In a destinationcrm.com article that you can read here, Leonard Kile summarizes a mixed bag of findings from the annual CFI Group survey of overall customer satisfaction with contact centers. It's a mixed bag because like the headline says, "Consumers Are Happier with Contact Centers", but the overall score of 77 out of 100 means a grade of C+. Are sales allowed to operate at a C+ level? Marketing? Imagine if finance and accounting were able to do C+ work. Or engineering. We may as well close up shop and go home. No, 77 is not good enough. We have to do better.
Here are some of the observations from the article:
- Helping is the ongoing development and adoption of advanced call handling, scheduling, knowledge management, and voice/text analytics.
- As companies have come to realize the importance service to their long-term success, they have raised their game in recruiting and retaining ever more competent managers and business people to oversee this function.
- Call centers are rapidly incorporating more customer contacts from the web, email, and other sources; social media plays an important role in raising customer satisfaction and likely recommendations.
Yawn. Of course, surveys like this look backward, and that's why this list is pretty remedial and unremarkable. So how can you get that C+ up to an A and really contribute to organizational success? Our point of view is pretty clear. If you haven't heard it yet, take a few minutes to watch the explanation.