What's happening in charity fundraising is what's happening in many call centres - and it needs to stop!

Last Sunday, the News of the World ran an exposé on the “shocking hard sell tactics” used by call centre company Pell & Bales to raise money for some of the UK's biggest charities.

The story told of lowly paid workers being put under massive pressure by commission driven bosses to meet their targets. The tactics reported by the News of the World as employed by Pell & Bales are unfortunately the same as those you’d find in a majority of the call centres you might deal with in your day to day lives: heavily scripted conversations, monitored constantly by managers giving “feedback” on how better the call centre worker might have handled the call in order to achieve the desired outcome (in the case of Pell & Bales getting someone’s bank details for a charity donation).

Maybe the charities concerned should look at a different way of working…. Perhaps using a call centre with a different approach, and look at paying a daily rate rather than £60 per donation. Whilst it needs to stack up financially for the charity and the call centre operator, it needs to be a sustainable approach in the long term for all concerned too.

As for the call centres, they should actually trust their staff to get on and do their work –Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Pell & Bales here – I only know what I read about them in the News of the World and what their former employees commented on the story. Rather, I’m having a pop at call centres in general!

This is because how staff do their work is decided by senior management that aren’t close enough to the front-line and team leaders monitor and control their staff, and measure individuals’ performance against arbitrary targets that have been derived from what the company needs to deliver in its financial plan (in the case of Pell & Bales, this is probably the number of £60 commissions it needs to get for each man day). But whilst that’s useful for the bean counters to know how profitable the work they do is, it really doesn’t help operationally at all.

Since call centre companies like Pell & Bales manage people in this way, they spend a lot of management time ensuring staff to meet their targets and follow scripts (the News of the World reports a former employee as saying “But one boss, who monitored nearly all the calls, said I should have asked her for money at least three times”). Unfortunately, since meeting targets is often outside of staff members’ control (after all, they can’t influence who they call next – for example, if they have no money, don’t support charities, if it’s convenient time to talk to them and so on), so achieving targets becomes more of a lottery. Moreover, constant monitoring and management pressure to perform better puts staff under stress, de-motivates them and has an adverse effect on staff turnover, sickness and absenteeism. A quick read of the comments at the bottom of the News of the World story gives a real insight into how call centre workers often feel - hating the work, listening to heartbreaking stories, staying because they need the money and so on.

To survive in such an environment, call centre workers need to do something – if they don’t leave the situation (which of course in the current economic climate isn’t so easy), they have to either fight (a dangerous strategy whereby you could lose your job)or submit to the system in which they’re operating. In submitting, however, the unfortunate worker (and their line managers or team leaders who are often subject to the same pressures) becomes desperate and often has to lie, cheat or bully. And when the client (in this case Cancer research) comes to listen in to calls “to ensure that our strict supporter care criteria are met at all times”, everything will be done differently. That’s not because the line managers or front line staff are bad people – they are simply operating in a very bad system. Precisely what the News of the World describes in its article.

As the News of the World says – this IS shocking! However, it is not unusual.

We need to see a bit more common sense in call centre management to improve this situation – for charity fundraising as well as every other sector: surely it’s better to trust people and allow them to take the time to just get on and do their jobs properly, allowing them to have the conversation that’s right for the person they’re talking to with the purpose of generating the best they can for the charity?

And if then it doesn’t stack up financially for the charities, then everyone involved should simply admit that an outbound call centre approach doesn’t work in this case, and revert to more cost-effective approaches. Surely that would be Better for Everyone?

Orange cuts 300 call centre jobs in order to "improve, grow & evolve the company"

Yesterday, mobile phone giant Orange announced its plans to close its call centre in Bristol, resulting in the loss of 300 jobs. An anonymous spokesman for Orange commented “As part of our strategy to improve, grow and evolve the company, we are continually looking at ways to ensure we are operating in the most efficient way.”

