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How important is it that your CX Head be a Contact Center Expert – Part 2

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments
Photo by Brice Cooper on Unsplash

How important is it that your CX Head be a Contact Center Expert – Part 2

A couple of months ago I wrote a post asking this question –

Should your CX Head also be a Contact Center expert?

That post shared data from a LinkedIn poll we ran and the key conclusion reached from that data was this –

Folks who worked in a Contact Center role themselves were more likely to say yes, that it was important.

Folks who worked in a Customer Experience role themselves – either in-house or as a consultant – were more likely to say no, it wasn’t as important.

That post also generated a lot of passionate comments including this one –

“Customer Experience people are not always Contact Center people but Contact Center people are always Customer Experience people.”

That comment alone confirmed to me that a Part 2 post was in order.

Here is the original poll question, the voting options and results that we covered in the earlier post here –

How important is it that your Customer Experience Head/Chief Customer Officer also be a Contact Center expert?

  • Extremely important – 50% of all votes
  • Moderately important – 26% of all votes
  • Not very important – 24% of all votes

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/should-your-cx-head-be-a-contact-center-expert-too

Ok – let’s go into Part 2 now.

 

For Part 2, I’ve invited a few Guest Contributors to share

As I was thinking through what a great Part 2 post would look like I realized it shouldn’t just come from me.

Over the years I’ve met some remarkable people around the world – so I reached out to a number of them to comment on this discussion.

And these people delivered.  In fact they overwhelmed me with their responses. Both in quantity and quality.

For this Part 2 post I’ve curated down to the contributions from three of these folks.

And I am considering a Part 3 post in what is becoming an entire series that explores the roles, intersections and cross-learnings between CX Management & Contact Center Management.

So let me turn it over to our first Guest Contributor

 

Our first Guest Contributor is Dirk Sperrfechter, Senior Director Global Business Development, Kantar (based in Germany)

“Hi Dan, I have voted with moderately important and am very happy to elaborate why.

Please note that this is not an “official“ Kantar opinion, but rather my own based on many years of expertise and experience but of course heavily influenced by my work as a Kantar employee.

In order to keep my answers to a digestible size, I have used a “pros” and “cons” structure in the following because as I said overall my vote was (and is): moderately important.

In my view for most people in the business, the mystical world of CX is some kind of rather undefined superhero power that makes a company thrive (or not) whereas the Contact Centre is just the place where phone lines hum all the time, you are in hold music loops indefinitely, and agents have to juggle more calls than possible (and make you feel this).

In reality however, a Contact Centre…

  • … expert can bring valuable insights and best practices from the front-line of customer interactions, which can inform and improve the overall customer experience strategy and execution of almost any company.
  • He/she can ensure that the Contact Centre is aligned with the CX vision and goals, and that the Contact Centre staff are empowered and engaged to deliver excellent customer service (in a world without silos!)
  • The expert can leverage the data and feedback collected from the Contact Centre to measure and optimize the customer journey, identify pain points and opportunities, and drive continuous improvement. In particular with many different Contact Centre, e.g. with multinational organisations.

However, also reflecting reality:

A Contact Centre expert may not always have the necessary skills and experience to lead and manage the broader CX function, which involves cross-functional collaboration, strategic thinking, innovation, and change management.

The expert may be too focused on the operational and tactical aspects of the Contact Centre and neglect the strategic and holistic aspects of the CX, such as customer segmentation, value proposition, brand positioning, and differentiation (silos again ).

And finally: a Contact Centre expert may have a biased or limited perspective on the customer needs and expectations and miss out on the insights and feedback from other channels and touchpoints, such as digital, social, and physical i.e. he/she is expert in one area/market but not necessarily in others.”

Dirk has given us so much in this answer.  And perhaps my favorite line was this one:

In my view for most people in the business, the mystical world of CX is some kind of rather undefined superhero power that makes a company thrive (or not) whereas the Contact Centre is just the place where phone lines hum all the time, you are in hold music loops indefinitely, and agents have to juggle more calls than possible (and make you feel this).

Thanks Dirk!

 

Our next Guest Contributor is a well known CX Head in the financial services industry in Malaysia

Our next Guest Contributor is unable to share his name or company name due to organizational regulations.

I’ve known him for over 15 years and he came up through the Contact Center into a Head of CX role and is considered one of the leading CX practitioners in the Asia Pacific region.

So I wanted to share his contribution.

“Hi Dan, I would vote for Extremely Important.

This vote is on the basis that the Contact Centre – beyond its science i.e. forecasting, scheduling, productivity etc –  is about understanding the Customer pulse, being able to provide top notch Customer delight, and be best in class at the first line of defense. 

Or the first line of attack as well if you think selling & cross selling.

So I think a CXO has to have an appreciation of the Contact Centre.

What I find generally lacking is that the CXO and his/her team does a good job of working out Customer journeys etc with the product teams.

But a core important part about this would be supported by the Customer Service function and that is (often) left out.

I am voting for Extremely Important and by that I mean for the CXO to appreciate exactly the role of the Contact Centre in the success of end to end experience.”

