Newsroom

11 Sep 2006

ContactCenterWorld.com Q&A: Customer Satisfaction (Sept. 2006)

Chris Rozum
Director – North America
Customer Operations Performance Center Inc. (COPC Inc.)

Responses for Customer Satisfaction Feature: September 11 - 15, 2006

1. Why is it important to assess customer satisfaction and what are the consequences of ignoring this vital area?

We find assessing customer satisfaction is critical to understanding performance levels and to obtaining business intelligence about the customer’s expectations.

High achieving organizations that we interact with analyze results at multiple levels to determine performance relative to targets and performance trends (e.g., getting better, getting worse, or flat). In addition, these organizations benchmark results within and across industry verticals to understand relative performance.

Assessing customer satisfaction provides invaluable insight into the customer’s expectations for an organization. For example, customer satisfaction data can be used to understand customer requirements in order to define operational metrics and set targets. High achieving organizations use this business intelligence to improve the customer experience by changing business processes and policies based on customer input.

Failure to assess customer satisfaction leaves an organization essentially blind to the voice of the customer; as a result, they do not receive the value noted above.


2. What is the importance of customer satisfaction and its relationship to profits?

We have worked with several organizations to develop an understanding of the link between customer satisfaction and profitability. While the strength of this relationship does vary based on the industry vertical and type of support (e.g., customer service, technical support, sales), our data suggests a positive relationship between higher customer satisfaction and increased profits. In exploring the reasons for this relationship, we have identified two primary elements: First Call Resolution (FCR) and customer loyalty.
Typically, there is a high correlation between FCR and customer satisfaction. FCR is also a significant cost driver. High achieving organizations understand this relationship and focus their teams on making improved FCR one of their highest priorities. The result is increased customer satisfaction and decreased cost.

Customer loyalty also plays a prominent part in linking customer satisfaction to profitability. High achieving organizations understand the cost of acquiring new vs. retaining existing customers. They are also aware of costs associated with poor customer satisfaction vs. the income generated by a positive customer experience (e.g., repurchase, loyalty, likely to recommend). Such businesses view the contact centers as a valuable touch point instead of strictly a cost center.


3. What tips would you give when it comes to giving customers what they want?

Organizations that are serious about achieving world-class customer satisfaction levels invest time and resources into understanding customer requirements, and then modifying processes and policies accordingly. Sometimes the changes are relatively simple; others can be quite complex. For example: On the simple side, we have worked with organizations that have modified performance targets for their contact center based on what the customers told them they wanted. On the complex side, we've assisted an organization in changing the entire purpose of its contact center in order to significantly reduce customer complaints.


4. What for you are some of the most overlooked customer touch points?

There are two typical customer touch points that organizations overlook: transaction types with smaller volumes and customers who do not interact with the contact center.

Smaller transaction types may include non-phone transactions (e.g., email, chat, white mail), escalations, and callbacks. Then there are those customers who do not interact with the contact center at all, either because they self help (e.g., IVR, Web) or never need to contact the organization.


5. How effective is a customer satisfaction survey as a feedback tool?

As with many data collection tools, “garbage in equals garbage out”. High achieving organizations invest resources to ensure they are yielding valuable insight from their satisfaction survey. An organization needs to evaluate the survey questionnaire and the survey methodology (e.g., sample quotas, data pulls that eliminate bias, dialing hours) at appropriate intervals. We work with organizations that invest the appropriate resources into the survey design and, as a result, are able to obtain valuable insight into performance levels as well as business intelligence about customer expectations.