The consensus from NSAM's readers: Wait for the Castros to move on before taking Cuba seriously.

By Jon Tonti

A mere 230 miles from Miami, Havana’s ultra-attractive geographic positioning continues to push Cuba on to the radar of ‘what ifs’ when looking at explosive possibilities in the Nearshore services sector.

But before floating into dream land – let’s review the facts: Cuba’s BPO market today is nearly non-existent and the Cuban government is not focused on jump-starting it.  Despite an intelligent workforce that is increasingly exposed to private-run business, Cuba still has a long way to go to become viable for global services. We drew upon our pool of experts and did some poking around of our own to find that Cuba lacks a BPO scene because of the Cuban government’s preference for other industries, a weak technological infrastructure, a dearth of transparency, and political and workforce uncertainty.

“The Cuban government doesn’t appear to be that interested in BPO; they seem to be more focused on tourism and natural resource extraction.  You really may need a regime change to get things moving with BPO,” says Peter Ryan, lead analyst at Ovum.  His opinion reflects the results of a recent Nearshore Americas online poll that indicated over 65% of audience members saying “Wait for the Castros to Move On” before examining Cuba.

Cuba already has plenty of experience participating in joint ventures with first-world democracies like Canada and Spain albeit in non-service related industries.  Canada based international mining giant Sherritt Corp. has operations in Cuba.  Spanish foreign direct investment is mostly focused on the Cuban tourism industry, which currently accounts for 12% of the labor market as reported by the US State Department, and was made possible by a series of market oriented reforms in 1993 and 1994 in attempts to stave off fiscal crisis.

Joint ventures occurring between Cuba and international companies would seem to be a signpost of Cuba’s readiness and capability to take on BPO operations, even majority foreign ownership has supposedly been allowed since 1995 despite little evidence of its actual existence. Regrettably, joint ventures between the Cuban government and foreign firms steadily declined in the seven year period between 2002 and 2009.  Reasons cited for the decline are encumbering regulations, grueling bureaucracy, and high-priced inefficient labor.

“Therein lies the problem, it is not a free market,” says Ryan when asked about how a company interested in launching a BPO joint venture with the Cuban government would go about negotiating wage rates.  “Instead you have the DR or Jamaica right there and they are already proven BPO markets with less red tape and more transparency.”

“I am sure Cubans can adapt and provide quality customer service, but it will not happen overnight”

 Is the Workforce There and Ready?

UNICEF data shows that the Cuban population has 100% literacy and youth enrollment in primary and secondary education is on par with that of the most economically successful nations in Latin America.  That reality combined with the fact that 12% of the labor market is employed in the tourism industry, where those workers may be either formally or informally receiving an education in current hospitality standards, is an argument used by some to predict that Cuba is ready for BPO.  How many workers of that 12% are truly focused on guest centric activities?  The impact is overestimated.

BPO would also find it difficult to pinch those few readied workers focused on guest centric services from the tourism sector because of the tips they receive; it is not uncommon for a worker to receive a tip that is half their monthly salary.  As for the vast majority of the Cuban workforce that is not involved in tourism, although highly educated, may take time to deliver high quality BPO services.

“It is hard to conceptualize Cuba becoming a hub for customer service anytime soon.  Customer service is very much an idea rooted in the North American business psyche.  To generalize, Cubans have simply not been exposed to this practice and as a society and they will need time to switch gears.  I am sure Cubans can adapt and provide quality customer service, but it will not happen overnight,” says Sonya Fierst, a research analyst for Centro de Estudios en Economía Sistémica (ECSIM) who recently traveled to Cuba.

Even if Cuba were to become a market economy tomorrow the communism hangover would endure for some time.

 Infrastructure Woes

Internet connectivity in Cuba has been known to be abysmal with the Cuban National Statistics office reporting as recently as 2010 that only 2.9% of the population used the internet over the previous 12-month period.  The arrival of an undersea fiber optic cable in early 2011 from Venezuela evoked wary optimism by freedom of information supporters; all Cubans know that with any increased access to virtual information monitoring and blocking technologies will escalate in lockstep.  As to date there has been little reporting on the anticipated internet access that was promised with the delivery of the fiber optic cable, sources on the ground say internet access for the average citizen continues to be absent.