 

Our next Guest Contributor is Stamford Low, Director of Customer Experience & Retail  for M1 Singapore

I’ve known Stamford for over two decades and he also came up through Customer Service & Contact Centre management into his current role as Director 0f Customer Experience & Retail.

“The Head of CX is one who drives how products and services are designed and delivered for the customer to consume.

In my CX role at M1, I prioritise gaining firsthand insights into our customers’ preferences and behaviours, so that we can offer genuine journeys characterised by frictionless and clear communication.

While I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary for have Contact Centre experience, it certainly doesn’t hurt as this helps them better empathise with Customers, and in turn, elevate the overall Customer Experience.”

Thank you Stamford!

 

Some closing thoughts

It’s been wonderful to see the nuance that takes place in this conversation. I’ve learned new perspectives and ideas since we posted the original poll up through (now) writing thisPart 2 post.

I have just three thoughts of my own to close out this post.

 

1,  Contact Center Management & Customer Experience Management are different

I could spend time listing out the job scopes and competencies required for both roles but that’s just information – not insight.   Easily found through Google or ChatGPT.

But as we saw from Stamford Low’s guest contribution – while it’s not absolutely necessary for the CX Head to have Contact Centre experience, it certainly doesn’t hurt as this helps them better empathize with Customers, and in turn, elevate the overall Customer Experience.

 

2.  Customer Experience is not Customer Service on steroids

It’s possible that there are Readers who are saying, “Yeah, no duh.”

But sometimes the curse of being an expert in any field is that you forget what it was like to be a beginner or novice in a new field.

That empathy sometimes gets lost.

Many of our workshop participants from the Customer Service domain often think that CX is (borrowing from Dirk Sperrfechter here) some kind of mystical super-hero power that elevates Customer Service.

I think that the frequent co-opting of the term Customer Experience and grafting that term onto everything Customer Service is partly responsible for the confusion here.

 

3.  CX folks can learn from Customer Service folks and Customer Service folks can learn from CX folks

Early in this post I shared one of the many comments this topic has inspired people to share.  Here it is again:

“Customer Experience people are not always Contact Center people but Contact Center people are always Customer Experience people.”

When I read that I get the sense that the two disciplines are pitted against each other.

I prefer an ‘and’ belief system here and I think it could help.

Let me see if I can give a couple of examples:

Customer Experience people can learn a lot from Customer Service people and Customer Service people can learn a lot from Customer experience people.

Customer Experience people and Customer Service people both help make Customer’s lives better.  

And at the end day making people’s lives better is what it’s all about.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/cx-lessons-we-can-learn-from-the-contact-centre-industry

Thank you for reading! 

Thank you for taking the time to read this today!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our posts, activities and offers just send us your email address or enter it on the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected] / www.omnitouchinternational.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Dan but do you have the Contact Center metrics for BPOs?

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments
Dashboard and metrics

THANKS DAN BUT DO YOU HAVE THE CONTACT CENTER METRICS FOR BPOs?

I’ll never forget it.

After a quality coaching class with a group of Team Leaders in the shared services group of a bank, one of the Participants sent me this email –

“Dan, I loved the course. I learned how to better coach my people. And I appreciated that you shared the high level metrics we can use to track progress. 

But as you know, I work in a BPO setting. So those metrics don’t work for us.

Can you send me the metrics for BPOs?”

But there aren’t different metrics for BPOs

 

There aren’t different metrics for BPOs than for an in-house Center.

A Contact Center is a Contact Center.  Whether BPO or in-house.

Even those places that still don’t want to call themselves a Contact Center – but actually often are.

The pool of operational Contact Center metrics is well understood.

What differs from Center to Center are the decisions around which metrics are selected, prioritized and pursued.

  • In some Centers, the metric set choices are tangibly more Customer Experience oriented.
  • In some Centres, the metric set choices are tangibly more cost or efficiency oriented.  (And to say that the BPO Participants in this particular workshop were pummeled into efficiency wouldn’t be an exaggeration.)
  • In some Centers, there are metrics choices that are just plain wrong from an operational standpoint. Even today when the Contact Center ecosystem is well understood.

But whatever these metric choices are – recognize that they represent one of the single most important decisions you will ever make.

As shared by a Customer Experience thinker some years back, people do what is measured, incentivized and celebrated.

And when you’re talking about Agents, Team Leaders & Team Managers, metrics are very top of mind.

These metrics – the ones that have been selected, prioritized and pursued – dramatically influence the mindset & performance of the people in your Center.

To the point where they – including the Participant who emailed me – believe that the way your Center works is just how it is across the entire Contact Center industry.

That the way you do things in your Center is the industry standard.

Without realizing that the Center down the road or three floors up in the same office tower, has different strategies & priorities than you do.

And, as a result, has chosen a different metrics set.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/how-to-help-your-contact-centre-agents-improve-their-performance

You have to know what your doing

People don’t go to school to become professionals in the Contact Center or Customer Experience industry.

Many learn on the job – from people who also learned on the job.

What I’ve personally seen over and over is when a new ‘big boss’ comes in and realizes that the level of strategic Contact Center know-how in the current Team isn’t sufficient to achieve organizational business objectives.