OK – so let me translate – in order to cut costs (perhaps something to do with their impending merger with T Mobile who operate their call centres overseas??), Orange have sacked 300 customer facing staff.

But is that really the smartest thing to do…? Many of the internet sites that published this story had comments posted that not only sympathised with the displaced workers, but also were critical of Orange’s management and customer service. If the company is facing financial challenges, customer service isn’t good enough, then to simply slash jobs in customer service is downright foolish!

I’m not advocating that Orange simply soldier on regardless – that would be commercial suicide. However, I do think they must change the way they work so they are able to deliver better quality more efficiently.

As I’ve said before, this is possible – not through some magical, mystical approach, but through applying a bit of common sense! Instead of focusing on productivity, the management at Orange need to measure what matters to their customers: focus on quality, and trusting and empowering their staff to do what customers ask them to and taking the time to do it right first time, every time. Then their efficiency will be better as a direct consequence.

Delivering a better quality service means lower operating costs, lower prices, improved market share and company growth – which sounds a bit to me like what Orange said they wanted…

So come on Orange – be a bit smarter in your thinking and do something different from the norm in your industry so you can save money and offer a better service to your customers!!!

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….

Police call centre hits targets - should we cheer or be worried?

Last week, the Edinburgh Evening News reported that figures have been published to say that the police call centre at Bilston Glen has exceeded national targets (for example in terms of time to answer and the number of calls abandoned by the caller) for answering 999 calls.

Oh dear – they clearly don’t understand how dangerous having targets like this might be….

In a nutshell, whilst we’d all agree that emergency calls need to be answered quickly, the target that is in place (to answer 90% of emergency calls within 10 seconds) is at best arbitrary and at worst life threatening!

This is because setting targets like these changes the purpose of the people doing the work - effectively the focus of their work is moved from ‘do the job well’ to ‘meet the target’.

If the target is difficult to achieve, then the emergency call handlers may only be able to reach it by ‘cheating’. And they will; they will do all they can to avoid failing to meet work targets – especially if, like the call centre at Bilston Glen, they’ve been heavily criticized in the media since they opened! Don’t get me wrong, though - this isn’t because of the people – I’m sure everyone working on the phones at Bilston Glen just want to serve the public well. They just need to be allowed to!

It is imperative to a caller to 999 that their call is dealt with properly and completely, with the appropriate follow up activity delivered by the right people at the right time – not just that their call is answered quickly! After all – someone’s life could depend on it!!

On balance, whilst it’s important to understand how long callers are having to wait and how many callers hang up (after all, they are calling in an emergency, so in an ideal world we’d really like to answer all calls immediately!), they shouldn’t be a target, nor should they be the key metrics used to measure the service.

Measures like this (and others such as call volumes – offered and answered, and calls answered per call handler) help call centre managers the means to manage resource in response to volume. But they miss the most crucial aspect of service measurement: they fail to address why people call and how well (or otherwise) the call centre (or in this case the call centre and other emergency service providers) responds to that call. More worryingly, such measures do not demonstrate calls that could have been prevented.

The managers at Bilston Glen need to start listening to what their callers say, and measuring what matters to them and how well they respond to what callers say. Then and only then, will Bilston Glen become a call centre worthy of public acclaim in its local newspaper!

But will that ever happen? – This blogger remains skeptical….

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!

Who thinks National Rail Enquiries needs a new call centre outsourcer?

On the same day that we hear that BT are bringing back over 2000 jobs from India, Ventura have announced that more than 100 posts at its National Rail Enquiries centre in Yorkshire would be transferred to India for "financial reasons".

It’s so bizarre, it beggars belief – in December 2003, Ventura announced they were moving the National Rail Enquires service from Yorkshire to Bombay in the summer of 2004, amid public fury and demands for the then Transport Secretary Alistair Darling to intervene.

From that time, we all heard (and some of us even experienced) crazy stories about duff advice given by well meaning and long suffering call centre agents in the Indian Subcontinent who simply didn’t have the local knowledge a UK based adviser would have… I wonder how much additional, unnecessary demand that generated for a busy helpline?

