Traits of the best call centers

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) is one of the call center industry's most respected organizations.  ICMI's president, Brad Cleveland, wrote Call Center Management on Fast Forward: Succeeding in Today's Dynamic Customer Contact Environment, in which he identified "Traits of the Best Managed Call Centers." 

Below is the first of a series of articles in which TMP Direct's Mary Ann Kerr takes a look at how TMP Direct stacks up against Brad Cleveland's list of best call center traits (bolded below).

"Great call centers know that people are the key to success."

TMP Direct never forgets that our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are on the front line. Each CSR is the personal representative of our clients' companies, products and brands. And each CSR has the power to create a positive experience every time they talk, email, or click & chat with a customer or prospect.

One of our guiding principles is that that CSRs require two things to succeed in their mission to make every contact a positive one:  (1) the technology and training they need to deliver the specific information and superior service our clients desire , and (2) reward programs that provide recognition and monetary bonuses for a challenging job well done. 

How well does TMP Direct succeed?  We'll let three facts speak for themselves:

• 48% of our CSRs have been with us for 10 years or more
• 62% have been with us for 5 years or more
• And when we ask our CSRs what their biggest frustration is, they don't talk about compensation, schedule or work conditions, they say "having to disappoint a caller!"

That's why TMP Direct takes our CSRs' feedback very seriously -- constantly working with clients to update business rules, modify procedures, and amend missing information so that next time a caller won't be disappointed.

"They have a supporting culture."

Truly supportive corporations identify and prioritize goals for the call center, align every department within the organization behind those goals, then put their money where their mouth is by allocating the dollars needed to achieve those goals. 

At TMP Direct, our goals are the goals of our clients: acquiring new customers, increasing customer satisfaction and improving customer retention.  Senior management in each of TMP Direct's departments -- Contact Center, Client Services, Fulfillment, Business Development and IT -- are fully supportive of our CSRs. They ensure that the individual program goals of our clients are fully understood, and supply CSRs with the infrastructure, information and training they require to deliver continuous excellence. 

As an example, we recently transitioned to a Citrix environment that improves data flow.  And we're upgrading our Interactive Intelligence telecommunications system, so our CSRs and their supervisors have the superior tools they need to support our CSRs' superior customer care skills.

"They leverage key statistics."

Statistics can be seductive ... it's a thrill to improve upon a benchmark or surpass a performance indicator.  But statistics and data are not end results:  they're tools that help effective call centers understand real causes of success and identify the underlying circumstances that limit further success.

At TMP Direct, we use many traditional metrics such as Average Speed of Answer (ASA) and Service Level.  We've also developed quality, adherence and productivity metrics -- which are continuously monitored by our Contact Center Director (Rosemary King), Quality Manager (Rachel Ryan), and Training Manager (Lee Ann Hartung).  Their review and evaluation of these metrics, coupled with ongoing intercommunication, make TMP Direct's call center a very fluid environment that's adept at responding quickly to the evolving needs of our clients. 

Remembering that statistics are nothing more than measures of how human beings and technologies perform is one reason why TMP Direct's CSRs are so loyal to TMP Direct and the clients they serve.