So they set about to change that.

The choices around metrics takes know-how, thought and contextualization to your Customer & Business ecosystem.

  • Don’t just copy what someone else is doing.
  • Don’t rely on non-existent or irrelevant industry standards.
  • Don’t pursue the same things year after year without stopping to ask yourself why and if what you’re doing makes sense.

When I teach Operations Management work through all the metrics in easy to understand categories.

From there we begin to pull together the interrelationships that exist between metrics in the Center and even metrics for the Organization.

And perhaps my favorite part is when the Participants get together in groups and talk about how and why they’d design their Center metrics system. Based on everything they’ve learned up to this point.

The selection of metric sets for your Center is one of the most decisions you’ll ever make.

Because your choices have far reaching impact on the business results you will achieve.

And on the lives of the Employees & Customers that you serve.

It can’t get more important than that.

 

Thank you for reading!

Thank you for taking the time to read this today.

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles, activities and offers just drop us your email address or add it to the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected] / www.omnitouchinternational.com

 

The DACH Customer Excellence Awards – a superb event!

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

No matter who you are, what you do or where you work, being recognized matters

I watched the Oscar Awards this year.

And there on the stage are some of the most successful people on the planet.  And yet when they win the Oscar they kind of lose it – in a good way.

Tears, joy, expressions of gratitude.

And those emotions aren’t limited to televised stages in Los Angeles or New York.

No matter where I’ve attended any great Awards event the emotions are real and deep.

Because people work so hard.

And to have a chance to show that, talk about what they’re proud of and perhaps be recognized in a formal way – is very powerful.

Which is just one of the reasons I’m proud that my company sponsors the DACH Customer Excellence Awards.

These awards celebrate meaningful Customer Excellence initiatives by organizations that are based in, operate in or serve the DACH Region – comprised of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The 4th year of the DACH Customer Excellence Awards & Summit was held on 13th October 2023 in Wiesbaden Germany and here’s what I saw that reinforced my pride and commitment to this event.

 

The Quality of the Finalists

The quality of the Finalist entries is the absolute fundamental mark of a credible and effective Awards program.

So when the Judges across the board tell us how impressed they’ve been with the quality of the Finalists it matters.

Here are just a few quotes from this year’s Judges:

“One of my entries even showed some great numbers that prove the impact and showed how employee satisfaction is driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, renewal and up-selling. That’s the evidence we need to ensure necessary investments into EX and CX are signed off by senior management and show some real ROI.”  Judge’s comment

“Couldn’t have said it better,  it was a great event with impressive cases.”  .”  Judge’s comment

Brilliant entry! I loved the innovation! The drive to make life easy for the customers and employees alike!” Judge’s comment

“I fully support your summary of the DACH Customer Excellence Awards. And like to add the importance of Customer Centric Culture and the MAGIC the Italian Team showed us.” Judge’s comment

 

The Quality of the Judges

And interestingly, Judges tell us that it matters to them who else is judging and the level of conversation that naturally takes place among the Judges themselves.

“The level of the conversations I had with the other Judges was remarkable. During the judging process and afterwards at the coffee breaks and at the Gala dinner.”  Judge’s comment

 

The Quality of the Event

These people make a commitment in time and money to participate.

So what they have to say about their experience including what they learned, who they got to meet and how much fun they had is the cornerstone of how we move forward year on year.

Here are just a few quotes from this year’s Winners, Finalists & Judges:

“A fantastic day made even better by the outstanding keynote speakers and the wealth of knowledge & passion shared by all participants!”   Judge’s comment

“Extra shout out to Marcus von Kloeden for the perfect organisation and the opera singers during the Awards dinner that were the icing on the cake of a successful event.”   Judge’s comment

Congratulations – Marcus, Daniel, and team – on yet another amazing award celebration, recognizing the whole CX industry. The contribution you are making cannot be overestimated and is testament to both of your passion for customer centricity! Thank you for all the effort you put into this event!  Partner, Customer Institute

 

Experience and a commitment to the industry

The Founder of the DACH Customer Excellence Awards, Marcus von Kloeden, has years of experience organizing events including training programs, conference events and even art gallery receptions.

And that experience showed in everything from how the event was structured – including lots of time for people to meet, chat and relax – to having opera singers roam the floor throughout the cocktail reception & gala dinner event.

And in the spirit of think globally and act locally, the suppliers and providers for the Event ranging from the florists to the crafters of the handmade Awards trophies, are all local small businesses.

 

The Mission of the Awards

Not all Awards programs are created equal.  Anyone who’s been around the Customer industry for a while knows this.

With some Awards, it seems like there’s an army of salespeople who descend to hound people into joining.

Or Customer Excellence isn’t the main focus of the Awards program – but a slight add on to other categories of Awards that are all kind of jumbled together into one event.

The mission of the DACH Customer Excellence Awards is different. Here it is:

By CX Experts, with CX Experts, for CX Experts

That’s not just a tagline – it’s a way of working. A touchstone.

Everyone involved in creating, organizing and running the DACH Customer Excellence Awards are ‘Customer people’ themselves.