This continued and came to a head in autumn 2007, when consumer group Which reported their findings of a mystery shopping exercise they did which demonstrated that misinformation & poor advice meant that customers could be paying well over the odds for their tickets! By the time we got to spring 2008, the media was reporting that the tide in outsourcing was turning back onshore – with Lloyds TSB and National Rail Enquiries cited as having reduced their customer-contact presence in India.

It is now beyond comprehension that a little over a year on, Ventura would be doing yet another u-turn on the very day that even BT is bringing jobs back to the UK.

On their “Facebook” page, National Rail Enquiries state that their telephone service is one of the busiest telephone numbers in the United Kingdom. They quote all manner of interesting statistics, including the following:

Number of calls offered: 16,058,777
Number of calls answered: 15,153,487
Percentage of calls answered (PCA): 94.4% (meaning they missed nearly a million calls!)
Average time to answer calls (ATTA): 21 seconds

They also say that they monitor quality using mystery shopping (99.29% of calls answered “correctly”) and customer satisfaction surveys (90% customers would recommend National Rail Enquiries to family and friends).

Blimey! Look at that last statistic a different way, and what they’re really saying is that 10% of people wouldn’t recommend them!!

This can’t be good for anyone, so the challenge to National Rail Enquiries is find a call centre outsourcer that has a better way of doing things - delivering quality more efficiently to compete with offshore locations.

This blogger knows one – do you?

Beating boredom at work - why the role of managers must change!!

This month’s edition of the Chartered Management Institute’s publication, Professional Manager includes an article on boredom in the workplace (http://www.managers.org.uk/client_files/PM%20July%2009%20boredom.pdf).

In the article, Dr Sandi Mann discusses how changes in the world of work, such as the introduction of new working practices like call centres have increased employee boredom – citing that repetition, restricted autonomy & a lack of job control due to “robotisation” and scripting are major factors in the high levels of staff turnover in the industry.

Mann notes the irony that as companies strive more and more to control staff output in order to drive down costs, in spite of the fact that this can severely damage the organisation financially and reputationally because it causes poor work performance, absenteeism, stress-related health problems and job dissatisfaction.

The article goes on to suggest various solutions, including empowerment of staff and elimination of standardisation in the work, arguing sensibly that the cost savings to be made could balance any training needs.

However, this blogger thinks the solution needs to go much deeper, to really get to the heart of the purpose of management.

The current operating model in most organisations (and that which is so prevalent in the dreaded call centre!) is that managers exist to police the work that staff do – ensuring they achieve their set (numerical) targets and conform to procedures & scripts…

Yet what managers really need to do is to optimise their team’s efforts to achieve business aims whilst recognising and understanding individual differences, strengths and interests & the benefits of co-operation and losses of competition.

Instead of encouraging a culture of blame, where everyone conforms, managers need to create trust and an environment in which freedom & innovation flourish.

Then and only then can organisations become truly successful (and have staff that are empowered, with high job control, and doing an effective job)!!

Customer service - arrogance or ignorance? You choose.

BT, British Gas, Sky, Virginmedia & Vodafone were named and shamed this week in the findings of a survey of 5000 people across the UK into their views about 30 companies with call centres. Other major corporates featuring in the survey report include HSBC, AOL, Barclays, O2 and HMRC.

There are no real surprises when it comes to what people complained about - "the language barrier" and "call centres based abroad" were identified as one of the most infuriating aspects of call centres. And consumers said they hated the use of automated systems and having to answer numerous security questions as well as being passed from pillar to post and needing to repeat themselves.

There were no good guys coming out of the survey, either – banks and retailers seemed to come out just as bad as the communications and utility companies! But BT really took the top prize – the survey found that BT was almost twice as bad as second place British Gas when dealing with issues and complaints, even being accused of leaving callers on hold or struggling to get through its automated system to make complaints. And BT came top for longest holding times, with 18% of people complaining about the company!!.