Political and Economic Uncertainty

Any BPO buyer has political and economic stability on the top of their due diligence checklist.  Unfortunately, Cuba remains a wildcard in terms of its post-Castro future.  The island is also preparing for an altered relationship with Venezuela and the Cuban government, which now employs 85% percent of the Cuban workforce, claims that within the next 4-5 years 50% of the country´s economic activity will be in the private sector as reported by NPR.

However, the Cuban regime has a track record of making claims and not following through or reversing course, especially when it comes to the issue of economic liberalization.  It remains true that the small subset of Cuban entrepreneurs cannot deal directly with foreign firms, and until a big shift occurs an unpredictable Cuban government still controls everything.

Beverly Burke, Director, Information and Promotion at BELTRAIDE, talks about how Belize is making a name for itself in the Nearshore.

By Michael Blankman

In my recent article, we concluded that the most important aspect of managing remotely is building a strong and trusting relationship. Creating a partnership that doesn’t rely solely on the contract for the outsourcer to get performance security. The partnership is critical because once operations are outsourced, real influence over daily management will and should be limited, or why outsource at all? The partnership needs to be based on respecting each other’s expertise, ensuring roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and that the underlying business model justifying the decision to outsource is protected.

Managing the ongoing performance (real time, daily, weekly, etc.) is the second most important area on which to focus. Performance management is conceptually aligned with the concept of trust, but verify.

Customer service expectations that are critical to the outsourcer can seem at odds with the operational efficiencies targeted by the vendor.

Recapping what we have covered to date:

• The toughest decision, which is to outsource has been made.
• A general observation is that businesses aren’t unique and that it is important to let go and to fit into their operating model.
• The outsourcer has created a small but influential and agile group of subject matter experts to be the primary interface with the vendor; the vendor has assigned dedicated account management.
• Depending on the size of the business, it is important to accept that the overall number of support and management staff dedicated to a program may be small.

Customer Satisfaction / Quality Management

The vendor and the outsourcer may have service and quality goals, which seem contradictory. Putting a process in place is the moment of truth between the supplier and the vendor. That is why it is critical during due diligence process that the vendor’s commitment to quality is understood that they are not providing lip service or view quality as a necessary evil. A vendor’s true commitment is easy to recognize by understanding what local processes they have in place and if they are followed consistently.

A good way to see if customer service and quality are truly integrated into the management process is to ask the staff their opinion and to find out from them what reward and recognition programs are in place. Everybody in every function, whether or not they are writing code or answering calls, wants an opportunity to be recognized. Integration and consistency, although seemingly obvious, are critical. It is interesting to see how many initiatives are the “flavor of the day” and dwindle in importance, replaced by new programs that also dwindle in importance. For example, consider when the last employee of the month was awarded.

Additionally, during contract negotiations change of control protection is critical. It is very easy for a change in ownership and management philosophy to alter customer service dynamics. This is as important as protecting the financial model contractually.

Qualitative versus Quantitative

Many of the relevant statistics will be relatively easy to track and done systematically.

In call centers, vendors will focus more on agent performance and outsourcers more on qualitative data that will enable them to understand the underlying reasons for a call and to apply that data to specific customers, where appropriate. In the call monitoring process, vendors will target a statistical sample by agent to quantify performance versus call type and client specific metrics favored by the outsourcer. Important also is the ability to disposition calls correctly. Vendors often bristle at free form wrap and want to rely on system driven algorithms to deliver MIS. Attention needs to be paid to the integrity of this process or the data derived will not be useful.

Call Monitoring: Call monitoring is the best process for both parties to really understand quality and make improvements. It is also labor intensive but can be done efficiently.