So there’s a deep & innate understanding about what Customer people deserve when they invest their time & resources into such an event.

In last year’s event one of our Judges flew in from Amman Jordan, with many others coming in from Switzerland, the Netherlands and from all over Germany.

It’s a real commitment – and we honor that.

  

Thank you for reading!

To see the Winners for last year’s and previous year’s Awards and to learn more simply visit the DACH Customer Excellence Awards site at www.dach-cxa.com

The 2024 DACH Customer Excellence Awards is now open for participation & entry!

If you’d like to keep up to date with our posts and other information just send over your email address or update it in the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com 

 

 

 

We all took a personality test – now what?

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

We all took a personality test, so how do we use what we learned in our coaching conversations?

That’s what the Customer Service Manager asked me during a training program on coaching.

“We all took a personality test and I am like this ___ and my colleague is like that ___,  So how do we bring the results of our personality tests into the quality coaching conversation?”

That’s a fair question.

One I hear now and then in our coaching classes.

 

So I asked this question in return

Generally in Customer Service communication, I advise folks to not answer a question with a question.

That approach can be rude – even aggressive.

But my intention in answering a question with a question here was to get us all to dig more deeply into what the answer might be.

Here’s what I asked –

“Before we get into the specifics of the coaching conversation, can you talk to each other about the ways you’re already using what you learned from the Personality Test in all of the other conversations that you’re having with the people around you?”

I continued…

“Because the quality coaching conversation is only one of many possible conversations you’re having with your people throughout the day.

For example, you might share with a Team Member that you observed something good or you observed something not so good.

Perhaps you praised something or provided guidance on a task. Maybe you asked someone to stay late if they could. You might have even given a formal performance review.

So stop now and ask yourselves – how have you used what you learned in the personality tests in any of these other conversations?”

Your answers here will serve as are clues to how you can apply what you know about someone in a coaching conversation.”

 

The room got quiet and I bet you can guess why

It turned out that taking the personality test was kind of fun.

And learning about what kind of people we were was also kind of fun.

But what folks had learned about each other hadn’t been put into any kind of formal practice.

It had been treated like a parlor game.

And wasn’t appearing in any of the conversations that people had with each other.

 

It’s important to get to know the people you work with on an individual level

As you learn about the people you work with – and they learn about you – the decisions you make mutually about working together apply to the entire relationship.

To all the conversations that you have. Not just the coaching conversation.

This ‘aha moment’ for the group completely changed the question.

From “How can we use what we learned from our Personality Tests in a coaching conversation?” to “How can we use what we learned in our Personality Tests to improve and build our relationship with each other?”

And I admit that made me smile.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/dear-trainers-engagement-shouldnt-be-the-goal

Thank you for reading!

Thank you for reading this article today!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles and other information just send over your email address or add it to the contact form on our website.

Thank you!

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unspla

Don’t make a bad decision in the name of a good outcome

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

Making a bad decision in the name of a good outcome – is still a bad decision

Read the following statements and see if you can identify the pattern:

“I know that transaction surveys should be short and sweet but this is a chance for our Marketing group to build relationship with Customers so we’re adding more questions.”

“I know that transactional NPS isn’t a good metric to use for individual Agents but I think it helps with Agent Engagement to share the good comments.”

“I know that measuring Agents on number of calls handled isn’t mathematically ideal but I think it helps us be cost efficient.”

Take a moment now to describe what you see in each of these examples.

 

Here’s how I describe it

In each example shared a good outcome was used to defend a bad decision.

Or put another way, a bad decision was forgiven in the name of a good outcome.

It helps with cost efficiency (the good outcome) to measure Agents on number of calls handled (the bad decision).

And invariably, the person who uses this approach will start off with, “I know that…”.

Which in a way makes it worse.

 

Notice how the conversation gets shut down

Notice how this kind of statement shuts the conversation down.

When someone says, “…because it will make us cost efficient.” it puts the Listener in a difficult position.

I mean who’s going to argue against cost efficiency? Or Agent engagement?  Or Customer relationship?  These are all good and important outcomes.

It can feel awkward to feel that you’re debating against a good outcome. Especially if this statement comes from the boss. Or an authority figure.

But you know it’s a bad decision.  So its worth digging in and exploring.

 

Here’s how I do it

Is the bad decision being put forward – the too long transaction survey, the transactional NPS question, the metric on # of Calls Handled – a significant lever that drives that good outcome?

You can’t just have an opinion.  Show me.

Use a Scatter diagram, an Ishikawa diagram, financial modelling. Basically use whatever tool or method fits the purpose.

But  show me how that bad decision truly contributes significant impact on that good outcome.

And if there’s a well document practice or principle that we’re not planning to follow tell me why it doesn’t apply to us.

For example # of Calls Handled as an Agent performance metric turns out not to be a big contributor to Cost Efficiency.

In fact that metric can potentially increase overall costs.

Oops.

 

And what about the impacts on the ecosystem?

Now let’s turn our lens to the impacts on the ecosystem. Because the decisions we make don’t operate in isolation.

There are always impacts on other parts of the ecosystem.

