While most contact centers claim that their quality assurance practices are highly customer-focused, many tend to monitor and gather feedback on only those contacts that involve an interaction with one of their agents – such as though traditional phone calls, email and chat.
Not very customer-focused – not when you consider the fact that many centers today have a healthy percentage of customers completing, or at least trying to complete, self-service transactions via IVR and the Web, without agent assistance.
According to ICMI's recent Customer-Facing Technologies Report, nearly one-third (29.7%) of centers that have an IVR system in place do not regularly monitor customers' interactions with the system to ensure that it is functioning properly and that it is user-friendly.
On the bright side, most IVR-enabled centers (91%) frequently test the IVR systems internally to ensure that they function at optimum levels. Still in all, many centers are merely crossing their fingers that actual IVR-customer interactions are going well.
The ICMI study also found that only 39.6% monitor customers' Web self-service sessions to ensure optimum usability and satisfaction, and just a dismal 14.6% of Web-enabled centers provide customers with access to online customer satisfaction surveys where they can immediately rate their self-service experience.
Slighting self-service in your quality assurance program is risky business. After all, if customers who try to serve themselves have a negative experience, they are likely to return to the more expensive (for you) live-agent contact options, and when they do, they likely aren't going to be very happy campers.
And if their self-service experience is very negative, they might not return at all. According to a recent consumer survey conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, Web self-service transaction failures cause 40% of online customers to either abandon transactions entirely or to turn to competitors.
Getting Self-ish with QA
The potential cost benefits of customer self-service are huge: For instance, a typical transaction completed in an IVR system costs about 45 cents, versus about $5.50 for a typical call handled by a live agent. Not to mention the fact that, when centers' self-service strategies are successful, it leads to higher morale and retention among agents, who aren't forced to handle loads and loads of routine transactions. In some cases, centers can even decrease the number of agents needed on staff, thus cutting labor costs.
Thus, it's no surprise that contact centers are aiming to drive more customers to self-service channels.
What is surprising is that so many centers, with so much to gain via effective self-service, are leaving their guard down when it comes to ensuring that systems are working efficiently and effectively, and that customers are leaving those systems with a smile.
Following are several key practices – based on the tactics of top contact centers worldwide, and the recommendations of top consultants and vendors – for making sure that your center's self-service applications don't go down for the count.
Frequent Internal Testing
Testing of self-service apps is critical, not just prior to implementing them, but during regular intervals after they are up and handling customer contacts – and for the remainder of their existence. Contact center strategies, the company's products and services, and customer demands are constantly evolving, thus changes to and frequent testing of self-service apps are paramount.
Testing prior to deploying an IVR typically entails duplicating actual call volumes that the center experiences, and identifying any system glitches or snags that could impact the customer experience and create system bottlenecks.
For applications that are already live, smart contact centers frequently dial into the IVR just as a customer would, then evaluate such things as menu logic, awkward silences, speech recognition performance and – to gauge the experience of callers who choose to opt out of the IVR – hold times and call-routing precision.
Testing of Web self-service apps is similar, but takes place online rather than via calls. Top centers carefully check site and account security, the accuracy and relevance of FAQ responses, the performance of search engines, knowledge bases and automated agent bots, as well as evaluate how easy it will be for customers to access personal accounts online and complete transactions.
As with IVR testing, such things are meticulously examined both prior to application deployment and after the Web self-service initiative is up and running.
For enhanced IVR and online self-service testing results, many progressive contact centers purchase products that automate the testing process. For instance, today's powerful end-to-end IVR monitoring and diagnostic tools are able to dial in and navigate through an interactive voice transaction just as a real caller would, and can track and report on key quality and efficiency issues.
Other centers achieve testing success by contracting with a third-party vendor that specializes in testing voice and Web self-service systems.
Whether automated or done manually, outsourced or conducted inhouse, the key to effective self-service testing, says Brian VanLaarhoven, manager of professional services for testing and monitoring solutions vendor Empirix – is to test "at frequent enough intervals and high enough volumes that potential problems are detected and corrected before they become noticeable to your customers."
Detailed Monitoring of Customer Self-Service Sessions
Top contact centers realize that, in addition to internal testing, they must monitor actual customer interactions with self-service apps – just as they monitor live-agent contacts.
"We've all heard the recording while on hold, 'This call may be monitored for quality assurance,'" says VanLaarhoven. "Yet companies that only monitor their agent-based calls are gaining a lopsided view of the customer experience."
Advancements in quality monitoring technologies are making things easier for contact centers that offer customers self-service options. All the major monitoring vendors provide customer interaction recording applications that capture exactly what each customer experiences from the moment they "enter" the contact center until the time they leave.
The monitoring focus is no longer solely on how agents handle calls, but also on how easy it is for customers to navigate the IVR and complete transactions without agent assistance, as well as how effectively such front-end systems route each call when a live agent is requested or required.
In addition to enabling quality monitoring specialists to clearly view a random sample of IVR calls, today's advanced recording systems can be programmed to alert specialists about callers who get entangled in the IVR, or who seem to get confused during the transaction – thus enabling the contact center to fix any glitches and to contact the customer immediately after the interaction, before their frustration leads to defection.
Progressive centers are getting serious with quality monitoring in the Web self-service environment, as well – taking advantage of multimedia customer interaction recording tools that fully capture the online customer experience. Witness Systems (now part of Verint), for example, offers a monitoring application that enables contact centers to find out firsthand such things as:
- How well customers navigate the Web site;
- What information they are looking for, and how easy it is to find;
- Whether the right content is housed in the right place;
- How easy it is to receive service, locate and update information, fill out an application or form, or make a payment;
- How well the checkout process works – e.g., when, where and why error messages occur;
- What actions or issues lead most online customers to abandon their shopping carts; and
- What causes customers to call, email or request a chat session with an agent, rather than continue to serve themselves.