The Program

• Call monitoring has to be a dedicated function on both sides: don’t engage with a vendor unless it is already a part of their quality process.
• There needs to be agreement on what metrics are tracked during monitoring and the vendor should try to accommodate the outsourcer’s needs, especially where regulatory attention must be paid. Some expansion to the vendor’s current process will most likely have to take place.
• Whatever the final process looks like the outsourcer will always have to monitor additional calls. There are nuances to the businesses and clients that the vendor will never understand completely. To avoid undue bias and potential line of business conflicts, call monitoring at the vendor should reside as part of an independent quality group. This is not an attempt to create layers – the assumption is that the vendor already has this group in place for their own monitoring and other quality initiatives.

A multi-tiered process should be established. For example:

• Both quality teams should monitor calls together according to a formalized schedule for calibration purposes. Ultimately the vendor will monitor the majority of the calls therefore both sides need to be in synch.
• Calls need to be monitored separately as well with the results distributed and reviewed by all parties.
• Underlying clients, where possible, should be included in some of the monitoring sessions (relationship management should also be involved so the vendor hears the voice of the client).
• Utilization of third party remote monitoring organizations as an independent counterbalance should also be considered.
• An underutilized and sometimes poorly managed tool is mystery shopping. Mystery shopping is a tool to gage your own service and an opportunity to compare the metrics and best practices of your competitors. The outsourcer can accomplish mystery shopping internally by calling both competitors and the vendor or by hiring an independent firm.

Anytime multiple sites or vendors can be utilized, the ability to competitively benchmark and drive improvements is enhanced. To emphasize, quality and reward programs need to be consistent and tightly managed with tangible goals.

Michael Blankman, a global outsourcing senior advisor, can be reached at: michaelblankman@aol.com

By Robert L. Scheier

Service level agreements (SLAs) are the heart and soul of many outsourcing contracts. They define what the provider must deliver and their penalties for failure, in anything from application uptime to the time required to solve a customer’s problem on a help line.

But at least as currently defined, SLAs often fall short of detecting (and, more importantly, correcting) problems quickly. That was the message at the recent SIG Spring Summit from Senior Corporate Counsel Richard English of Ingram Micro and Shaalu Mehra of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, who helps the electronic distributor negotiate outsourcing deals.

SLAs fall down, said Mehra, because they don’t change with the customer’s requirements, aren’t defined precisely enough, and often aren’t structured to do a root-cause analysis of the root problem behind multiple failures.

“I love SLAs,” Mehra said in a session on “Best Practices for Ensuring Quality of Service in Multinational Outsourcing Engagements.” However, he continued, they are limited because they are just one “data point” measuring a provider’s performance.

While SLAs are the subject of intense negotiations at the start of engagement, he says, they may not be based on the right metrics to measure the effectiveness of the outsourced service for the customer. In addition, he said, SLAs “can be undermined by even minor changes” to the processes or systems they measure, and are often not updated often enough.

Another factor that limits their usefulness is “single incident limitation, (which makes) root cause analysis subject to an agreement of the parties,” said Mehra. Understanding and correcting the reasons for past failures can also be hindered by what English called a “statute of limitations” requested by vendors on how long a customer can ask for a service credit after a failure.

Both strongly suggested using a common approach to SLAs and other terms with all outsourcing providers, regardless of their location. “While that company may be India-based, and might be doing work for us in Asia, or might be doing work for us in Latin America…we don’t care,” said English. “We’re going to build in one global SLA.”

Two areas where the pair said specialized SLAs might make sense were to measure English language fluency and attrition. While Mehra agreed that “fluency” is subjective, he said it could be measured through a sampling of calls or surveys of whichever end users were being served.

Mehra said such SLAs often measure attrition on a rolling 12-month basis, and is an area where definitions (such as whether promotions, reductions in force or departures for personal reasons count as attrition) are often the cause of hard bargaining. “However reasonable the vendor’s concerns may sound, at some point, we have to draw a line” about where and how the customer will be protected from excessive turnover, he said.

In addition to SLAs, Mehra recommended regular payments based on the achievement of milestones, as well as periodic payments with provisions for holdbacks as a penalty to the provider for failures in delivery.

By Rosanne D’Ausilio PhD

Average turnover, reported at 40% to 50%, has always been, and continues to be, a chronically costly problem for call centers, a problem that seems to be tolerated rather than solved. Respondents to a FurstPerson survey reported an average monthly attrition rate of 7.18%. Annualized, a 40% annual turnover estimate becomes an actual turnover rate of 87%. As you read further, you’ll see what that costs!

