We sit side by side with your agents, listen to customer calls, and assess
if the desired customer experience is delivered. We trace the customer
experience, and it's root causes, through your internal processes, back to the
customer strategy.
Interviews with your agents, supervisors, and key managers examine your operation
from their perspective.
An audit provides an “as-is” baseline,
to identify areas that would benefit from a tune-up,
and provides specific recommendations for improvement initiatives
that will optimize customer interactions
and align them to your strategic goals.
Audit Benefits
- Documents “Voice Of the Customer” feedback
- Identifies the gap between strategic intent and operational processes
- Identifies how business intelligence is, or can be, captured and passed to other departments
- Documents frontline staff feedback
- Documents a baseline to work from
- Aligns metrics to business strategy
- Identifies improvement initiatives to reach business goals
- Prioritizes improvement initiatives based on strategic value
- Executive level audit team performs the work
Assessment audits can range from a full operational audit
to auditing a specific call center process. The assessment can be general or very detailed
as needed. We jointly define the assessment’s focus and scope before beginning the project.
Discovery is conducted through a site tour, interviews, documentation review,
observation, surveys, and call monitoring as required.
Sample Work Plan Outline
Discovery: (depending on assessment)
- Strategic intent (business)
- Vision, mission, values
- Business objectives, brand positioning, customer strategy
- Strategic initiatives, strategic plans, scorecard
- Situation (call center)
- Management metrics, structure
- Management team roles and responsibilities
- The center’s current status and specific initiatives
- S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats)
- Business issues, problems, solutions, plans
- Inventory of support systems and tools
- Documentation
- Capture call scripts/guidelines, procedures, and policies
- Review current call and performance reporting
- Customer Interaction Delivered
Assessments:
- Call Analysis
- Call classification (call type and disposition)
- Call type frequency and cost ranking
- Call type cost / benefit analysis
- Diagram and analyze call flow
- Evaluate call script/guidelines for completeness and effectiveness
- Track call disposition – what happens after the call
- Evaluate agent skills
- Evaluate learning - what did the company learn
- Evaluate relationship building
- Evaluate call effectiveness
- Customer Experience Rating
- Was the customer's goals met?
- Was there rapport?
- Was there a positive emotional connection?
- Was the use of the customer's time efficient?
- Was the relationship strengthened?
- Competency Model Development - Monitor Form
- Identify jobs and tasks
- Determine skill and proficiency requirements
- Determine contribution of skill to task completion
- Develop behavioral criteria determining competencies
- Create competency assessment form
- Validate competency assessment against best performers
- Agent Skill Assessment
- Communications (listening, call control, voice presence, pace)
- Call flow management (effective and efficient)
- Call standards compliance (policy, script/guidelines, messages)
- Knowledge (product, system, process)
- Sales or problem resolution skills
- Relationship building (rapport, collaboration, continuity)
- Conflict resolution (difficult or upset caller)
- Responses to buying signals, opportunities, and issues (appropriate, effective, clear)
- Learning (captured Voice Of the Customer, business intelligence, customer insight, market insight)
- Resolution (achieved desired outcome for caller and business)
- Agent Satisfaction Survey
- Job likes and dislikes
- Role understanding - fit in organization
- Relationships - with their boss(es) and other agents
- Communications - adequacy of team, departmental, and organization communication
- Training and coaching
- Empowerment
- Environment
- Recognition
- Leadership
- Learning opportunity
- Career Path
- Customer Centricity Assessment
- Customer strategy
- Customer segmentation
- Customer value management
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer relationship management
- Customer integration
- Management of customer generated data
- Whole product and solutions
- Communicative Culture Assessment
- Respect for individuals
- Public recognition
- Consistent communications
- Encourage participation
- Agent opinions valued
- Sense of belonging
- Visual display of goals and results
- Encourage interactions
- Open door policy
- Cheerful creative atmosphere
- Important communications are clear, written, and discussed
- Multiple modes of communications
- People, Process, Structure, Systems Review
- Identify process documentation, purpose, and owner
- Evaluate balance of resource allocations to task prioritization
- Evaluate training program materials and methods
- Evaluate alignment of metrics and measurement systems to business strategy
- Evaluate quality monitoring program consistency and coaching effectiveness
- Evaluate culture’s fit to strategy
- Evaluate technology systems’ effectiveness
- Evaluate core center management systems
Typical deliverables include items from the following,
customized to your requirements
Possible Assessment Report Topics:
- Customer experience delivered
- Customer satisfaction process
- Customer relationship management
- Activity alignment – balancing resource allocation to task prioritization
- Reporting structure with roles and responsibilities
- Effectiveness of team structures
- Interdepartmental relationships
- Core call center management processes of:
resource scheduling, process compliance, monitoring and coaching,
workload forecasting, and reporting
- Recruiting and hiring
- Training process and materials
- How technology is applied to the workflow: process automation and systems fit
- Call handling process for: introduction, call type identification,
problem resolution, escalation, gathering business intelligence,
opportunity identification, call disposition, and customer follow-up
- Agent skills
- Agent compensation package
- Employees’ willingness to participate in change initiatives
- Employees’ attitude towards their job
- Employees’ perspective of their role in the organization
- Employees’ interest in becoming more involved and empowered
- Culture’s fit to strategy
- Center’s career paths
Recommendation Report Topics:
- Process changes to improve customer interactions
- Metric adjustments for goal alignment
- Potential change management initiatives
- Program initiatives to meet goals
- Training program improvements
- Monitoring and coaching effectiveness improvements
- Ideas and suggestions to develop a communicative culture
