As the end of 2010 fast approaches, CCC is considering its research agenda for the coming year – just as many of you are planning your key initiatives and projects for 2011.  Here at CCC, we take the voice of our members extremely seriously and ask the membership to fill out an annual agenda poll that assesses key concerns and focus areas.

One thing we didn’t have to worry about was penetration – we had over 700 responses from an extremely wide range of individuals within the service organization, industries, customer bases, and regions.  Thank you to those who responded – we appreciate your feedback immensely as its extremely helpful in guiding our research.

A couple of things jumped out at me – including the following: Read More »

As economies went into freefall roughly two years ago, executives across different functional areas converged on a short set of priorities.  In fact, you might say just one priority – survival.  That meant shedding costs and doing anything possible to drive cash flow, quickly.  But as markets pulled back from the brink, functional heads returned to a (more normal) pursuit of their individual agendas, from social media adoption to staff development.

As we talk to heads of Sales, Marketing and Communications about 2011, I see a swing back to handling a common enemy – this time, ongoing uncertainty.  Uncertainty isn’t terribly attractive to most, but executives seem to be accepting it as part of the new normal and are trying to figure out ways to live alongside it.  That presents a little differently depending on your role in the organization.  Read More »

By Dan Clay

For years I’ve been saying “No” (a firm “No” at that) but recent findings push me to temper this inference.

Like any good researcher, my shift in opinion comes with plenty of data—particularly important for a topic rife with some very loud assumptions. 

CCC’s been measuring customer service preferences for over 5 years, and we always came to the same conclusion about service with an accent: it’s a constant “noisemaker.”  A customer complains about the offshore location only when something else goes wrong on the call (let’s say it was a transfer).  Poor service is seen as a product of the accent—“I didn’t understand the rep” says the customer—but the real problem is the transfer (and the customer would be just as negative if he had been transferred by an onshore rep).  If the transfer hadn’t happened, then the customer would have had no issue with the accent. 

Customers notice it, they mention it in surveys, but our data showed us that if the customer received proper service, rep accent had no meaningful impact on the customer experience.

This conclusion was corroborated by data from our prominent offshore members and bolstered by my nagging faith in global brotherhood (the citizenry behind “We Are the World” couldn’t possibly devalue discussions simply because the service rep sounded different than the weatherman).

Then this happened.  The recession not only changed where we eat and how we shop, but what we value in the customer experience.  Read More »

If you’re like most of your peers, you’re on the lookout for fast and effective ways to cut expenditures in today’s cost-constrained environment. On the top of many executives’ lists – relaxing their average speed of answer (ASA) to cut back on staffing requirements. It’s an instant win for many contact center executives, but not one they exercise freely.

The prevailing belief is customers don’t want to wait on hold, so we’d better pick up the phone fast.  Companies spend significant resources to determine what ‘fast’ means to the customer, closely benchmarking their service levels with their peers. Changing their goal from 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds to 90% answered in 30 seconds becomes an agonizing decision without the right data.

So, what are customer breaking points?  Turns out there are greater tolerances for waiting time variance than often thought:

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• Customers preferences peak at 30 seconds, which seemingly indicates that they expect to wait that long, or possibly even that customers like to wait.
• Roughly between 30 and 50 seconds is when service levels impact the experience, though only marginally.
• Beyond 50 seconds the experience reaches a true impact point.

Read More »

I’ve talked to hundreds of customer service leaders around the world about their strategies and challenges.  One of the questions I’m often asked is about the big trends we see coming down the pike.

Before talking about where we’re going, I usually tell our members that they first need to think about where we’ve been. 

Without a doubt, the biggest single trend we’ve seen over the past five years has been the shift away from a rote focus on productivity to a much greater focus on the quality of the customer experience. 

Some suggest the “Great Recession” has prompted a return to productivity focus, but we think the rumors of quality’s demise are premature.  As a trend, it’s better to think of the shift toward quality as “global warming,” not simply a “warm summer.” Read More »