"Companies engaged in e-business initiatives already have access to Web metrics that provide quantitative assessments for measuring Web effectiveness, such as the number of clicks a site receives," says Oscar A. Alban, a market consultant for Verint Systems. "However, to truly enhance the customer experience and ensure the Web is an easy-to-use, profitable medium, companies need much more analysis."
As with internal testing of self-service apps, some centers – rather than deploying advanced monitoring systems inhouse – have signed on with a third-party specialist to conduct comprehensive monitoring of the center's IVR and Web self-service applications.
Gathering – and Acting Upon – Direct Customer Feedback
As important as testing and monitoring are in determining how well self-service apps are working, what really matters in the end is how the customer feels about the experience. And there is no better way to determine that than to ask them straight out.
That being said, successful contact centers know better than to rely on archaic and inefficient mail surveys – which often don't get to the customer until several days or even weeks after the actual self-service transaction transpired.
Thus, not only does using such an approach make it unlikely that the customer will remember any details about the interaction (meaning the feedback provided will be of little value). More importantly, if the customer was aggravated by the interaction, it will likely be too late to take corrective action.
Some centers opt to survey customer via live outbound phone calls, but this, too, is often an ineffective – and expensive – method. First of all, getting in touch with customers soon after a self-service transaction isn't always easy (as most people today have caller ID and don't answer unrecognized calls). In addition, customers who do pick up often feel like they are being put on the spot when asked to be surveyed live. Then there is the question of organizing the call survey results for in-depth analysis and accurate trending – quite a daunting challenge, even when a third party is doing it.
For these reasons, many of today's leading contact centers have tapped the power of IVR and the Web to greatly enhance their customer feedback collection efforts. One of the hottest trends is the use of fully automated post-call surveys, where callers – just before beginning a transaction – are asked if they would like to participate in a survey where they can rate their experience following the call.
Those callers who accept (such as by pressing/saying "1") are routed to a concise automated survey – which typically features between six and eight focused questions – after they've completed their transaction.
Whether a center uses an inhouse or a hosted automated survey solution, they are saving time and money on their customer satisfaction measurement processes. More importantly, they are receiving more valid and actionable information than ever before – in real time.
Top contact centers create separate surveys for callers who speak to a live agent, and those who complete self-service transactions via the center's IVR – with the former survey focusing on how the customer felt the agent handled the call, and the latter targeting the caller's experience with and opinion of his or her IVR interaction. Since many customers who speak with a live agent first interact with the center's IVR, forward-thinking centers include at least a question or two about the IVR in their surveys.
Something else that the best centers include in all surveys is a question about whether or not the caller's issue or question was fully resolved; these centers realize that first-call resolution has a huge impact on customer satisfaction, as well as the center's operating costs.
Today's advanced automated survey apps can evaluate and report on key trends, and can be programmed to recognize when a caller gives an abnormally low overall rating (and send an alert to the center manager or quality assurance team). The system can also capture – via CTI – the caller's identity, and link it to the actual recording of the interaction in question for complete analysis of what went wrong. After reviewing the survey responses and the call, the manager can quickly call the customer to repair damage and hopefully restore trust and loyalty.
Where automated phone surveys are ideal to gauge IVR users' self-service experience, online surveys are perfectly suited for customers who complete – or at least try to complete – transactions via the company's Web site. The online survey method typically entails the contact center randomly selecting a sample of customers who have recently (within the last few hours) interacted with the center's Web self-service application, and sending them a concise survey via email.
As with effective post-call surveys, solid email surveys typically feature no more than six to eight focused questions, with at least one of the questions aimed at determining whether or not the customer's issue was completely resolved during the online contact.
One of the draws of email surveys is that no special systems are required, and, because it is an inherently text-based method, no customer comments need to be transcribed.
Other centers have taken a slightly different – and more dynamic – approach to online customer satisfaction measurement by programming survey invitations to pop up on the customer's screen following a Web-based transaction. Customers can then complete the survey online – just as with surveys sent via email – then click "submit."
Machines Don't Monitor Themselves
With more customers becoming comfortable letting go of agents' hands and opening up to self-service options, contact centers need to let go of traditional approaches to quality assurance. Centers that continue to track only how the frontlines are fielding critical customer contacts will struggle to compete with their more progressive peers – those focused on ensuring that agents and automation are providing the most personal and proficient service possible.
Web Self-Service
Web self-service is arguably the hottest and most enticing mode of customer contact – at least from a call center's perspective. Dynamic Web self-service options like powerful search engines, ever-evolving FAQ lists and CRM-driven personalized online accounts enable customers to efficiently complete even complex transactions without the need for live-agent assistance, which is typically much more expensive.
Considering the potential cost savings of customer empowerment, one would think that call centers would focus strongly on quality with regard to their Web self-service efforts. Not the case. According to ICMI's Call Center Quality Monitoring Study IV, in which 870 contact centers participated, only 27.4% of the 59.6% of centers that offer Web self-service options actively monitor these transactions to ensure that systems and applications are making life easy for customers and encouraging them to become loyal – and valuable – self-servers.
These centers are only shooting themselves in the foot, for customers who are willing to go the self-service route only to have a negative experience will naturally want to return to more expensive (for the call center) contact channels – if they even decide to return at all.
Roughly one in three centers (32.3%) that do keep an eye on customers' Web self-service experience reported monitoring over 100 sessions each month. The next largest group (20.5%) was at the opposite end of the spectrum – monitoring just 10 or fewer Web self-service sessions monthly (see the figure below).
