I am sure that most if us have this ever improtant parameter as a key measure for any Voice Call Centre based process, and we would have reached a stage wherein the critical factor of a Customer Experience score would have stagnated at a peak, and is refusing to move up. This would be despite the focus and drive you might be following to surpass "that" golden number, and move up the value chain.
I would invite ideas on what should one do when this situation is reached, and you need to move up the score by focussing on the skills required to achieve those results...

Things we currently do are:
Increased call listening sessions
Intensive coaching using a fixed methodology
Drop down sessions to ensure quality of coaching

... and I make a call that I don't want to make (I have to complain / tell the company they have forgotten something / made a mistake) and I am greeted by a very polite, helpful agent. Who cares? Not me. I didn't want to make this call in the first place. Change the system so that I didn't have to make this call and now I am happy. Trouble is the call centre can't measure it because if I don't call there is nothing to measure. Or is there...?

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But let's have a look at the things you currently do:

Increased call listening sessions

If this is to understand the type and frequency of calls then I approve. But it isn't, is it? It is to listen to check that the agent smiles when talking and that they stick to the script.

Intensive coaching using a fixed methodology

Stop coaching the agents (you are only annoying them) because you do that then put them straight back into the same system that is produced the performance in the first place. You need to change the system, coaching the agents won't help.

Drop down sessions to ensure quality of coaching

I don't even know what this is. Something to do with making agents do press-ups?

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But I am the customer again. And now I make a call that I do want to make, and yes I do want to be answered by someone genuinely helpful who has the knowledge and freedom(!) to get done what I want them to do. An agent who is not bound by tedious scripts that I have to sit through that mean nothing to me and the agent knows is irrelevant. An agent who if they say they will call back, actually does so, and the system of work helps them to achieve this. An agent who doesn't need to put me on hold or forward me to someone else because they can deal with my call because they have been trained against demand and in the rare case that they have a call they can't deal with, they can pull help so that they can learn, and deal with that type of call the next time. Now I am happy, but I really don't want to take your post-call survey. I have the dog to feed, the kids to put to bed and preparation for tomorrow's meeting about how to improve the Customer Experience scores in the call centre I run. For I am one of you and even though I am annoyed by the way other call centres treat me when I call, I still have my call centre treat our customers exactly the same way.

Thank you for calling.

Rob

...but Rob makes some very valid points!

If your QM process has reached the point that the "customer experience" score has levelled off, it is time to stop doing useless "tick the boxes" audits and actually listening to why the customer is calling. Try actually listening to what the customer is saying, rather than how the agent is handling the call. Why are they calling - is there a broken process in your organisation, does you product have a flaw, are marketing sending out the wrong information, is your customer documentation confusing, etc, etc, etc?

You can measure and train the agents all you like, but if they are still handling the same old calls about the same old problems, you will get nowhere (and they - the customer and the agent - will probably go somewhere else!). If you focus on why the customers are calling (listen - understand - identify - resolve), you can do something about it so they dont have to call in the first place - then everyone is happy!

Maybe even Rob...... :-)

Was in a sarcastic mood on that day. ;-)

Sarcastic mood or not, Rob hit the nail on the head. The stated purpose of coaching is to improve agent performance, presumedly improving customer experience. However, these two are rarely connected. Measures used to evaluated agents usually have little to do with customer perspective and agents are rarely taught anything about how to treat customers. They are given a list of Do's and Don't's and turned loose. Few centres even bother with customer service training and few people even understand what an agent's job is.

Ask your staff. Take a poll among manager, supervisors, and agents. One simple question: What is an agent's primary job? See how many actually get the correct answer. You'll get a lot of crap about resolving issues, assisting customers, responding to queries, making sales, etc, etc, etc. All wrong. There is one single task for agents, across all centres and types of business. The primary job of the agent is COMMUNICATIONS. Agents serve as ambassadors for the client and their first job is to fully understand what the customer wants or needs. Then they must diplomatically communicate the companies position/policy/response in a way that the customer can understand. Agents must be able to speak to the customer in the customer own voice; not language, but the way the customer understands that language. The customer must always feel that they have been understood; there is nothing more alienating than talking to someone who can't or won't understand your viewpoint.

The second most important job of an agent is to act as an ambassador for the company/client. View every contact from customer point, in. To the customer, the first person they speak to should be able to address everything. Otherwise, why is this person in the front lines? Agents need to be able to act, and should be encouraged to do so. Any escalation beyond the frontline agent shows a failure to the customer. It may be a failure of the agent to act. It may be a failure to give the agent authority. It may be a failure of product. It may be a failure of policy. To the customer, this makes no difference. If the agent can't deal with the issue on their own to customer satisfaction, then the entire organization has failed and the customer has a bad experience. Even if they eventualy get what they want, it's still a failure.

If you want to properly assess customer experience, stop bullying your agents and don't look for mathematical models. Ask your agents what customers want, where the problems are, what issues cannot be fixed. Ask your escalation team what customer are escalating for. Impliment a process for adressing those issues which are not covered by current processes.

And if you want to really make the customer experience excellent, teach your agents to communicate and to take ownership of issues. Make the agent the most important person in your organization. After all, the customer thinks they are. You know they are: they bring in the money. Treat the agents as they should be treated - as experts in their field.

Here endeth the ramble.