And I’ve always thought of professionals working in Customer Experience & Service as ‘Custodians of the Customer Ecosystem’.

What are the ecosystem impacts of using # of Calls Handled as an Agent metric?

Well when you sit down and study it, Agents who are targeted on # of Calls Handled invariably shortchange Customers on Quality.

Either in the style or completeness of their response or both.

Is that a good thing?  Most Organizations would say no.

A shortchange in Quality is going to potentially increase our unnecessary repeat contacts figure.  Which in turn increases cost and reduces Service Level.

And it also hits our Customer Satisfaction outcomes which can result in more complaints to handle and an increase in Customer defections.

And let’s remember that Agents who are targeted on quantity often lose the chance to develop their quality.  To develop those powerful communication skills that can serve them throughout their lives.

The ecosystem impacts are significant – and need to be considered as part of the decision making process.

 

 

 

It can seem that I’m talking about a small thing here

Even I can see how this might be seen as nitpicking.  Or that it’s just a small thing.

But step back and consider.

It only takes only a few such decisions of the “I know it’s not good/right/great to do X but we do it to get Y” variety to ripple through the ecosystem and potentially do more harm than good.

 

Thank you for reading!

Thank you for the time you took to read this today!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles and other information just send over your email address or add it to the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Cover photo by Happy Lee on Unsplash

How the Ruby Slippers and Contact Center Metrics intersect – a lesson from the Wizard of Oz

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

HOW DOROTHY’S RUBY SLIPPERS AND CONTACT CENTER METRICS INTERSECT – A LESSON FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ.

I read a post recently, from a Contact Centre expert, that went like this: “In this new era are some of our Contact Center metrics outdated? Is it time to change our metrics to better reflect the new era?”

From there, the author went on to talk about the usual suspects – Average Handling Time, Customer Satisfaction, Employee Engagement and the like.

But what had specifically gotten my attention was the lead-in to the post. That we were somehow in a new era.

Which means that, by default, we had left an old era.

I’m not so sure that’s true.

 

Remember Dorothy and her Ruby Slippers in the ‘Wizard of Oz’?

Towards the end of that wonderful 1939 film, Glinda the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she always had the power to go home.

All Dorothy ever had to do was tap her magical Ruby Slippers together three times and she’d be right back in Kansas.

If you’re wondering how that has anything to do with Contact Centres here’s my answer.

There is no old era or new era. We’ve always had the power to set the ‘right’ metrics.

Doing right by your Customers, Employees & Organization isn’t a new era idea.

Clients we’ve worked with had these discussions back in 2003, 2007, 2012…you get the point.

The understanding and ability to do the right thing for your Stakeholders has always been there.  It just hasn’t always been in fashion.

Or the people in charge at the time didn’t have the credibility or know-how to make the change.

These are different issues. Ones that aren’t driven by the era we’re in.

 

Do you have a Glinda Good Witch of the North on your Team?  I hope so.

Because what I’ve seen over and over is that the calibre of the Center – and by extension the calibre of organizational Customer Experience – is driven by the calibre of the leadership in charge.

People who bring ability, know-how and commitment. And where needed, credibility to make change.

So if you can, work for those people. Work where they work. Join their Team.

Because in the same way Dorothy could always have gone home, we can always do the right things for people.

And it sure makes life a lot better for everyone.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/should-your-cx-head-be-a-contact-center-expert-too

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read this today!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles and other information just send me your email address or input it into the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Cover photo by Paulina Milde-Jachowska on Unsplash

The best $380,000 I ever spent

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”
Adam Grant

In our first year of operation, the company I founded earned a profit of $80,000.  That was in Singapore in 2001.

We had done well with two Customer Service workshops I’d written and we’d landed two global Mystery Shopper research programs which were well underway.

Business was off to a great start.

But I knew that what had made us successful so far wasn’t going to necessarily make us successful in the mid to long term.

I hadn’t left working in the corporate world just to find myself having to go back in to that because I hadn’t helped my Clients solve their problems.

So I took $40,000 of that first year profit, signed a contract with a consulting firm in California and flew myself and a Singaporean colleague to live in the isolated mountaintop home of the firm’s founder.

For a month.

 

Why did we spend a month on a mountain top in California? 

It’s a reasonable question.

My colleague and I travelled to the U.S. to receive four weeks of private instruction in Contact Center management directly from the consulting firm’s founder.

I had done my homework before signing on the dotted line and everything went the way it was supposed to go.

It was a superb and intellectually intense month.

Every morning we were up and seated in our Instructor’s home office to start class at 9:00AM.

Our 12:30 – 1:30 lunch consisted of sandwiches that he made for us in his big kitchen downstairs (which my Singaporean colleague despaired of at one point saying, “Argh, in Asia we prefer to eat warm food!”).

To highlight how isolated we were, the Instructor had his own small plane and airstrip and he flew himself to most of his engagements.

Aside from two or three trips into town, we lived as if we were in boarding school.  And I loved almost every minute.

Over the four weeks we covered four different domains of Contact Center knowledge in great depth:

  • Operations Management
  • Leadership & Business Management
  • People Management
  • Customer Relationship Management (for CX folks remember it was 2002)

The deep grounding in know-how that I gained in that month has informed my view of the Customer ecosystem ever since.

