Exceptional customer care pays off in significant ways. Here is another example of the difference between a call center and a touch center:

When incoming call centers were first adopted by large business organizations, they were typically set up as high-volume transaction-based cost centers. Their standard mission was to act as the front line interface between the customer and the organization. Their goal was to efficiently, expediently, and in a cost effective manner, act as a central repository and point of contact for customer inquiries, complaints and/or concerns.

Incoming call centers were typically cost centers, deriving little to no revenue from sales. In support of their mandate to keep costs low, call center employees followed highly scripted logical decision-tree cards to satisfy the bulk of the most common customer inquiries and requests, and keep talk times short. This process was both time-efficient for the customer and cost effective for the host company. Since these centers were considered overhead to the organizations, keeping transaction costs to a minimum was fundamental to facilitating the organizational profit goals. Both call center managers, and their employees, were encouraged and motivated to keep costs to a minimum. Productivity metrics were introduced, and measurements like customer calls-per-day, talk time, and down time were tracked. Employees with the best “stats” received promotional gifts and celebratory parties to mark their successes.

Initially, this call center concept appeared to work well. The typical call center productivity model:

· Took a repeatable process,
· Centralized, standardized and controlled it, and
· Made it efficient through transactional-based operations and metrics.

This model had all the makings of an efficient system, except one. The customer was not considered as a central factor in goal fulfillment. In this regard, the metrics and measurements were skewed toward internal organization goal fulfillment; thus, the incentives and their associated actions were not balanced.

The call center separated its internal mandate (efficiently processing customer calls at the lowest possible cost) from the larger relational context of organizational goals (which included satisfying customer requirements). By looking insularly at only its internal function, the initial call center model left in its wake a dissatisfied customer base that felt pressured and rushed by call takers whose measurements and incentives were based on speed and cost containment. The model had inadvertently sub-optimized the higher organizational goal fulfillment model through its misaligned and unbalanced metrics, measurements and incentives.

One of the first companies to identify the model flaw and rework the centralized incoming call center methodology to its aligned strategic advantage was USAA.

USAA is a worldwide insurance and diversified financial service association, founded in 1922 to serve the military community. Winner of the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award, the J.D. Power and Associates Chairman’s Award, and numerous other awards for excellence in customer satisfaction, USAA has been publicly recognized for its long-term commitment to customer service. In keeping with its static value of premier customer service, USAA’s strategic and aligned approach to centralizing its call taking center took a very different direction than was the norm at that time.

The insurance and financial services industry is extremely competitive. There is a low perceived threshold of differentiation between product offerings (commoditization), there are many substitutes, and the cost of switching is low. We learned in a previous chapter that in this type of highly competitive environment, loyalty decreases significantly with even a very small reduction in customer’s satisfaction from the 100% level. USAA understood these phenomena and, therefore, endeavored to structure its incoming call center as yet another building block in its synergistic structure of organizational alignment toward complete customer satisfaction. They would use each customer contact at the call center as one more opportunity to reinforce that commitment.

Metrics and measurements were established at the call center, but less attention was paid to cost containment and more was given to satisfaction fulfillment toward the aligned primary goal. Talk times and calls-per-day were tracked, but for informational purposes only. Incentives were given for delighting the customer, not for getting them off the phone.

One of the most obvious differences in the USAA model was in their approach to the front-line interface position itself: the call taker. In the typical centralized call center model, call takers were minimum wage, and sometimes contract, workers with reduced benefits in a dead-end position. Turnover in this role was high, and training was rudimentary. The USAA model turned this on its head. They believed that these front-line employees should be a highly polished group of professionals that would become the primary ambassadors for its suite of offerings and services.

Persons applying for positions in the call center were extensively screened. The call taking positions were not filled with minimum wage workers, but college graduates extensively trained for months in USAA product offerings before ever being allowed on the phones. They were encouraged to spend as much time as needed to completely answer any and every customer question and, in addition, trained to offer suggestions and advice on how other USAA products could be incorporated into a customer’s portfolio. Cutting-edge tools, such as optical scanners and extensive databases, were employed so each associate would have access to all customer records within a neat paperless office environment. And, instead of it being in a dead-end position, successful and highly trained call takers were considered valuable company assets and aggressively recruited internally for positions of responsibility within the USAA organization.

“A company must also align its performance and reward culture with its strategies. Indeed, a well-communicated strategy, with an integrated set of activities to support it, can itself signal to employees what senior executives really value.”, said Barry Leskin. “But a company achieves its greatest advantage when performance culture and strategy reinforce each other and senior leaders consistently reward the activities they advocate.”7

The manner in which USAA implemented its incoming call taking program showed a highly correlated consistency with their aligned organizational goal of premier customer satisfaction. And, just as importantly, their call taker incentives not only promoted their organizational vision, but also reinforced the appropriate actions leading to their successful competitive differentiation within a highly competitive industry. Their commitment to a pleasurable customer experience could clearly be seen in their hiring practices, training, promotional opportunities, and technology. These efforts paid handsome dividends in the form of soaring customer satisfaction scores, which, as we now know from our satisfaction versus loyalty graph in a highly competitive industry, translated into an extremely loyal customer base.

The obvious alignment between USAA’s actions and its strategic goals is a major incentive for their employees to perform at peak efficiency. No guesswork at hidden agendas or knowledge of political gamesmanship is required. The leadership team’s actions validated their words, and there is no more powerful incentive when trying to instill employee loyalty, commitment and trust. The leadership team confirmed that to get ahead in this organization, you would be measured on your commitment to the customer. 
 

From: "Aligned Yellow Bricks: The Road Back to Kansas" (Preserving a Strategic Vision in a Tactical Storm), by Bob Woodward