Findings from NACC survey reveal top contact center priorities for 2016.
Ever have one of those nights when you just can’t get to sleep? It happens to me sometimes, usually because I can’t find the “off” switch for my brain. Despite every attempt to relax and get to sleep, my brain keeps chugging away and sleep becomes increasingly elusive. Nine times out of 10, the thoughts that are keeping me awake are work related.
I know I’m not alone in dealing with this problem, otherwise I wouldn’t see so many commercials for sleep aids on the late-night television I’m often staring at when I can’t get to sleep. If anything should numb the mind and allow sleep to come, it’s television. Perhaps that’s the origin of Insomniac Theater.
Before I started my business 17 years ago, I really had no reason to lose sleep over work. I worked for good companies most of the time, got paid on a regular basis and enjoyed full benefits such as health care coverage, paid holidays, paid vacation and sick time. Then I threw it all away and went to work for myself. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship and sleepless nights.
My introduction to “Cinema Insomnia,” came many years ago when I was in the San Francisco Bay Area, traveling on business and in full-on entrepreneur mode. Worrying about revenue flow kept me up and rather than try to fight it, which I would normally do, or take some sort of sleep aid, which I would do if I were at home, I decided to try to distract my thoughts with a little late-night television. I found myself watching “Cinema Insomnia.”
“Cinema Insomnia” actually premiered back in 2001 as the 3 a.m. movie on a television station in Sacramento, Calif. By the time I discovered it on a local San Francisco station a few years later, it had spread to about 30 markets throughout the country and today you can also find it streaming on LiveStream.
“Cinema Insomnia” is hosted by one Mr. Lobo, who wears a black suit and what he describes as a “’70s professional” haircut. Mr. Lobo typically opens each episode of “Cinema Insomnia” by promising to show a high-quality horror or science fiction classic such as “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” but it always turns out that budgetary restrictions or some other circumstances force him to show an alternative, lower quality movie such as “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” The quality and nature of some of the movies shown on “Cinema Insomnia” have actually spawned a line of specialty items for viewers, including the “Barf-O-Vision Audience Sickness Bag” shown here.
I imagine there are contact center professionals out there who also battle occasional insomnia. Maybe you’re reading this column right now because you need to fall asleep and can’t, or maybe you’re lying awake because you’re wondering what’s keeping other contact center professionals awake at night. I can help on both counts.
In late 2015, my company undertook a year-end survey among members of the National Association of Call Centers (NACC) to find out what their professional priorities are relative to their contact center in 2016. In other words, we wanted to know what might be keeping them up at night. We presented 121 participants with a list of industry issues, opportunities, emerging trends, practical challenges and other potential priorities, and asked them to choose all that apply to their contact center. The top five responses, and the percent of respondents who chose each selection, is illustrated in Figure 1.
Not surprisingly, the top 2016 contact center priority for our respondents, selected by 40.3% of participants, was creating a customer optimization strategy for their contact center. I found this intriguing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it verifies the reality of the customer experience optimization trend in the customer care industry. This isn’t a collection of superficial words put together by some clever vendor’s marketing department; this is a real concern, issue and priority for the year ahead.
Now take another look at the four other top responses and you can start to see how this all fits together. All of the other issues are underlying factors that could potentially impede an optimized customer experience if ignored. For example, our survey did include questions about the evolution of performance metrics and key performance indicators. We found that over 61% of the industry is now measuring first-call resolution (FCR) as they migrate away from traditional metrics such as average handle time (AHT). Over 15% of contact centers are now measuring metrics such as the customer effort score (CES) and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Again, this indicates that the customer experience is taking priority over operational costs. Does this also indicate that the contact center will finally be universally recognized by the enterprise as the profit center that it actually is?
How about the nearly 35% of participants who indicated a need to increase their home-agent workforce? Expanding a home-agent workforce means expanding the geographical reach of your workforce recruitment efforts. No longer restricted by the 20 or so square miles around the brick-and-mortar contact center, human resources professionals become free to find the best, most qualified workforce they possibly can. Having a highly skilled, motivated workforce will go a long way toward providing an optimized customer experience.
Twenty-five percent of respondents indicated that upgrading or replacing older technology will be a priority for them in 2016. I think this also speaks to the fact that you can’t provide the customer with an optimized 2016-style experience when you’re still relying on vintage 2000s technology to make that happen. As a result, I expect 2016 to be a year of technology refresh in the industry.
I know all this is a lot to think about. If, after reading and thinking about this column, you find yourself staring at the ceiling while you prioritize your 2016 objectives rather than getting a decent night’s sleep, don’t worry. I understand “Cinema Insomnia” is showing a double-feature of “The Atomic Brain” and “War of the Planets” all month.