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MLM Retention: Contact Management Strategies
These ten customer service contact management best practices have been distilled from the real-world experiences of the 135 companies that have deployed ServiceQuest's solutions as part of their overall contact management systems. They have thus been proven in the field to maximize both the cost savings and improvements in satisfaction that companies can achieve through effective contact management.
Best Practice #1 - Have a Champion
Someone has to "own" the contact management system and understand its relationship to the company's customer service channels. This can be an individual executive or an executive management team. The "owner" must be someone who fully understands the objectives of the contact management system, who is fully aware of the unique needs of the business, and who can supervise the application of best practices and the flow of information that is vital to an effective contact management system.
In many cases, the champion may have to work closely with the manager of the company call center. In others, the champion may in fact have direct managerial responsibility for call center, web, E-mail and direct channels (such as field leader councils). But, in any event, this coordination between channels is critical for the implementation of contact management best practices.
The contact management champion's role must support constant adaptation to the changing needs of the company and its field as new products, promotions and initiatives are introduced and technologies evolve. Without a champion, information flow from contacts will slow or even choke, support from the organization for contact management will fade, and the service effort will become (or remain) reactive instead of proactive.
Best Practice #2 - CSRs as Analysts
CSRs who answer the phones and/or respond to emails are vital links in contact management. They will often encounter new and/or emerging issues when they answer the phones. Often, this will foretell emerging trends or issues that can be minimized if addressed early. Without appropriate processes in place, each of these successive incidents will have to be handled again and again by phone and email. So, CSRs will never be shielded from those subsequent service requests.
That is why it's so important to hire, develop and empower CSRs who are able to constantly analyze what is going on; not only must they be exceptional at dealing with the immediate reason for the contact (Step 1), but they must also think of what is going on behind the scenes and offer solutions (Step 2).
Systems that permit CSRs to push information to a central point for evaluation and to create knowledge items that flow through to self-help tools will enhance the effectiveness of managing contacts. By the same token, information available through the web and in company literature must be available to CSRs working the phones and/or email contact centers. This way, they can give the same accurate, up-to-date answers. This technique also enables new trainees and new field recruits to quickly become highly productive and accurate in answering questions.
Best Practice #3 - One-Touch Resolution
Systems must support CSRs in achieving one-call, one-touch resolution. To facilitate this worthy objective requires finger-tip research capabilities. Everything that a CSR needs to research an order, an account, a commission question or a policy should be immediately available to the CSR. Too often, needless research will take a CSR off the phone, delaying resolution, creating holes in the work flow, and increasing the risk of follow-up commitments slipping through the cracks.
Many companies have an abundance of useful information in their literature and at their website, but it's scattered across various areas. Product information is in one place; shipping information is in another; commission and business organization is somewhere else; return policies are yet in another location. Often, there is a good reason for this information to be in these different places.
However, this can make it hard for the field and for a CSR to quickly find the information they need. Once a CSR, customer or business builder initiates a search for an answer within a service-related content area, whether by phone or via the web, they should not have to leave it the area from which they have launched the search. That doesn't mean that content should be moved from where it already exists. Instead, the best approach is to provide appropriate links from within the customer service area to any content that's useful for answer questions. The customer service area thus becomes the "portal" for all relevant information elsewhere in the company's database.
Best Practice #4 - Simple Tracking System
Tracking systems must be simple and effective. They must accomplish these vital objectives:
- Provide a tickler / reminder for follow-up that is promised
- Provide management a tool for tracking work load (volume and complexity)
- Organize issues for ongoing observation, analysis and action
- Quantify the costs associated with mistakes, inefficiencies and missed opportunities
- Give feedback for corrective actions and continuous improvement
- Tie information together (for instance, a return process that captures a return reason code must feed into the mix for tracking and reporting trends)
- Centralize notes associated with an account for uniform handling while creating a record for each customer or business leader
Best Practice #5 - Clearly Defined Standards
Clearly defined contact management standards creates consistency in administration; consistency engenders trust with the field; and the field's trust will result in loyalty and retention. At a deeper level, clearly defined performance standards around the company's operation contribute to consistent contact management standards and increased satisfaction in the field.
