Voices January 2008 - CallCentreVoice's monthly newsletter
This newsletter is sent free to all of our members - so why don't you Join Now to be sure you get the next issue as soon as it's released.
CCV is the UK’s largest on-line community for call centre professionals, not only in the UK, but across the world. Our aim is to help keep you in touch with what is happening in the Call Centre industry across the world, and our regular newsletter will bring you a round up of the past month’s highlights.
This month the forums have been busy. Why not click here to see for yourself and visit the latest posts?
If you would like to see a focus on anything specific let us know by contacting sarah@darrylbeckford.co.uk. We will do our best to include your requests.
Monthly roundup
So Christmas has come and gone, and we are now in 2008. What’s happening on CCV? We currently have 9206 members and during December 2007 we clocked up a total of 80912 hits.
There have been a number of new topics raised on the forums as well as some old threads re-opened which is fantastic news. See Darryl's comments below for a few of the most popular threads.
In the News
Call Centre Management Awards 2008
The Call Centre Management Association (UK) are beginning their search for the Call Centre Manager, Team Manager and Learning Champion of the Year 2008. Now in their thirteenth year, the awards recognise outstanding performance throughout the UK. To enter visit the CCMA website and fill in the nomination form.
Liverpool Call Centre to increase staff level 6-fold
Clear Contact Marketing, currently based at Queens Dock in Liverpool, are due to re-locate at the end of January to Church Street. This will create 37 new positions, more than doubling their current staffing levels. The company, who promote products to the general public, provide communications solutions to businesses and organise marketing events for local businesses hopes to increase their staff level to 200 within the next year.
Middle East Call Centre 08 Show
The MECC 08 will be held at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre in March 2008. On the agenda is the potential to improve the quality of remote customer interaction in the Middle East, and helping call centre professionals overcome common challenges. The exhibition floor features new technology innovations such as real time performance management and automatic speech recognition in Arabic.
Collecting and using customer data
What methods of collecting and using customer data will provide the best possible customer experience? 1800mattress.com use an online chat function not only to give it’s customers information about its products, but also to aid the sales people in their stores to go straight to the benefits and features of the products suited to each customer when they arrive in store.
Why is it so hard to get people to care?
Tom Vander Well’s blog gives 3 pointers to improve customer experience and customer satisfaction, rather than the Customer Service Training, Quality Assessment and Call Coaching that can create internal confusion, frustration and irritation.
Call Centre receives phone call from God
Published last year in the UK, and recently published in North America, the novel ‘One night at the Call Centre’ is about six call centre employees on the night shift and deals with the issues faced by young people in todays India. God's phone call ultimately turns all the characters into heroes in their own lives. You can buy One Night at the Call Centre from Amazon.
Other books about Call Centres you may find useful are:
Winning at Customer Services and Call Centre Job Interviews Including Answers to the Interview Questions
The Call Centre Customer Care Pocketbook
Focus On...Learning on the job
What is the most effective way of encouraging agents to learn? What do you consider when deciding how to deliver training such as product information and soft skills? Cost, time and of course, it’s effectiveness.
What has happened to e-learning? Are we all heading back into the classroom, or has e-learning been embraced?
There are many packages available enabling you to write your own Computer Based Training programs, allowing agents to learn whilst sitting at their workstation, perhaps without even logging off the phones. Depending on your imagination and ability these programs can create a ‘wow’ factor to grab agents attention, but how can you be sure that the message has been delivered successfully?
Over the next few issues we will consider some tips to developing a successful program and how to evaluate its effectiveness.
And finally, Darryl's thoughts...
The Internet Retailer story from the US is a very interesting read. So much information about your customers is available in your enterprise and you could put much of it to good use.
However, the problems which the UK government have had with keeping data secure have only gone to reinforce in your customers' minds the value of their personal information. Customers are no longer happy to give out information for no reason - and any attempt to gain this without cause will be treated suspiciously. Can you really afford this kind of damage to your brand?
The key point is that customers are happy to give you data if they think there is a benefit to them doing so. This may be because they want the information that you're sending them, or it may be because you're offering them a free product or service. Be clever about what you're offering them - put yourself in their shoes and ask if you are happy with the benefits you get from this data exchange.
Similarly, any obvious attempts to profile customers with crude data processing techniques will be met with suspicion. Your customers trust you with precious knowledge about them and their purchases - treat this with respect.
If it's been a while since you've been on callcentrevoice.com then you've really been missing out. Here are a couple of the most popular topics:
With the date for UK's OFCOM consultation drawing near it's no surprise that there's been a lot of activity on the site. This post has been discussing some of the wider issues surround TPS, OFCOM and outbound dialling. Click here to view this thread.
The discussion on service level continues from 2007 with some interesting comments around the difficulties of attaining service levels during rapid changes in call volumes. Click here to see the most recent posts on this thread.
Thanks for taking the time to have a look through Voices, I look forward to further discussions on CCV in the near future.
Darryl