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The long-term success of any organization, and particularly a service organization such as a call center, depends upon continuous improvement. Most call centers have numerous measures of individual, team, and overall call center performance. However, the key to continuous improvement also involves listening to customers to learn how effective the organization is meeting their needs.

Understanding customer perceptions of your organization’s performance can only be accomplished through a systematic customer surveying process. It is important for the call center to perform its own surveys in order to understand the perceptions of customers related specifically to call center transactions. Many organizations perform regular customer satisfaction surveys, but these surveys focus on products, pricing, and a variety of other concerns with the call center experience sometimes buried in the overall questions and scope of the survey. To truly evaluate how effectively the call center is serving customers and representing the organization, it is crucial to do customer surveys solely focused on the call center experience.
Types of Surveys
There are several different types of surveys that an organization might do. These three types of surveys are:
Specific purpose surveys – These surveys may be conducted to ask a specific question about call center operations. For example, the organization may wish to query customers about the adequacy of hours of operation or to test out a new pricing structure. These surveys are limited to a very few questions around a single topic of interest.
Periodic surveys – These surveys are used to gauge perceptions around issues in the overall relationship between the customer and the organization or department. These surveys related to no specific transaction, but rather ascertain how well the organization is doing in the customer’s eyes with respect to ease of doing business, value delivered, areas needing change, and importance attached to certain service attributes.
Transaction surveys - These surveys are performed in conjunction with some specific event or transaction and are used to gauge the customer’s perception of that particular transaction. These surveys are event-driven and typically happen very soon after the event to be evaluated.
Customer Survey Steps
Regardless of the type of survey to be performed, there are five basic steps to be followed in performing customer surveys. These steps are:

1. Project planning
2. Instrument development
3. Survey administration
4. Data analysis
5. Reporting and action

Project Planning
Every call center survey should start with a statement of purpose. This statement should outline the motivation for the survey, the target audience, the needed results, and what actions will be taken with the results. The statement of purpose should be simple, but detailed enough to serve as a “beacon” to keep the project focused and moving forward. Another step in planning a customer survey will be to identify the required resources. Outline any facilities that will be needed, along with any special equipment or tools to perform the study. Personnel will also be defined at this point by assembling a cross- functional project team. Members of this team should include a project manager who will oversee the project and perhaps do most of the work, along with those that will be involved in questionnaire design, implementation, and analysis. It is desirable to enlist a project sponsor or champion who is a member of senior management to ensure resources will be allocated to the project as needed. This project team may also include select customers, as well as supporting departments and outside partners or vendors that may assist in the project.
Every survey project should begin with planning a budget for the project. The budget should include such items as staff salaries, computer hardware/software, postal or telephone fees for survey implementation, training, incentives for participants, and perhaps survey software tools.
A project schedule should be defined that outlines how long each phase of the project will take and what milestones are dependent upon other tasks being completed first. The phases to be outlined in the schedule include project planning, questionnaire design and development, questionnaire review, survey administration, data analysis, and reporting. The final stage in the planning process is content development. This step is sometimes referred to as “the survey before the survey” and is used to ensure all critical issues and concerns are indeed being covered in the actual questionnaire. This initial survey can take the form of one-on-one interviews with individuals, or can be accomplished in a focus group setting. It is important to include individuals or companies in this pre-survey process who will willingly bring out issues and concerns. These initial surveys should be done until no new issues surface, so that all potential customer concerns are addressed in the survey instrument.
Instrument Development
In developing the actual survey instrument or questionnaire, it is important to start with an idea of what information is needed in the final report and work backwards. Designing the questionnaire will be an iterative process and ample time should be allowed to get it right. Three categories of questions are typically included in a survey, including ones that address service delivery attributes, demographic variables, and customer attitudes toward the call center and the organization.
When writing the actual questions, it is important to consider phrasing to avoid loaded or leading questions, and to avoid jargon and ambiguous wording. Questionnaire design is critical so that customers will not just take the time to complete the survey, but will be able to complete it correctly.
Each survey instrument should include an introduction that explains who should complete the survey, how much time it should take, how to respond to questions, what to do when finished, and what the deadline is for participation. Critical terminology should be defined at the beginning and sequencing instructions should be given, whether given verbally in a telephone interview, or displayed legibly in a written survey. Another crucial design element is the type of data to be used. Some questions may be unstructured and require a textual response, while other questions may be structured in a multiple-choice format, or in a rating scale of some sort.
Survey Administration
There are various ways to administer a customer satisfaction survey. Traditional paper- based mail surveys have declined in popularity in recent years due to their low response rates and availability of faster means of communications. A high percentage of call centers utilize telephone surveys, conducted either by in-house staff or by a third-party specialist. Electronic surveys via e-mail and the Web are also growing in number. The variety of administration methods that can be used, along with their relative advantages and disadvantages is provided in matrix form below:

