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The CEO thinks all employees of the call center should be customer centric. According to him all the line managers and even the trainers the voice coach and the HR should be able to provide customer delight over the phone. Hence he drafts a mail that all employee irrespective of their present position and responsibilities should interact directly with customers to get a feel of the market reality. Do you think this is a good idea. Also should the CEO himself lead from the front and prove he is as good in call handling as he is good at giving order to others.
Recently audited the customer call center operated by one of the largest business e.g. airlines, banks, …etc dedicated to the best customers, however the matter that automatically disconnected callers who had been on hold for 59 minutes due to the fact that the system had been programmed based on the average time required to handle customers’ calls including the time they spent on hold and hanging up on callers was the only way to hit targets. Moreover, customers who spent an hour on hold were always incensed, and the agents wanted to avoid talking with them.
This is a particularly dramatic example of how call centers can alienate customers, but it is by no means an isolated one. Almost every call center strives to process inquiries and complaints as quickly as possible efficiency is often tracked on big electronic boards visible to all the agents but few centers make any attempt to deepen relationships with customers or to gather ideas from them. By stressing speed over service, the centers virtually guarantee that they’ll end up annoying customers instead of helping them. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The following four principles can make call centers true sources of business value.
1. Move the call center to headquarters.
Companies usually place their call centers in distant locales where labor rates are cheap. Not surprisingly, the centers receive little management attention. Agents who feel that they’re part of a company, however, take more pride in their jobs, treat customers better, and stay in their jobs longer. A company that locates its call center within corporate headquarters, even if the overhead costs are much higher, underscores the importance it places on customer relations.
2. Turn gatekeepers into idea hunters.
Customers know your products so well that they can often inspire your company’s next big idea, and your call center agents are ideally situated to spot innovative ideas. To create and reinforce a culture of idea hunting, offer a “bounty” for new ideas. Or use agents to survey customers as part of a market research program, thus training them to probe for ideas.
3. Keep talking.
Agents should be rewarded for pleasing customers, not for pushing them off the phone. After all, every minute you talk to your customers is one minute less they can talk to your competition. At TAM’s call center, you’ll find no electronic boards flashing hold times; agents’ compensation is tied to customer satisfaction, not call length.
4. Find your future CEO in your call center.
Call center agents gain a rich understanding of customers; you don’t want to isolate that knowledge from the rest of your company. At Telephone, cell-phone operator, the call center is the primary entry point for new hires. Only after employees understand the business through the eyes of the customers are they ready to tackle other assignments. Making a call center a training ground for new employees will, in time, fill a company with people who are focused on customers’ needs.
Its not how an organizational management hierarchy work and its neither work in narrow span management hierarchy nor in a wide span hierarchy i dont hink that the higher level people interact directly with customer and i dont know about the call centers becoz the managment hierarchy standard is not that proper.
Agree with Ms. Ghada in her answer
Thank you for the invitation ........ I agreed with the answer Ghada Awada
Recently audited the customer call center operated by one of the largest business e.g. airlines, banks, …etc dedicated to the best customers, however the matter that automatically disconnected callers who had been on hold for 59 minutes due to the fact that the system had been programmed based on the average time required to handle customers’ calls including the time they spent on hold and hanging up on callers was the only way to hit targets. Moreover, customers who spent an hour on hold were always incensed, and the agents wanted to avoid talking with them
Yes, he/she should if no one else is in call center
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