Although 90% of corporate executives say that employees are the most important variable in their company’s success, a Towers Perrin survey reported that in practice they rank people-related issues far below other business priorities. Executives agreed improving employee performance would improve business results; 73% even said their most important investment was people. However, people-related issues, such as training and compensation, consistently ranked at the bottom of the list. It seems the mouth and the feet don’t always go in the same direction.

Training is Crucial

A profitable workforce requires well-trained, knowledgeable, conscientious, service-oriented employees who enjoy their responsibilities. Training is crucial. Recent studies in service industries link increased training to decreased employee turnover.

For example:

• Ryder Truck Rental discovered that among employees who participated in training programs, the turnover rate was 19%. For employees who did not participate, the rate soared to 41%.
• Guest Quarters Suite Hotels report their low turnover rate is one indication of employee satisfaction. Additionally, but not surprising, there is a positive correlation between training, employee satisfaction, and guest satisfaction.

Turnover is a Priority

At this time when nearly all businesses, are looking for ways to cut costs and save money, turnover should be a priority. Disruption of workforce stability should also be of concern to those who manage the customer care process.

FurstPerson reports the average cost of attrition at $5,466 per person. Interestingly, the cost of attrition in an internally managed contact center was reported at $7,994 per person, more than twice the cost of attrition at an outsourced center which was reported as $3,420 per person.

The disparity in cost is most likely related to the amount of time and money that is dedicated to training individuals in an internally managed contact center. And we’ve seen turnover in other reports as high as $8,500 per person +++

Following is a typical scenario with 100 people and a 30% turnover rate:

100 people

x30% turnover

30 (people are leaving annually)

x$7,500 average (conservative) cost of new hire

$225,000+ + + = Turnover cost

Note: The +++ represents the additional cost of the learning curve. For instance, when senior representatives, supervisors, and/or managers need to sit with or give time to new hires this obviously takes away from their productivity.

Also, you need to factor in consideration of the people having to take on the additional workload because of the short staffing, or because new hires are too ‘green’ to be on their own. Then there is the subsequent declining morale that goes along with these examples. All of this impacts productivity negatively, customer (internal and external) satisfaction, and employee satisfaction.

Can you see the easy justification for investing in a training initiative of say $60,000 that could reduce turnover for almost a 4:1 return on your investment? Sounds like a slam dunk to me.

Rosanne D’Auslio, Ph.D., President of Human Technologies Global, Inc. known as ‘the practical champion of the human,’ is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, bestselling author, executive coach and customer service expert.

“Laurus International is the first call center opened by the President of the Dominican Republic and it is an honor to welcome Dr. Leonel Fernandez, to our building today” commented Rudy Ganna, President and CEO of Laurus International, when the company inaugurated its state‐of‐the‐art call center facility in downtown Santo Domingo at the end of March. “We are eager to show our facilities, which features technology, security, productivity tools and employee amenities never before implemented in the call center industry. We also want to highlight our longstanding and deep commitment to expanding trade in the DR and creating careers for Dominicans that provide the highest level of comfort and care to our employees,” concluded Ganna.

The opening of its latest facility is part of a three year expansion plan in the DR to serve its rapidly growing demand for nearshore contact center and BPO services. Laurus International was founded in 2007 and currently employs 850 people in the Dominican Republic. Laurus provides customer care & technical support services for both “Inbound” and “Outbound” programs to Fortune 500 companies in US. Areas of specialization include sales, technical support, health care, financial services and customer care.

The Jamaica Investment Forum – held last week in Montego Bay – was easily one of the most polished and well-executed investor’s conferences we’ve seen in a while in the Nearshore industry. Built to highlight a range of investment opportunities, including energy, tourism, manufacturing and BPO – Jamaica put its best foot forward by highlighting the positive. “We have to work with the hand we’ve been dealt,” said Prime Minster Portia Simpson-Miller, emphasizing her desire to boost the country’s competitiveness. Over 600 investors participated in the three-day program. Click “more” to see our slideshow.

