Next-Generation Contact Centers

Many of us are stuck. We have talked about becoming customer-centric, value-added, mission-critical, and a lot of other hyphenated things, but we are operating in the reactive mode, simply trying to adhere to our mandate to do more with less. But soon “being stuck” will no longer be an option for customer contact professionals: Market forces and new technology are driving the contact center to strategic prominence.

My company, Response Design Corp., recently studied customer contact groups that have transformed themselves into strategic partners. These groups have leveraged the market forces and new technology to permanently change the position of customer contact in their organizations. They see themselves differently now, and so do others. We see them as “next-generation customer contact.”

Until recently, we measured contact centers' success in discrete areas: Center A is excellent in managing its workforce but less successful in managing its interdepartmental relationships; center B is excellent in change management but not employee relations. “It's okay,” we would say. “No one center can be good at everything.”

But our new study of next-generation contact centers highlights overall transformations — a holistic approach to balancing multiple needs. A next-generation contact center can be recognized by its ability to meet complex and often conflicting requirements. While customers continue to be the reason these centers exist, the next-generation facility efficiently balances customer needs and expectations with those of their other partners — executives, other departments, employees. Center managers consistently balance investments in customer loyalty programs with corporate fiscal responsibility. They are adept at evaluating the risk and reward of increased talk time as it affects customer satisfaction, shared benefit, and shared costs. They are no longer involved in business as usual.

We learned that to generate this level of next-generation performance, contact centers must

1. drive value
2. align strategically
3. cultivate partnerships
4. execute impeccably.

Let's meet three managers who have mastered such transformation. We'll call them Reggie Robinson, Rick Martino, and Haley Brown. Although they are excellent in all areas, for the purpose of this article we are highlighting each manager's performance in only one arena.

HOW REGGIE ROBINSON DRIVES VALUE

Reggie's company competes in a market sector that is rapidly changing. The contact center he manages used to be viewed as an expense center; now the focus is on revenue generation. Formerly the customer contact group was measured on how well it completed mechanical and operational tasks. Now it is measured on its ability to be dynamic and create value. In short, the contact center has evolved from “red-headed stepchild” to a strategic contributor. Here's how:

• Top-down executive imperative

  Managers must have the CEO's ear. Reggie believes that without his participation on the senior leadership team, the transformation of the customer contact group would not have resulted. “Working under the old system,” he says, before he was part of the leadership team, “I would have proposed the concept of [transformation] to the executive management team and left the room to wait for a few months until it considered the idea. Then I would have been called back to answer questions and make another presentation or two. Sitting side by side with the executives helped me answer their questions immediately and point out the benefits of transformation as conversations ensued.”

• Proactive leadership team

  Because Reggie is a member of the executive staff, his peers are the directors of sales, marketing, operations, and IT, and he has an equal voice in achieving the corporate strategy. Based on knowledge gained through customer interactions, Reggie is able to help change strategy. For example, a business unit wanted to sell a complex product without giving the support group enough time to prepare. When Reggie explained the level of support that such an effort would entail, top managers chose to delay the opportunity for the sake of the customer experience.

• Actionable intelligence

  Reggie's contact center adopted a customer advocacy model that entails bringing intelligence from the customer back to product design and development so that not only current products are fixed, but next-generation products are improved and enhanced as well.

According to Reggie, when the customer advocacy model was first rolled out, engineers and designers resisted. They believed they would be faced with contact center employees acting like Chicken Little, crying that the sky was falling whenever they received a few calls about a problem. Over time, upper management's support for the customer advocacy model helped to overcome this resistance, as did the group's ability to quantitatively demonstrate the value of its input and analysis to the business.