I’m writing this from the perspective of both a client who wants to outsource inbound, outbound and customer service call centre work, and also from a customer’s viewpoint and i’ll explain why below.

Firstly, in my previous job I was client side and worked for a pan-european business that outsourced all ‘telemarketing’ activity including customer service. As a result of my job title ‘European Telemarketing Director’ my name and phone number appeared on many call centre business development manager’s call list and I received calls every week from folk wanting to pitch for business.

The one thing that annoyed me most about the initial conversations and pitches was that ALL companies approached the discussion with the assumption that as a client my primary concern was about cost which then led to discussions about off-shoring.

In truth, cost was an issue BUT not the number one concern - that was quality. I actually cared about my customers and genuinely wanted them to have a positive customer experience EVERY time they contacted us even if that was to raise a complaint or to cancel their membership. I believe that the best quality of service available is here in the UK for UK customer i.e. in local market so France for French customers and Germany for German customers.

For many years the direct marketing world has been consumed with CRM and maximising relationships with customers. Whilst for many this meant simply spending a fortune on software or analysis but no implementation we took a different approach. We didn’t invest millions in analysis software (we did spend something) but first simply put ourselves in the shoes (or ears) of our customers and asked ourselves how would we want to be treated? What would our expectations be? How did we define good service?

From the call centre perspective we should remember this and reference it in the pitches we make to prospective clients.

Secondly, from a personal point of view I had a very enlightening conversation with a chap from HSBC (who I’m sure you all know offshore to India and beyond). I’d phoned the telephone banking line to ask why a transaction for less than £10 had been refused when there was more than sufficient funds in my account. The agent asked me what shop i’d been in and when I explained I had shopped on-line at Amazon, she immediately tried to transfer me to the internet banking team.

After much huffing and puffing (and I hate doing that) I managed to explain that she should be able to deal with my enquiry. Unfortunately the call ended with the agent saying she had no idea why the charge had been refused either! I then sent an email for the attention of the CEO of HSBC (if you’re going to complain - make sure it counts!) and I got a call back (not from the CEO). I spoke with the guy who is responsible for the quality of service for the UK and he was really keen to know what I expected as a customer, wht I thought of the call (as someone from the call centre world) and what did I think could be done better. He explained that the reason they’d gone offshore was availability of good quality staff in the UK. He also explained that Offshoring is giving the bank real problems and that finally they’re taking this seriously. They’ve now started an initiative with M&S on quality benchmarking and taking external advice. He felt this was the last chance for continuing offshoring and if it failed, they may come back to the UK.

Does this mean that there’s hope for the future? If HSBC is reassessing their decision to offshore and making a final attempt to improve quality - will that make others sit up and listen? Could it mean that work will come back to the UK?

I am not a natural whooper and leaper. On a bad day, even the most perky effervescent cheerleader type would probably find curmudgeonly1 a generously optimistic adjective for me.

However one thing I do buy into is the power to influence others; small changes we can make to what we do that can have a big impact on the actions of others. And if this is applied positively (using your powers for good) so much the better!

For example: My fifteen-month old daughter (not uniquely!) has an aversion to having her nose wiped. And thanks to a ‘summer cold’ this is an activity we have to do with alarming regularity recently. (Sorry – stay with me, that’s as graphic as it gets and there is a work-related point to this!) Weary of chasing her round and cornering her with a piece of tissue (at this point do feel free to add a Benny Hill style soundtrack to the image for maximum effect), to be greeted by tears, tantrums and flailing limbs, I considered the situation objectively and examined our respective roles. By doing this I was able to change what I did which then influenced her response. So rather than feed her reaction (“I know, you don’t like having your nose wiped, but it has to be done – now, hold still, please!”), I started praising her (initially non-existent!) co-operation (“Well done! What a good girl having her nose wiped.”). And it really helped, at first her reaction was less extreme, then calm and after five days I just have to ask her if she needs her nose wiped and she says yes and comes straight over!

Separate out what you can control, influence or merely respond to and then adjust your side of the script to influence theirs. Simple!

Now if this sounds to you a little like NLP, well I’m glad you noticed! Joking2 aside, I think some of the more practical NLP techniques can be fairly useful in the call centre/customer service environment. For example I would say that the ability to guide an irate customer to a more reasonable and responsive state to begin to resolve their issue using Pace, Pace, Lead is quite a handy tool. And I would also say that a course for agents to be trained to tap into the callers’ processing preferences by noticing whether they use visual, auditory or kinaesthetic references and then adjusting your own responses accordingly in order to increase conversion is probably not going to bring about the return on investment you hoped for.3

Now typically call centre agents barely have five minutes let alone five days to work this magic on customers. But there are some really simple small things agents can do that can make a difference.