Best Practice #6 - Many Channels, One Contact Center
The synergies between phone, web, email and direct channels merit discussion as a distinct best practice. These synergies extend well beyond the use of a common knowledge base across all channels-although that is certainly a critical best practice. But other channel "commonalities" are also important. All customer incidents across all channels, for example, should be tracked in a common database. This way, CSRs can see all contacts with a customer or business builder relating to the incident at hand in a single view. This multi-channel view ensures that CSRs have all the information they need to quickly resolve problems that may have already involved several different communications sessions with the person.
With a common incident "repository," managers can also get a holistic view of the issues driving service activity across all channels. This information isn't just useful to customer service managers, who can use it to proactively adjust training and knowledge base content and escalation policies. It's also useful to product managers, marketing managers, and sales leaders who also have to make decisions based on what the field is thinking and doing.
Companies that make the most effective use of their technology as a customer service channel (more and more the web) therefore do so in the context of an overall contact center strategy that ensures all channels work together to get accurate answers to the field as quickly and efficiently as possible. By doing so, customer service units can contribute to retention, maximize per-account revenues, and keep operating expenses low.
Best Practice #7 - Leverage Knowledge Across All Channels
An increasingly popular and useful application of technology is the Knowledge Base, an interactive, dynamic database of information that supports self-directed research. Knowledge bases can be leveraged by using them as "canned" answers for field queries. By using these knowledge items as scripts for their verbal replies to calls from the field, CSRs can ensure the accuracy and consistency of their answers. This best practice is especially useful for making new trainees productive as quickly as possible, since it allows them to become productive right away. And it also contributes to meeting the constant demand for training from an ever-growing base of customers and business builders in the field.
Similarly, the scripts and answers can be used to expedite email responses. Rather than re-typing answers to common questions or clumsily cutting and pasting text, CSRs can simply select the appropriate topic and send off an answer in seconds.
Best Practice #8 - Cross-Department Collaboration
An effective contact management system must be fully supported by the diverse parties-in-interest whose participation makes it work. Without this support, processes break down and undermine the timely creation of solutions, improvement of processes, and clarification of content.
A well-run contact management system typically involves people from different departments. For example, while a field support manager may champion the phone system and email channels, someone in marketing may administer the corporate web site. The website administrator must be involved to make sure that any changes to the site don't interfere with the ability of the field to access service-related content.
Product managers, fulfillment managers and technical staff are vital to the contact management system. They must be involved in the creation and refinement of the processes that gather and analyze input.
The contact management team can provide valuable feedback to one another about the problems encountered in the field. This feedback can be used to immediately improve certain problems while also contributing to next-generation products or systems, or even spawn ideas for new ones. The initiative can be invaluable to help with cross-selling and up-selling.
Best Practice #9 - Reporting & Feedback
Retention leaders take advantage of their software's reporting functions to continually improve offerings, information and service. The contact management system should be designed to accommodate the flow of all information into a useful database from which a variety of reports and feedback can flow.
Your contact management system must be viewed as the tool for extracting all the useful information that flows through the contact center (in reality, through ALL who have contact with the field), organizing that information to quantify opportunities, ideas, recommendations, costs, and mistakes while creating accountability for both the corporate operations as well as field activities.
Examples of timely and periodic reports from an effective contact management system are listed below:
- Returns (reasons, frequency, costs)
- Autoship cancellations (reasons, frequency, solutions)
- Policy administration (issues and their resolution)
- Fulfillment (errors, delays, costs)
- Products (questions, alerts, suggestions)
- Field attitudes (trends, opinions, comments)
- Internal processes and systems (improvements, suggestions)
Best Practice #10 - Continuous Improvement
Retention leaders study the information gathered through an effective contact management system. They look for the clues that point them to areas for improvement. They act on the data. And they continuously seek to improve, not blindly but by using effective, accurate and up-to-date information sent to them from the front-lines through effective contact management processes.
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