By Luke Bujarski

Martinez: More than just a job.

The contact center industry in the Dominican Republic is poised to double in size from 10,000 to 20,000 bilingual agents by 2017. This is the message passed on by Eddy Martinez, president of the export and foreign investment agency CEI-RD, as well as key industry insiders during detailed discussions with Nearshore Americas. However, concerns about the availability of high-tech talent suggests that the DR still has some way to go before moving into higher-end software and application development services.

The country’s upcoming presidential election could also stall industry growth in 2012, as politically appointed administrative officials are hampered and rotated during the campaign season. Wages and total costs have remained stable over the last five years with Internet costs falling and a devalued peso against the dollar, but operators continue to express frustration over high energy costs and stringent labor laws unbefitting contact center operations.

NSAM: What is your five-year plan and vision for BPO and IT services in the DR?

Martinez: The contact center industry has been a major part of the country’s strategy for economic growth and now employs over 25,000 people. Looking outward, we have an opportunity to grow the industry both in scale and service-level maturity. One main reason is because we have good physical infrastructure, submarine cables, access points; we have among the best telecoms infrastructure in Latin America. The objective is to grow as fast as possible but with a managed growth strategy.

Insiders: There’s still a lot of potential for growth in the DR. The 25,000 agent figure includes the local market and government employees. For commercial bilingual accounts the total number is more like 10,000 agents. The market can grow to 20,000, but that’s where we hit capacity given the current landscape. Being able to ramp up on campaigns is an advantage in the DR compared to other Central American and Caribbean markets. In fact, much of the work coming into the Dominican Republic is from the Philippines and Manila, where the industry has hit a saturation point. Santo Domingo is the hub for CRM services but Santiago is also an option with around 500,000 people and an affluent, bilingual workforce.

NSAM: What has the government done to strengthen the local workforce, particularly in the area of language training and IT skills?

Martinez: The number one constraint has been the availability of talent, particularly bilingual training. In response, we’ve initiated a national program of English immersion incorporating public and private universities with IT and English language training. In the last three years we’ve graduated and certified 31,000 students. We also recently held a job fair specifically for the BPO industry with a turnout of over 9,500 attendees – and in the case of bilingual students – 30 percent of participants submitted their applications in English. Contact center jobs are good paying jobs here, compared to other employment opportunities. In our programs we also stress the BPO industry as more than just a job, but as a career option.

Insiders: The government-run training program that started three to four years ago is extensive but you can only learn so much in the classroom. The real pool of English-speaking talent comes from middle class families that send their children to bilingual schools. There are also a lot of expatriates returning from the US, particularly from New York. In the industry we’ve also seen chat support growing a lot, which doesn’t require as refined spoken English, only reading and writing. Finding experienced IT people in the DR is definitely a challenge. Higher education is affordable, but the quality is poor producing mediocre students. Programming talent is even harder to come by; skilled programmers with any .NET experience often take jobs in other sectors. The Cyber Park of Santo Domingo has been an ambitious project but it has proved difficult to pull in the right talent, primarily because of its location far away from the city center. They do have the CISCO Institute which graduates 30-45 certified engineers per year. France Telecom and RIM are also hosting some IT technology innovation at the Cyber Park developing new applications for the mobile industry. Big opportunities are in CRM, BPO, and tech support. Our clients are happy with tech support. In the DR most are proficient at basic computing.

NSAM: How friendly is the overall business environment for contact centers and IT services firms?

Martinez: Tax zones were traditionally available only to manufacturing and assembly. Now contact centers and IT companies qualify under the Zona Franca Especial, which offers tax advantages and works as a floating trade zone that can be applied irrespective of location. The maturity of our political leadership has also helped. When we started this whole drive for BPO there was a lot of skepticism. Now the two main political parties have pledged support. Larger companies and IT-related services are now on the radar. We’ve been successful in attracting the big contact centers and believe that companies like HP, IBM, and Microsoft could also benefit from our workforce and business environment.