Which I can summarize as this belief –

I believe that leading & managing in the Customer ecosystem, whether Contact Center Management or Customer Experience Management, is a business discipline.

As with any business discipline, there is an essential level of know-how, across multiple domains, that an industry professional needs in order to avoid negative outcomes and achieve great outcomes.

In the Customer industry, as was true in my own case, people don’t typically go to school to learn these things.

Many people in Customer Service & Customer Experience end up in the industry by accident and then end up learning on the job, which as you’d expect can be very hit or miss.

I know this because I’ve met thousands of these folks in our workshops and have had the privileged opportunity to listen to their stories.

And it’s my own story too.

 

By Year 6, I had signed checks totallying nearly$380,000 

By the sixth year of my company’s operations, I had signed checks totalling nearly $380,000 to cover costs including IP & content rights, long distance travel expenses to join workshops and meetings and to pay for various membership & certifications for myself and our Team Members.

And it was worth every penny.

Clients were flying me all over the world to teach their people how to succeed in the Customer ecosystem.

I remember one week where I finished a class in Beijing in the evening, went to the airport to board a flight, landed in Delhi in the early morning hours and took a taxi straight to the venue to begin a class there.

And I continued to write training content of our own.

Which our Business Partners and Clients began to buy or license from us and which created another stream of business for the company.

 

I’m grateful I came up through Finance

I came up through Finance before entering the Customer domain. So the concept of a business discipline was second nature for me.

To get hired for the kinds of senior level Finance jobs I held required a relevant university degree and industry certifications.

Of course you learn on the job.

But I never heard any VP, Finance say that their bosses were fine that they learn how to prepare accurate financial statements ‘on the job’.

It’s both. Formal knowledge + experience.

Where you apply your knowledge based on the context and culture where you work.

In my last Finance role, I worked at a direct marketing company that sold music, children’s toys and gardening tools via TV commercials and catalogs.

We served our Customers through our own Contact Center & Distribution Center based in El Segundo, California.

I’d been preparing the financials and budgets for both the Contact & Distribution Centers for a few years and knew the numbers inside and out.

 

Then a remarkable thing happened that changed my life

One day the current VP, Operations had resigned from her post to take another job. An hour later the CEO called me up and offered me her position.

To move from VP, Finance to VP, Contact Centre & Distribution Operations.

I was honored and excited and said yes right away.

Looking back, I think my finance background was one of the key reasons the senior team extended the offer to me.

The fact that I knew the numbers and was able to explain them had earned me face time and trust with very senior people.

I was also fortunate that the outgoing VP, Operations had been so generous with her time, often explaining the art & science of Contact Center Management as we’d have lunch or take long walks around the grounds.

Of course over the next eight years of senior Contact Center positions in the U.S. and Asia I learned a lot on the job.

Experience matters and helped me grow.

But I absolutely knew that I wasn’t a master of the domain. That I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

And I was the VP, Operations with nearly a decade of solid work experience!

I filled the gaps as best I could but anyone who has worked in Operations will tell you that taking time off to learn is tough. You’re often on call 24 x 7.

So when I left the corporate world and started my own company, I was committed to closing the gaps in my knowledge as soon as I could.

I mean how could I credibly help Clients solve their problems and become their preferred provider if I didn’t have the know-how to do so?

And that’s how I ended up on a mountain top in California.

 

You’ve got to know what you’re doing

One of the most common comments we get from Participants in our workshops is this: “I wish I had taken this course earlier. If only I had known this stuff earlier. Now that I can see the full picture it all makes sense.”

To which I reply with Maya Angelou’s wonderful quote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

And no, you don’t have to do what I did.  You don’t have to start your own company and spend $380,000.

I know what I did is pretty unique.

But the lesson for me has paid off.

In an industry that requires business discipline level know-how, and one where people generally don’t go to school for this stuff, it’s never a bad idea to look in the mirror and say, ” I don’t know what I don’t know.”

And then doing something about it.

What lessons can Contact Centre folks learn from CX folks?

Thank you for reading!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles and other information just send me your email or add your details to the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Daniel Ord teaches the Customer Experience Team at Agoda in Shanghai.

Cover photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash

 

 

I think our Reports Person has lost the plot

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

When you’re not sure why the reports you generate matter, or wonder if they even make sense, it’s time to take a step back.

“I think our Reports Person has lost the plot.”

That’s what one of our Participants said to the group after we had finished working through the Contact Centre metrics topic in a recent workshop.

“They generate these complex reports that no one really understands. It’s a big relief to know I don’t have to just accept them simply because we’ve always done it this way.”

That share prompted another Participant in the course to display a report that was being used in their Centre.

As we all stared at the screen trying to figure out what the report was meant to achieve, here is what she said:

“My predecessor who created this report had been in the role a long time.

So our big bosses and everyone in the team assumed that they were an ‘expert’. And that this report was industry standard or at least ‘right’ in some way. 

