Things can only get better in the Student Loans call centre.... or can they?

The media this week have been awash with stories of the review by Professor Sir Deian Hopkin of the Student Loans Company and its inability to meet the demands placed on the call centre. There were incredible statistics being banded about, such as the company answering only 5 per cent of attempted calls at one stage!

The crux of the problem is no surprise to this blogger, and is highlighted early in the 49 page report - “the Company insufficiently prioritised the customer experience and remained inward-looking and process-driven. The impact of failing to achieve this cultural change lies behind the more specific and technical failures identified throughout this report.” I’ve got to admit I was impressed – the professor seemed to have it sussed! Then I continued to read the report, and was woefully disappointed.

The professor makes 14 key recommendations – all of which are pretty wordy, relatively predictable and focusing on, for example, resource planning, contingency arrangements and training.

But knowing that the internal focus and conformance to processes at Student Loans Company was at the root of all the problems, I was surprised to find I had to read as far as recommendation 11 before this fundamental issue was addressed.

And then I couldn’t believe my eyes!!

“11. The Company’s leadership must place the customer experience at the heart of the organisation, reflected in the personal objectives of all employees. Targets and performance measures should reflect the customer experience and ensure the delivery of a significantly improved level of customer service.”

NO!!!!!

Personal objectives and targets will only exacerbate the problem – I wondered if the professor was simply trying to dress up common sense in language that government would understand, so I continued to read the detailed issues about performance measurement…

OK. I was wrong – I’m sorry. The professor doesn’t have a clue how to run a call centre effectively…

But before I tell you what he recommended, let me tell you that Professor Sir Deian Hopkin has a background as an educationalist, whose expertise lies in the labour history and the history of computing. More recently, the professor has got involved in educational policy and the UK skills agenda.

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE THAT CAN EXPLAIN TO ME HOW ON EARTH THAT QUALIFIES THIS MAN TO ADVISE ON HOW A CALL CENTRE SHOULD BE RUN????

The professor suggested that the company’s SLAs weren’t typical (i.e. their “minimum standards” were too low), and suggested “a much simpler and more widely used metric to measure contact centre performance is to set a target for answering 90 per cent of calls attempted at all times.”

Oh dear – here we go again!!!

Whilst it’s important that as many calls get answered as possible and it’s useful to understand how many callers hang up, this shouldn’t be a target, nor should it be the key metric used to measure and improve the service.

Measures like this can help call centre managers the means to manage resource in response to volume. But they overlook the most critical aspect of performance measurement: they fail to address why people call and how well (or otherwise) the call centre responds to that call. More worryingly, such measures do not demonstrate calls that could have been prevented by getting things right first time!

So unfortunately for students (and workers in the Student Loans Company call centre), this blogger thinks that things can only get worse in future years because the management of the Student Loans Company have embraced the report and has committed to implementing the professor’s recommendations. This means that both call centre agents and their managers will need to work hard to meet this new target – and in “making the numbers”, they will simply focus on getting the calls answered….

Making outsourcing work by measuring what matters.

The Telegraph Business Club this week published research by payroll & HR outsourcers HR Access that argues that outsourcing specific skills and services carries a risk and therefore demands the business decision maker takes their time, does due-diligence, appoints the ‘right’ supplier and ensure they undertake regular performance reviews.

You might think that this appears to be sound advice – but when you dig a bit deeper, what they’re recommending could really harm the client company. For when you look closely, you find that the research doesn’t recommend developing and implementing and effective mechanism whereby the two companies work together. Rather, the research recommends that the outsourced operation is managed from a distance by senior people under the terms of a contract (with regularly reviews of a set of relevant service indicators or KPIs).

I guess the thinking behind these KPIs is well intended - it would seem sensible for companies planning to outsource parts of their business to document at length what is required of the outsourced provider so that there is a contractual obligation to deliver a clearly-understood minimum acceptable level of service for the company within defined and agreed cost parameters.

Unfortunately, though, it is rare that KPIs achieve what they set out to. For example, in my sector, the call centre industry, complaints can be rife, even when an outsourcer is meeting their KPIs: it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this can result in an adverse impact on the bottom line, as well as lots of unhappy customers (whether those customers are internal staff members or paying customers of the business)!

This is ironically because the problem lies with the very KPIs that are put in place by the company to ensure their outsourced provider delivers a quality, efficient service on their behalf! Regrettably, the KPIs aren’t linked to the needs or wants of the customer (internal or external) which the outsourced operation exists to serve. KPIs measure things that are of little consequence to the individual customer, (for example in a call centre environment, this could be call durations or average abandoned rates), and force the managers and team leaders of the outsourced provider to focus on productivity – to demonstrate to their client that they’re delivering a quality service and value for money.

Before taking steps to put in place KPIs, companies should pause to think, take stock and consider how they can develop a longer term, more customer centric approach to their outsourced relationships. By encouraging their outsourced provider to create and use measures that help them understand customer needs and how to improve meeting them, a company can really make a difference –in fact they can enable their outsourced provider to deliver world class service on their behalf!

In summary, companies may feel they need the security afforded by KPIs to protect them against ineffective outsourced providers. Unfortunately, such KPIs tend to achieve the reverse of the desired outcome, and the natural response by many companies is to fight their outsourced provider contractually.

However, there is a better way: company and outsourced provider working together as partners, to deliver an optimal quality service, is the most cost-effective and sensible way to run an outsourced relationship. Furthermore, by listening to what their customers say, and measuring what matters to them, an outsourced service provider won’t go far wrong!