Consider this: If an agent needs to refer someone on, rather than saying, “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that, you would need to contact X”, try saying “Yes, you can do that by contacting X” And how about even anticipating the next question and offering the number! The outcome is the same in both, but how the caller perceives the level of customer service they have received is likely to be more favourable in the second example. Now this example is fairly generic, but I’m sure you can come up with a selection of typical exchanges in your own environments that could benefit from a few simple changes that may even have a Pareto-style4 effect on levels of customer satisfaction. Ask your agents – I’m sure they could come up with some suggestions!

Whether you support NLP or not, surely anything so simple with the potential to reduce callers’ frustration levels is worth some consideration.

Zoe

1 An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions.
2 NLP being the art of noticing – well I thought it was witty!
3 Scoff all you like, but as an agent I once endured a five hour session to do just that.
4 Pareto’s law states that 80 % of the objectives or effects are achieved with 20 % of the means or causes.

Last time I promised that I wouldn’t post again on Silent Calls. I promised that I’d change the record.

I’m sorry to say that I’ve changed my mind.

Firstly, because I’ve spent so much time on silent calls over the last few weeks that I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything else interesting. Secondly, because BBC breakfast went nuts about the story this morning.

I’m sure many of you spotted the story, and a couple of you may even have spotted that David Hickson was shown reading our Voluntary Code of Practice.

But unfortunately, this was the most exposure that the code got. This was a real pity.

Whether we can ever expect BBC breakfast to produce a story that supports industry is another discussion, but I wonder if BBC breakfast are really interested in helping stop silent calls at all. I get the impression they’d rather pretend they are and do nothing about it.

What do I mean? Well, lots of people involved in call centre management would have seen the piece yesterday. They may be thinking that they want to stop making silent calls, but don’t understand exactly how the informaton message should be used. They would have seen Robert from the DMA talking about their code being updated and will probably have concluded that they’ll wait until then before they do anything.

It’s unlikely that the DMA will update it’s code until Christmas at the earliest. This is because the DMA has strict rules in it’s constitution to ensure that any changes are fully considered.

The result is that many call centres are not going to think about making this change until after Christmas. That’s a lot more silent calls, and a lot more TPS registrations. This wouldn’t be the case if they knew about the Voluntary code.

I suppose you could put it down to the BBC not knowing about the code, or not understanding why it should have been mentioned. This would be true, except for the fact that I had a telephone conversation with the reporter just before they filmed the piece and explained all this to him.

If the BBC don’t really want to help, perhaps they should change the record.

Regards,
DB

At the risk of turning this blog into a silent calls soap-box, I’m going to post once more on the topic.

Then I promise I’ll change the record.

I spoke a while ago about a guy called David Hickson. David is a consumer who, single-handed, has taken on the issue of silent calls. David’s campaign has been rather high profile and if not for him we would not be in the pressing position we are now. For this reason you may consider him a thorn in the telemarketing industry’s side.

The truth is, however, that David has done nothing more than acted as a catalyst and bought this issue to a head quickly. The real thorns in our side are those who continue to make silent calls.

I received this press release from him last night and I thought you may all be interested:

THE MENACE OF SILENT CALLS - WHO IS THE MENACE ?

Silent calls create a menace in two ways. There are seen as menacing by
some who receive them. They are also recognised as a major reason for TPS
registration thereby creating a threat to the future of unsolicited
outbound.

Many in the industry are now looking seriously at the option of
transmitting an Informative Message, giving their name and the reason for
the call, rather than leaving silence when there is no agent available to
handled an answered call (a NAA call).

For those who are prepared to receive properly conducted marketing calls
this has to be an acceptable alternative and greatly preferable solution to
the problem of Silent Calls. Some believe that following this route will
not only support ethical objectives, but may help to slow down the rate of
growth of TPS registration.

There appears to be a market for selling by telephone, so in the event that
cold calling effectively ceased to be a viable legal activity we must
assume that this would be picked up by those not covered by the TPS. One
may assume that those not covered by the TPS would not respect other
enforced aspects of good practice either, perhaps leading to far more
telephone nuisance than we have at present.

Unfortunately these efforts to retain and upgrade the UK industry are
menaced from two sources.

IS BT THE MENACE?

BT is spending a lot of money on TV advertising trying to persuade all of
its customers to sign up for the Telephone Preference Service. If BT is
successful then its customers may have to look forward to receiving all
their telemarketing calls from those who do not respect regulations.

If BT’s success with its “Privacy at Home” service continues at the present
rate, how soon would it be before this created a real problem?

IS OFCOM THE MENACE?

The companies planning to use Informative Messages need confirmation from
Ofcom that it would not regard them as the same type of nuisance as Silent
Calls. Ofcom has stated that it cannot make any public statement on this
topic, such as that which is required, whilst it is conducting
investigations. Its present investigations into 7 companies should be
concluded by Christmas, unless Ofcom decides that it needs longer.

If the industry has a solution that is nearly ready to go, can we wait
until after Christmas?

David’s website can be found here: http://www.users.waitrose.com/~silentcalls/

Remember, the first draft of the voluntary code is now available here: Dialling Code Link.

Now is the time for you to pledge support.

Regards,
Darryl