The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

"High attrition is a major issue for every organization. Hence before hiring HR should ask for "Formal relieving letter from previous organization" as a mandatory item. Many organizaitons are flexible on this based on their project requirement. Also there should be some consensus across HR community about some self restrints they should adopt before recruiting member from other organizaitons."

"Have an option on the IVR for "change of address"

Remove ACR as a measure as it is an output not a result"

"Have a standard 3 warning hang up 'clause' for customers using very bad language - personal abuse, swearing etc. First warning that if they continue the call may be terminated, second warning that the call will be terminated if it continues, third warning that the call is being terminated. When every abusive customer comes to understand that this is what will happen they may be a little more considerate.
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"Simplify business process for recruitment and maintenance system"

"Customer is not always right but he always has the right. Macth & Measure your CSAT with FCR (at all interaction channels). An insight and coorelation to both these very important parameters can do wonders in improvment of your service delivery."

"Return on investment in training should be regularly checked."

"Thank the caller for calling and state that you are happy to help them resolve their issue/question/ or problem."

"a) In the recent years, the industry has been "quiet" about cost per call or cost per interaction. It would be good if members can share their cost and how they manage it.
b) Staff Retention Ideas are welcome."

"Have discussion with different case studies either good or bad will help others to fix the bugs."

"Management supports to allow staff to have activities outside of call centres and organisation to have a structured career path for contact centres."

"Have honest conversations with your staff and customers. Drop the pretense and BS while giving information to staff and customers. Loyalty is extremely hard to maintain once people know you are taking them for a ride no matter how big you might be in size!"

"Visual management with live information on the team's performance as well as the top performing team members! Need to focus on end customer experience and use the CSI as the first KPI to go visual.
You ask for more,,, Here goes: 14. A multi-channel (email/ IVR Outbound call/ SMS/ autobot chat) survey with every customer interaction or transaction with the customer having the control and power to exercise their decision on whether or not they want to participate in the survey."

"Teach your coustomers what is important and what not"

"have supervisors man an escalation queue and let agents dial transfer to them when there is an unhappy customer wanting to speak to a supervisor, this surprises the customer and reduces agent burn out, it is the best way to get things that drive your customers crazy into the hands of someone who can start the process to get it fixed."

"Cross-sell, Upsell, offer services above and beyond what is required. Like what Steve Jobs said, you have to open the eye of the customer by creating what they would likely want and develop that market for them to see the need."

"focus not only to courtesy but more emphasizing on the quality of solution"

"Resolution 13
Standardize nomenclature and vocabulary/terms as much as is practical across the industry. Too often individuals from different companies find themselves talking about totally different things when referencing a single topic (i.e. attrition is a great example, there are literally dozens of definitions that people use to define 'attrition', most of the time incorrectly, mainly to justify a single digit attrition number to paste on a presentation)."

"Run a customer mock for all employees. Let them be customers for a day and see how it feels!"

"Cut this nonsense of saying that every call is important, and advise that we are here to listen to you so that we can get you off our backs as soon as possible."

"The front line professionals should be motivated time to time. If the people are not able to perform then someone senior should step up as a mentor to hand hold them. There has to be a health check call given to the customers from time to time in order to know in case they require any assistance from our end and surveys should also be conducted from time to time.

Customers should be also visiting the organisation in order to make them aware what is the organisation about? See the contact centre and how we answer the calls. Meet the best performers as well as meet the front liners whom they are interacting on the regular basis. Voice of the customer is really important for an organisation."

"2 suggestions.
1. Greater analysis of contacts being used for effective service improvements
2. All staff in an organisation to spend time in the contact centre to identify service improvements and a greater apprecaition of the difficulties of the job."

"good job walking the talk and asking us for input!
Listen to and request feedback from all tiers of support in your organization to be sure that your processes and procedures are in line with their expectations. If not, set up a team to discuss and get everyone in synch and update all procedures."

"Increased face to face time with our front line Consultants-less focus on process and more on people will ensure our continued success. By making employees feel they are on the bus with everyone and part of the internal culture we are seeing steadily improved attendance and performance results"

"Let us do the top 5 first."

"Avoid repeat calls on complaints and focus on empowerment...simple two basic to proceed ahead"

"Take the oath of customer service and customer satisfaction everyday before logging in."