Friday, March 25, 2022 – The 12th Leaders Talk hosted by CC-APAC discussed “Contact Center Assessment and Benchmarks for Continuous Improvement,” by inviting two professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Deepak Selvaratnam, Founder and Co-developer of Snapshotz & Remotability, Director at Customer Services Audit. The second panelist is Pranay Anand, Vice President of NTT Ltd.
The discussion is started by talking about why we need the assessment. First, Deepak said that today, contact centers are a science. Same as we do a health check or an organization does a financial audit. Customer service is as equally important as finance and should sit and have to talk about opportunities. And unfortunately, a lot of us haven’t realized the potential that customer service has today and haven’t realized how to use it. He also gives us an overview of some of these.
For example in his snapshots audit, he has eight main sections and 30 sub-sections, all looking with about 800 different questions by looking at the complete health of a contact center. He said that because it’s not just about technology, people, or processes. Therefore, as a leader in our contact center, we should have a strategy. Not only for helping the organization but managing our customers and managing our teams. And also, we should have to influence what technology is going to be used in our contact center.
Pranay also explains benchmarking. He said that benchmarking addresses three things. First, we get to know what’s happening. But more importantly, we get to anticipate what is coming our way. Then we can figure out what it means for us, as a business and how do we react towards it?
The second is on skill sets. The business model has changed. Our contact centers nowadays are a wealth of knowledge. Then, by benchmarking we can make our business against the industry’s best in a class by recognizing what are the challenges or opportunities that are coming our way we can adapt.
The last, never underestimate the power. The good CX is the good customer experience. The good CX not only improves our profitability but also improves our employee morale and it is competitive differentiation. Then, if we can be. we can put the whole thing together, how do we stay ahead of the curve? How do we know what I’m doing is best in class? But more importantly, how do we change the game as we know what’s happening. Then, we can be ahead of our competitors.
Then, all panelists gave their closing statements about what leaders need to do in this current situation. Deepak said, “If you’re a customer service person today, whether you’re an agent, supervisor, manager, or general manager, we are at a very momentous point in history.” He said that we’ve got never make customer service become the focus of the organization.
Deepak explains that we’ve got an opportunity to leave behind our past and go into the future. He said earlier that the contact center is going to change it is no longer with a voice but it’s much more than a voice. We have a lot of information in the contact center that can support other parts of the business. And that is an opportunity if you are a staff and clever enough to understand that you can now be bigger in your organization, meaning you can help your organization better than obviously to help your customers better. This is the opportunity for you because this is where you will. If you don’t take this opportunity now you can lose it.
In another closing statement from Pranay, he said that the first thing as leaders, we can take ownership because we are the value creator. The second is as we know that the speed of this transition now is accelerating, “if left unattended we can be irrelevant,” siad Pranay. Then, we need to leverage technology, such as machine learning, AI, robotics, or virtual agents who like to work on mundane elements.
The last bit that leaders need to take care of at this point is how we engage and enable our people. It is important today for an organization to improve its employee strategy with the right tools or the right technology. This hybrid world will always stay. Then, as a leader, we should look after our people and leverage our technology. “And most importantly, go out there and be bold,” said Pranay. (ANF)