Insiders: The biggest obstacles to the contact center industry here are antiquated labor laws and electricity costs. The Zona Franca regime helps with an exemption from the national profit sharing tax that obligates companies to share 10 percent of company profits across the organization. However, there is still a lot of gray area in the labor laws that are incompatible with call center operators. We’re a 24/7 business and Sundays are double pay, for example. There is also a lack of night time pay differential and reasons for termination are narrowly defined, making things like inappropriate behavior and low performance scores very difficult to prove under the current system. Electricity costs are also quite high. There is a 20 percent discount incentive available, but contact center operators do not meet the five-megawatt usage requirement. At the same time, internet costs have gone down considerably over the last five years – by almost 50 percent. Also, the DR Peso has declined in value relative to the dollar by about 10 percent over the past five years.

NSAM: How will the upcoming presidential election affect efforts to promote and support the BPO industry?

Martinez: We understand that attracting the big players requires a high level of coordination with us [CEI-RD], local governments, the university system and other players. We do believe that the DR offers political stability compared to other countries in the region. Our judicial system has become more institutionalized and our democracy works. The support from our political leadership has helped. On August 1-3 we will be hosting our annual conference (TecDo) intended to let investors know what the DR has to offer, but also to inform the local government and communities of the progress we’ve been making in this industry.

Insiders: The political process is stable and legitimate with Presidential elections held every four years. The major problem is that the campaign season brings most of the local and national administrative functions to a complete stop. Most government jobs in the DR are politically appointed positions so there’s high turnover within administrative roles. This makes it very difficult to process required documentation and applications during election season. We’re opening another call center in Santo Domingo and are rushing to get all of the required paperwork in before elections get underway. Regarding the BPO industry specifically, each contact center must acquire a license from the state-regulated telephone company. This could prove to be a powerful tool in developing a sustained growth strategy for the industry if things heat up, but there is about a 1 percent chance that the government would actual implement such a measure.

By Dan Berthiaume

Everyone seems to have at least one story about a nightmare experience dealing with telephone customer service. The fact that many call center providers are located in countries where language and customs are significantly different from US norms only exacerbates the problem. Some experts recommend that companies outsourcing call center functions attack the problem of poor customer service by focusing more attention on serving the needs of customers. But is that always the best strategy?

Michael D. Brown, a corporate consultant and trainer who specializes in developing professional brands, has a slightly different recommendation. “Step back and take care of the employee first,” Brown says. “They will then take care of the customer. Make the employee number one and the customer number two.”

Brown realizes that his advice to place the frontline employee before the customer amounts to heresy in the eyes of many customer service gurus, but he hastens to explain that this is actually the best way to ensure a top-quality customer experience. “When you look at unfavorable dealings with the end user, there is a rush to judgment to put a band-aid on the situation,” says Brown.

Instead of approaching each individual customer complaint as a separate issue necessitating an on-the-spot fix, Brown says companies should make more effort to understand how the frontline call center employees actually spend their day. “Take a side-by-side walk with your frontline employees,” says Brown. “See what a typical day is like; see what types of calls they’re getting and where the roadblocks are. Then ask, ‘Do I have the right processes in place?’”

Brown says real-time communication technologies such as Skype and FaceTime allow US companies to virtually perform side-by-side walking with call center employees who may be working from distant offshore locations.

After performing side-by-side walking (either in-person or virtual), Brown says companies should then go about “smart tasking” outsourced call center employees. “What do the employees do besides just answering calls?” asks Brown. “To deliver a world-class call center customer experience, look at the sequence of tasks employees perform and see if you can make any changes to enable them to deliver a better customer experience.”

Let Frontline Employees Make it Right

Following smart tasking, Brown says companies should provide outsourced call center employees with what he calls “Make it Right” power, or the ability to solve certain problems on their own. “Often the person answering the call can do nothing other than pass on the call to someone else when there is a problem,” says Brown. The customer becomes even more infuriated when they are passed to person after person.”

Instead, Brown says the employee manual should provide frontline employees specific instructions on how to resolve common issues and that the second person they speak to should have the authority to handle all problems.