Based on what I’ve learned in this course so far I’ve already emailed our CEO and told them that we’re going to redefine some of the terms we use and present our performance to them in a better report.

I got a very positive response to that!”

 

I had my own story to share

I shared the story of how, after delivering a global workshop on-site with a Client, the reports person for that company spent nearly two hours explaining one metric that they created and used to track performance in their Centre.

That explanation was so confusing that even to this day, with half a dozen photos of the whiteboard in my phone, I still can’t quite make heads or tails of it.

And as it turned out – as I met others in that same company – nobody else could understand it either.

The calculations presented may have been highly accurate.  And may have served a higher level purpose.

But complexity in place of clarity is never a good idea.

If you’re running a Contact Centre or Customer Experience group and your folks need a PhD to understand a metric that’s supposed to guide their behavior, you’ve already got a problem.

Because the very people who are supposed to make it ‘happen’ can’t explain it.Which means they can’t understand it either.

Lesson:  Clarity matters.

 

Sometimes people who are new to the role have an advantage over those with years of experience

I sometimes find that people who are new to the industry have an easier time to stand up and ask, “Why do we do this? What is this report supposed to help us with? Is it actually helping?”

Experience is great.

But be cautious about assuming that years of experience – and doing the same thing over and over – is a reliable indicator that we’re doing the right thing.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/the-london-tube-map-and-cx-strategy-a-story

Reports are more than just reports

It’s easy to say they’re just reports. But that’s a big oversimplification.

Reports – and especially what’s on them – tell people in a formal and structured way what matters around here.  If we measure it, then it must be important.

Which guides people’s behavior. And people’s behavior informs the work culture.

Challenge yourself from time to time to be really clear on which reports matter and which ones, perhaps, don’t.

Because it’s so worth it to get it right.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/why-years-of-experience-is-not-the-best-predictor-of-contact-centre-success

Thank you for reading!

Thank you for the time you took to read this today.  I appreciate it!

If you’d like to be kept updated on new articles and information just share your email address directly with my by email or on the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

 

Should your CX Head be a Contact Center expert too?

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

The people have spoken – should your CX Head be a Contact Center expert too?

Pretty much everyone would agree that Customer Experience Management and Contact Center Management are both important.

And they’re definitely not the same thing.

With that said, the question is – should your CX Head be a Contact Center expert too?

In this article we share some interesting findings to that question.

The poll I put up

I used the LinkedIn polling feature and here’s the poll I put up:

How important is it that your Customer Experience Head/Chief Customer Officer also be a Contact Center expert?

There were 3 options (where only 1 option could be selected):

• Extremely important

• Moderately important

• Not very important

Before you read further take a moment and choose which one you would vote for yourself.

Now assume that someone asks you, ‘Why did you vote that way?’

What would you say?  Take another moment now to think specifically about why you voted the way you did.

Cool.  Let’s move on.

I chose the phrase ‘Contact Center expert’ for the poll question very deliberately.

Not just someone who likes Contact Centers. Or thinks that Contact Centers are important.  Or has worked in a Contact Center for a long time.

An expert is someone credible that you’d hire – either as an employee or consultant – who can and will measurably bring the Contact Center to a higher level of performance.

We won’t go too deeply into what’s required to succeed in the Contact Center industry. That’s better suited for another post.

But with that said, it’s much more than a ‘passion’ for the industry or even ‘years of experience’.

 

The poll results

I allowed 7 days for the votes to come in.

And here I share the final results after the poll closed.

How important is it that your Customer Experience Head/Chief Customer Officer also be a Contact Center expert?

• Extremely important 50%
• Moderately important 26%
• Not very important 24%

Total votes received – 235

We also received some great qualitative comments as well, a few of which I share later on in this post.

 

The role of Qualitative Research

Before I dive into the results, a general comment on Qualitative Research.

Clearly a LinkedIn poll isn’t statistically viable. Results can’t be confidently extrapolated across the industry.

But that’s not the point of this poll. And it was never the point.

Polls like these provide interesting fodder for raising questions and pointing out where additional research might bring more insight.

That’s the power of qualitative research.

And that’s the spirit of this article.

 

So who were the people that voted ‘extremely important’?

Half of all the Voters chose the option ‘extremely important’, so I decided to dig into the composition of ‘who’ these Voters were to see what I could learn.

To do that I worked with a colleague to look at the LinkedIn profile of each person that voted to determine what they did at work.

Sometimes what someone did at work was obvious – for example Head of Contact Center for X organization. Or Voice of Customer Manager for Y organization.

Other times it wasn’t easy to understand what someone did. Often times these folks used hyphenated job titles such as:

CX | Data Analytics | Speaker | Employee Experience | Board Member

For job titles like these we had to dig deeper into the the LinkedIn profiles to figure out what they actually did.

It took some work but we were able to classify each Voter and here’s what we found.

72% of those who voted ‘extremely important’ that the CX Head also be a Contact Center expert worked in the Contact Center  function themselves.

A significant majority.

 

What about the people who voted ‘moderately important’?

Of the 26% who voted that it was ‘moderately important’ that the CX Head also be a Contact Center expert, 47% of those Voters worked in a Contact Center role themselves.