Another key decision in the survey administration process will be the sampling procedure. The organization should consider its customer population and determine whether a census is needed or whether a representative sample will be used. If a sample is to be used, correct sampling procedures should be employed in order to arrive at a precise and accurate conclusion. The sample size will depend upon the number of responses needed as well as the expected response rate from the participants. The number of needed responses will depend upon the desired accuracy and precision of the survey, with the amount of accuracy needed being dependent upon the amount of variation in the sample. Once the sample size and sampling procedure has been determined, a pre-survey notification should go out, either via traditional letter or by email. This notification should explain why the survey is being done, how the survey will benefit the participant, how results will be communicated, and what, if any, incentives are provided for participation. Upon conclusion of this notification, the actual survey is distributed.
Data analysis
Once the survey has been distributed and responses gathered, the next step in the survey process is to analyze the results. Analysis will vary depending upon whether the questions were purely statistical in nature, or where unstructured textual responses will be received. The data will typically be analyzed to determine averages or other means of central tendency. The data will also be analyzed to determine how the responses are distributed. It is important to not only look at the average responses or scores, but also to look at the dispersion of results from low to high. Statistical analysis (beyond the scope of this book) should be employed to arrive at meaningful conclusions from all the data gathered in the survey process.
Reporting and Action
The purpose of doing a customer survey is to determine how effectively customer needs are being met. Once the data has been analyzed, the next step is to report the survey results to relevant parties, and also to act upon results of the study to improve the service process and strengthen relationships with customers. Actions might include follow-up research or root cause analysis, immediate service actions, or continuous process improvement initiatives.
More Information
Want to learn more about the process of doing customer surveys? We highly recommend Customer Surveying by Dr. Fred Van Bennekom and the Survey Research Handbook by Pamela Alrech and Robert Settle. Both provide excellent, step-by-step instructions on how to develop, implement, and fine-tune customer surveys for your business improvement process.
About the Author….
Penny Reynolds is a Founding Partner of The Call Center School, a Tennessee based consulting and education company. The company provides a wide range of educational offerings for call center professionals, including traditional classroom courses, web-based seminars, self-paced e-learning programs, and call center management books. For more information, email Penny at penny.reynolds@thecallcenterschool.com or call at 615-812- 8410.

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Call center is a terrific job. Many young professionals work in call center because of higher chances of boosting their career to the maximum level. Customers are expanding their channel in contact in which call centers are on top of the list. It is a challenge to every contact center to integrate strategic planning in order to maintain its presence towards the global trend in this industry.

Working in a call center is not only aiming to receive higher pay. There are dos and don’ts in order to set limitation to the workers. If you are one of the millions of people connected in customer service, you should know the guidelines to avoid committing violation. Call center companies always make sure to deliver efficient services to their clients worldwide as possible. Because call center is a promising industry, keeping the best employees and hiring more service representatives should always set part of expanding the business. Hiring the right people is very important. The call centers should provide ongoing training to the agents and employees; practice the transparency like communicating openly with the agents and managers, discovering the quality performance of the best people, investing to the state-of-the-art technology to increase customer satisfaction.

Any contact center should have a strong organization in achieving the long-term goal of the company. Making the call center dynamic and flexible can promote better output all the time. The call center management should always strengthen the relationship with the customer. Maintaining customer relationship is important above anything else.