“Most customer problems are not rocket science,” comments Brown. “The frontline employees hear the same issues day in, day out. Ask them what they are doing day to day and look for organically developed solutions.” Brown says companies should then compile these solutions into a continually growing “What-If Arsenal” of resolutions to common problems that is built from the bottom-up, guaranteeing employee buy-in.

Brown says is it also important for companies engaged in call center BPO to encourage “bubble up innovation,” or innovative ideas that come from frontline employee brainstorming sessions. “Often we don’t have the answers, but need innovation bubbling up from the bottom,” Brown says. “It gives the frontline employees ownership in the workplace.”

Clued In

Brown says all the steps he recommends to achieve world-class customer service in an outsourced call center will not succeed if everyone involved is not relentlessly focused on the same goal. “Does everyone understand the vision, or are people in different silos?” he asks.

Of course, companies also need to simply follow through and make world-class customer service happen at their outsourced call centers. This includes remaining open to making changes in response to changing needs of customers. “Keep it fresh,” says Brown. “Things will change. Look at what happened to Borders. To take call center customer service to the next level, you need to say enough call centers are giving the industry a bad name, it’s time for us to rise to the top.”

An essential part of making it happen is ensuring frontline employees fully understand what customers expect from products and services. “Too often the call center employees haven’t a clue,” he states. “They must understand how things are made, not necessarily from a technical standpoint but in terms of the promised experience. Often the call center employees don’t know what has been promised to the customer.”

By Rosanne D’Ausilio PhD

There is what we call a moment of truth when a customer makes a decision about you, your company, maybe even all companies in your industry, based on their interaction with anyone from the front lines up to and including your CEO. In those first three sentences, a customer determines whether their interaction will be a good experience, a bad experience, or a waste of their time.

When talking about customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer retention, you often hear that the best way to determine how you’re doing is to ask your customer. And that’s absolutely true. However, if you really want to know how your company is doing, ask your internal customer.

Not many companies do this. Their focus seems to be on the external customer only. But knowing what’s going on with internal customers is key to improving the satisfaction of external ones.

Who is your internal customer? Your employees, your peers, your direct reports, any and every one who has an impact on the customer experience. And how do you assess them? What do we look for when we take the pulse of a company?

• What are the strengths of your people?

• What are their weaknesses?

• What are the commonalities among applications?

• What are the changes currently going on in your organization?

• Hardware
• Software
• Teams
• Rules/Regulations

• What is today’s stress level?

• What doesn’t get communicated powerfully?

• What feels like you’re working with one hand tied behind your back?

• What are the mixed messages that may be rampant at your company?

• Why are your customers calling – do they have a question, a request, a complaint or a problem?

• What is a Typical Call?

• What is a Call from Hell?

• What’s the biggest gripe on the side of the customer?

• What’s the biggest gripe on the side of the employee?

• What gets accelerated and why?

• What empowerment exists, if any?

• What works really well?

• In a perfect world what would you do differently?

When you can answer these questions, you’re really getting to know your company and its people.

How do you accomplish this? We do it by:

1) Interviewing people

2) Monitoring calls

3) Studying the flow

4) Navigation of screens

5) After-call process

However, we don’t want to talk only to the best people or the highest level, but to all of them, whenever possible, and at all productivity levels.

Armed with this information, you can then identify the gaps and with that knowledge in hand, you are best able to present options. These options can fall into one of three categories:

(1) People

(2) Process

(3) Technology

If it is determined that it’s a people issue (which often it is), design customized training sessions to address the gaps and kick it up a notch in the area of customer service. We suggest these classes be delivered over time so that retention is improved and delivery is in real time addressing whatever current challenges exist.

If it is a technology issue, usually it’s caused by silos, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Many companies because of heavy investment in technology keep trying to make it work. Reminds me of the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

If the results show a process issue, ‘be a customer’ and go through the process to see where the gaps are. Stand at the end, what is the result you want and how did you get there? What got in the way? What would make it smoother? Again, what are the gaps and how do you either eliminate them, fill them, or replace what isn’t working?

Rosanne D’Auslio, Ph.D., President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., and known as “the practical champion of the human,” is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, bestselling author, executive coach, and customer service expert. She also writes the complimentary tips newsletter How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch!