Degree of motivation: How motivated are customers? For example, those

experiencing a power outage will usually wait longer to reach their utility than catalog
customers placing an order for merchandise.

2. Availability of substitutes: Are there substitutes customers can use (e.g., Web or IVR
services) if they cannot get through to the initial number? If they are highly motivated
and have no substitutes, they will retry many times if they get busies and generally will
wait a long time in queue, if necessary.

3. Competition’s service level: If it’s easier for callers to use competitive services, they
may go elsewhere.

4. Level of expectations: The experiences callers have had with the contact center and
the reputation that the organization or industry has for service (or the level of service
being promoted) have a direct impact on tolerance. A 10-minute wait for tax help
during filing season may be perceived as quite acceptable — but a similar wait for a
shipping company that otherwise has a reputation for speedy service would be an
unpleasant surprise.

5. Time available: How much time do customers have at the time of the contact? Doctors
who call insurance providers have a well-deserved reputation for not tolerating even a
modest wait, while retirees calling the same companies may have more time or
inclination to talk. Further, the widespread use of mobile phones has created many
small windows of time customers have to reach the center, such as before boarding a
flight or in between meetings, when long waits are unworkable and frustrating.

6. Who’s paying for the call: In general, customers are more tolerant of a queue when
toll-free service is available. They are less tolerant of a queue when they are paying toll
charges.

7. Human behavior: The weather, the customer’s mood, the time of day and other human
behavior factors all have a bearing on customer tolerance.

These seven factors are not static. They are constantly changing, making abandonment extremely
difficult to predict. Even so, it is important to have a general understanding of the factors affecting
your customers' tolerance.

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Important questions to consider include:
• How motivated are your customers?
• How much does that vary based on the reason for the contact?
• What are their expectations?
• Do they vary based on the reason for the contact?
• What type of customer is least motivated?
• What type of customer is most motivated?
• What alternatives to contacting you do they have?
• Which alternatives would you want/not want them to use?
• Will they already have spent time seeking help (e.g., self-service, search, customer
community, etc.)?
• What level of service are others in the industry providing?
• How do customers tend to rate your service at different service levels?
• What impact does meeting/not meeting expectations have on your brand?
• What is their tendency to share good or bad experiences through social channels?

The answers to these questions will enable you to better understand customer behavior and
establish services that meet their needs and expectations.

ASSESSMENT

.1 Encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. The weather, the customer’s mood, the time of day and other human behavior factors all
have a bearing on customer tolerance.
a. Time available b. Level of expectations c. Human behavior

2. It comes from the word cue, a term from Old French that means "line of waiting people."
a. Queue b. Invisible queue c. Visible queue

3. The experiences callers have had with the contact center and the reputation that the
organization or industry has for service (or the level of service being promoted) have a
direct impact on tolerance.
a. Human behavior b. Who’s paying for the call c. Level of expectations

4. This is where the customers have much time at the time of the contact?
a. Time available b. Level of expectations c. Degree of motivation

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 5. In general, customers are more tolerant of a queue when toll-free service is available. They
are less tolerant of a queue when they are paying toll charges.
a. Who’s paying for the bill b. Time available c. Human behavior

.2 Enumerate the following and write your answers below.

Factors Affecting Customer Tolerance

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Three Levels of Organizational Value
1.
2.
3.

.3 Write a paragraph about what you have learned in our lesson

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