The managing director of BT's consumer division was quick to dismiss the findings of the survey as “twaddle”, explaining that BT’s own “extensive surveys” demonstrated customers were far more satisfied! He even went on to brag that "the time it takes BT customers to get through to an adviser has dropped by 65 per cent over the last year and is now 32 seconds on average.” And that "customer complaints have reduced by over 40 per cent in the last year.”

Blimey – if they think that’s good, how bad was their service last year!

Unfortunately, however, as we can see from this survey, BT is not in isolation in the customer service hall of shame…

Maybe it’s time the senior people in responsible for the dire state of service offered by call centres became aware of what really matters to their customers’ and encouraged their call centre managers to focus on serving the customers they exist to look after instead of managing staff targets, using fantastic new technology to deflect their calls or sending calls to offshore call centres just to save a few quid.

But such a fundamental mindshift would take a strong, confident and magnanimous leader – after all, they’d have to admit they got it wrong, before they could improve things.

So, this blogger wonders if the repeated denial of any problem is a sign of corporate arrogance or corporate ignorance… or even worse, a bit of both?

Q - Do call centres face increasing competition from the web? A - Only if they're not very good...

In a recorded message played to attendees to the Call North West conference this week, Beverly Hughes MP said that call centres face increasing competition from the web.

At first glance, this observation might seem a bit left field, but on reflection I think she could have a point…

I was talking recently to a contact of mine about call centres, specifically a well known UK bank. This company is one people used to always recommend (yes, you can probably guess who it was). I probed a bit deeper when she said their service was always excellent… After all, having seen a fly on the wall documentary on TV that featured that bank not so long ago, I figured that their new increased focus on individual staff achieving sales targets and throwing squidgy toys at colleagues on the phone to a complaining customer to improve staff morale might not be conducive to a fantastic customer experience…

I was disappointed, but not surprised, then, when the lady explained that she mostly dealt with them over the internet…. I guess then, there’s nothing that can go wrong - if you do it yourself, you do it right first time…

On that basis, then, I can understand where call centres could face competition from the web… Computers can replace transactional relationships (and save the companies money), but they can’t replace everything. Sometimes as customers we need to talk to someone, have a dialogue – after all business is about people, how they interact with you, how well they respond to the demands you place on them and the value they create in serving you… if we get to the stage where we only stick with businesses because their online capability works for us, then there is no longer any customer loyalty or value in our brands.

Yet ironically, that’s where the call centre can come into its own – by creating value and building long term and sustainable customer relationships and brand loyalty.

Unfortunately, so many companies miss this trick… they spend so much time in call centres focusing on targets and silly games to motivate their teams, that they forget the very customers they exist to serve. What businesses need to do is to start looking at the world through their customers eyes, design their processes to meet the demands their customers place on them, whilst encouraging their staff to take the time to do things right first time.

If they did this, then they’d find they could really make a difference to their reputation and the loyalty of their customers…. Now does that sound like a good idea, or what?

Observations on the importance of customer service...

Chey Garland speaking at the IoD recently talked about offshoring and how some work will always be done abroad to reduce cost. She also commented about getting things right first time and the importance in a recession of a quality service, retention of existing customers and doing things to a higher standard. All fantastic points I would agree with, but unfortunately, Chey’s subsequent observations about call centres needing to “do things rapidly” because time is what’s most important to customers these days let her rhetoric down.

We all know that from a customer’s perspective it’s most important for things to be done right than to be done quickly.

Instead of focusing on speed (or how many customers can be processed during the course of a shift), call centre managers need to learn to focus on responding to their customers demand, and empowering call centre staff to take the time to do things “right first time”, and creating a work environment in which service excellence can flourish.

If all call centre managers did that, then they could reduce complaints and repeat calls: ironically taking the cost out and improving service…. Hmm – perhaps there could be a better way of working?? This blogger thinks so...