Introduction

21 Best Call Centre Practices

Total Call Centre Solutions Program™

Best Practice
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Best Practice Solutions 21 Best Call Centre Practices

CCCAG's 21 Best Call Centre Practices

Through CCCAG's extensive work and research with call centres throughout North America, a system of inbound call centre Best Practices has been developed. These Best Practices are capable of achieving a sustainable high level of call centre performance, while reducing costs and maximizing value for customers, employees and the organization.

Following is a brief description of the definitions used in this section and a summary overview of each of the 21 Call Centre Best Practices.

Definitions:

• Best Practices are innovative and/or unique processes, procedures and methods that, when properly applied and supported, provide a sustainable competitive high level of performance.
• A Key Driver is defined as a critical customer, employee or organization need that has an impact on and contributes to superior performance.

Following is a summary review of each of CCCAG's 21 Best Practices and their associated key drivers:

Key Driver One - Customer Access to an Agent and/or Self-Help Options

1. Single Point of Contact - through one contact point, customers can reach an agent and/or self-help options based on their needs and choice.
2. Customer Service Provided Based on Customer Needs - i.e., 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
3. Service Level Based on Customer Expectations and Impatience Factor - i.e., 95% of calls answered in 20 seconds with live voice answer.
4. Customers Provided Choice of Live Voice or Self-Help Options - live voice choice means no interacting with "front end technology"; self-help options add value beyond the transaction, i.e., customer has the ability to access online help quickly and resolve other issues.

Key Driver Two - Resolution

5. First Call Resolution - customer's reason for contacting call centre is resolved in one seamless contact.
6. Ability and Freedom to Act - agents have the freedom and ability to satisfy customer needs by committing the organization resources to specific actions and behaviours to completely satisfy customer needs and expectations, e.g., refunds, restoration of service, escalated service options.
7. Customer Based Balanced Measurement System - customer needs and expectations have been identified and a measurement system and associated metrics have been identified to measure the call centre's ability to delight customers, e.g., first call resolution, access to a friendly, knowledgeable agent.
8. Established Guiding Principles and Values - call centre staff provide service to customers and make related decisions based on established guiding principles and values, e.g., agents can only say no or argue with customers after securing approval from manager.
9. Advocate for Customer - call centre staff are positioned to be advocates through having customers' best interests in mind in meeting their needs and exceeding their expectations, e.g., agents do not expect customers to be inconvenienced due to poor or ineffective company systems, processes or controls.
10. Management Leads - agents provide service and interact with customers based on the way they are managed, e.g., type and focus on what is measured, how customer complaints and escalated calls are handled, managers treat and interact with agents exactly the way they expect them to interact with customers.

Key Driver Three - Treatment

11. Established Job Standards - all call centre staff have standards for their jobs, based on meeting customer needs and exceeding expectations. In the case of managers, it is assumed that their customers are the agents who report to or through to them.
12. Timely Training Aligned with Job Standards - initial and ongoing training for call centre staff is based on established job standards and the company's guiding principles and values. Additionally, the principle focus of the training is in helping all staff know the needs of customers and be properly trained to meet these needs.
13. Job Standards and Training Verification - call centres have an active and robust verification system in place so that only fully trained and competent call centre staff are allowed to interact with customers.
14. Ongoing Performance Recognition - call centre staff are recognized for their efforts and rewarded for results, consistent with guiding principles, values and desired behaviours.
15. Continuous Improvement - the performance standard in the call centre is based on ongoing continuous improvement. It is not acceptable for call centre staff to plateau, from a performance and training perspective.
16. Dedicated Job Coach - call centre agents are supported by dedicated job coaches, whose performance is directly tied to agents' performance, accomplishments and compliancy with guiding principles and values.
17. Dedicated Training Team - call centre initial and ongoing training is provided by subject matter experts dedicated to training function and measured on agents' performance, accomplishments and compliancy with guiding principles and values. An example of a subject matter expert is someone who can assume the agents' roles and provide exceptional service to customers as and when required.

Key Driver Four - Communications

18. Commitment to Communications - call centre staff are encouraged to think out loud; communications are free-flow, two way, continuous and honest.
19. Customer Listening Team Integrated with Call Centre - a dedicated call centre group samples calls, focusing on what customers are saying and providing this feedback to cross-functional groups so that the voice of the customer is a key driver for product and process improvement efforts.
20. Intelligent Work Stations - work stations have been designed and developed based on agents' needs and expectations, enabling them to interact seamlessly with customers to meet their needs and exceed their expectations. No more than 25% of initial and ongoing training is systems related.
21. Dedicated Customer Relations Group - call centre teams have access to specialized customer relations groups for escalated customer issues and will work with a customer until their issues are resolved to their satisfaction.