The balance, 53% of those Voters, worked in a CX role or as a CX consultant.

About evenly split.

 

And finally the people who voted ‘not very important’

Of the remaining 24% who voted ‘not very important’, only 30% of those Voters worked in a Contact Center role.

The remaining 70% of Voters who chose ‘not very important’, worked in a CX role or as a CX consultant.

 

Summing up the results

So while we know that correlation does not equal causation here’s what we can say about the poll results –

There was a positive correlation between the ‘belief’ that a CX Head also be a Contact Center expert and whether the Voter worked in the Contact Center industry themselves.

Or put another way, people that work in a Contact Center role found it more important that the CX Head be a Contact Center expert.

And though the correlation wasn’t as strong, as the percentage of Voters who worked in a CX role increased, the level of importance that a CX Head be a Contact Center expert decreased.

 

We did receive some interesting qualitative comments from Voters

Here are some verbatim comments received from the Contact Center ‘people’

“I can’t imagine not being a “well-seasoned” contact center manager, otherwise you will end up “well-seasoned” on a spit over an open fire on your way out as a failed CX Officer.”

“Maybe the word ‘expert’ is not the best, but CX Leaders absolutely need to know how best-in-class Contact Centres operate.”

“I voted extremely important not because I think they need to be hands on with the contact centre but they have to know how to influence the contact center managers in the grand scheme of strategic planning. If you don’t fundamentally understand how a contact Center manager goes about their day, you will undoubtedly be destined to fail.”

 

Here are some verbatim comments received from the CX ‘people’

“And this is the conundrum of CX professionals far and wide 😂 the dreaded contact centre box. CX is further reaching than just contact centre management.”

“Your chief customer officer has to be more aligned with the CEO than the contact centre. Perhaps at a lower level it becomes more important – but a CCO has to be an expert is overall operations, marketing, strategy, product development, legal, HR, etc – before specific contact centre knowledge comes into play.”

“My view has always been that the person at the top of the pyramid can’t be an expert in everything. But they need to have trusted persons who do master the various aspects and who can advise. That doesn’t mean that the boss shouldn’t be a specialist in one or more aspects of the job.”

For me these were fascinating results – both quantitatve and qualitative – and I hope you found them fascinating too.

 

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read this today! If you’d like to keep up on our articles and other information just add your name to the contact form on our website or simply email me and I’ll add you!

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Daniel Ord films segments as Emcee of the European Customer Centricity Awards in Santorini Greece.

Dear Trainers – engagement shouldn’t be the goal

by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

Everywhere you go Trainers and the people that employ them talk about engagement.  But engagement shouldn’t be the goal.  Here’s why…

Engagement. It’s a word that you’ll hear Trainers, would be Trainers and Clients looking for Trainers all use.

Engage our people.

But when we’re talking about training, I think sometimes the bus stops too soon.

Engagement isn’t the goal.  It’s not the final destination.

Sure, it’s an integral part of the journey. It’s important.

But it’s not the goal.

 

Changing business results is the goal of (most) training

If it’s Customer Service training, then decide what your goal is.  Should repeat calls go down? Should Customer satisfaction go up?  Should Employee Attrition go down?

If it’s Contact Center management training, should Service Level improve? Should leadership reallocate where they spend time? Should metrics be redesigned?

If it’s Customer Experience Management training, should we help people pass a certification exam?  Should new listening posts be identified?  Should new rituals be designed?

One of my best work moments was when I was watching a global Customer Service Director share with their Team how their Organization’s business results had improved over the last year.

How X measurement had gone up, how Y measurement had gone down, and how the work of the people in that room had contributed to that success.

His opening was a superb lead in to the workshop that I was about to conduct. Because he specifically addressed business results.

He brought up engagement as well in his workshop introduction.  He told the group, “And believe me you’ll have fun with Dan.  I know because I was in this course before.”

And that was fine too.  It was a lovely compliment.

Engagement matters.  It’s just not the end goal.

 

Don’t think about engagement as the final destination. Engagement is expected.

If you as a Trainer struggle to bring a group of people to life, your opportunity to deliver business results will be negatively impacted.

No matter how valid or good your content is.

On the other hand, if you think that getting a room of people hyped up and excited without any meaningful change in behaviour and outcomes is ok, well that’s a different problem.

We’ve all seen those trainings where lots of people jump up and down. A few may even cry.

But the following week they’re all back at work doing everything exactly the same way they did before.

Nothing’s changed.

I’ve always called that hoo-ha training.

And the term is not not meant to be complimentary.

And finally, there are some training programs – such as CPR or life saving – that may not have a specific business result in mind – but which are considered important too.  It’s good to understand when that’s the case.

 

Engagement matters. But it’s expected.

If you’re a pianist, you can play with feeling.  If you’re a lawyer, you can articulate the merits of your case.

If you’re a Trainer, you can engage groups of people.  It’s expected.

Remember that your end goal is one of impact.  To change those business results.

Because that’s what really matters.

 

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read this today.

If you’d like to keep up to date with our articles and other information just leave your email address in the contact form on our website.  Or send it to me by email.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com