There are many good things you can do to support the call center industry. Avoiding the don’ts in this industry can lessen the burden that may bring to the customers and the company you work for. The following are the don’ts that call center employees should do:

Avoid Tardiness

Time is precious. Never be late in your duty. Though you are one of the best agents in the company but with your constant tardiness will give you the honor to be recognized by your team leaders or supervisors. Also, you are not the asset of the company because call center is a fast paced regulated industry that time is important. Your tardiness can affect the operation of your company.

Don’t Slack Off

Do your job promptly. Slacking off the floor by letting other people do the job which is supposed to you is simply a bad impression to you not only as a person but to your job performance. Be productive always and serve as role model to your fellow agents. Show them the real you that you are happy with what you are doing. There are many call center agents who were terminated because of this bad impression despite several times of IR (incidental report) issued to them.

Avoid Obscene Behavior

Displaying your obscene behavior while you are inside your company’s premises is a big NO. When taking to the customer, talk with them with pleasure and with care. Never throw seducing words which sounds like you are doing phone sex to your customer. If caught, this may the end of your promising career in your in the call center. And worst, this may left bad wound in your previous job and to your co-workers.

Stop horsing around

Think of your responsibility as an employee of the company. While you are on duty, avoid playing around and horsing with other agents. Respect their privacy while they are on call and focusing on their job. This behavior can cause immediate violation because you are disturbing your co-workers instantly. Always put the fun in the right time. Implementing self-discipline is the best way to get rid of this disturbing behavior.

There are so many don’ts that you we need to implement. This can make the job easier if everybody is following the simple orders stated under the rules and regulations. It is important that the discipline must start on our own. Later on, other people who are new in the call center will learn the virtue that you showed. If you love your job then keep it.

The call center industry continues to give outstanding opportunity to everybody. It helps the economy prosper and lower the unemployment rate in the world.

Roberto L. Bacasong, 27, works as Customer Interaction Associate in a biggest contact center in the Philippines.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roberto_Bacasong

By Myra Golden

The call record method is, in my opinion, one of the best approaches to coaching agent phone calls and ensuring quality. Here’s a 9-step plan for effectively coaching call center agent phone calls:

1. Randomly record 2 –3 telephone calls. Random recording is important. Do not record 3 calls back to back or on the same day, as your employee may be having a bad day and this may be reflected in all of one afternoon’s calls, but is not necessarily reflective of their typical performance.

2. Review the calls and note strengths and opportunities. Before meeting with your employee, listen to the calls and note what they did well and identify 1 –2 opportunities for performance improvement.

3. Play one tape and let your employee listen. During the playing of the tape, you do not need to respond.

4. Have your employee respond to the tape. After the tape is played, ask your employee to respond. Most employees will be overly self-critical. Your employee will likely note many opportunities for improvement and struggle to articulate what they’ve done well.

5. Coach the call. Use the “sandwich” approach. Tell your employee what s/he did well, followed by constructive feedback, and then end with positive feedback. When offering constructive feedback, share only one opportunity for improvement. The employee has likely observed and stated several improvement opportunities so there is no need to bring these up again Try to mention one thin g the employee did not bring up and offer this as your constructive feedback.

6. Gain commitment for performance improvement. Ask the employee, “What specific steps will you take over the next 5 days to improve in this area?” Write down what the employee states and repeat it to her. Summarize the session by reiterating strengths and offering a vote of confidence that she can improve in the identified area.

7. Repeat steps 2 – 6 with a second and perhaps third tape if necessary. The point of numerous recording is that an employee may respond defensively stating that was just a “bad” call. If that is the response, you may choose to review a second or third tape.

8. Follow-up before the next agent coaching session. Check with your employee in between coaching sessions to keep the commitment top of mind. You can touch base with your employee via email or a personal conversation.

9. Discuss improvement in next coaching session. Before listening to calls in the next coaching session, ask your employee how she’s progressing toward the goal of the last session. Look for improvement on calls reviewed in this session.

This 9-step call center agent coaching model is simple, clear and it both praises employees and offers support for improvement opportunities.

When you follow this 9-step process, you will set clear performance expectations, coach effectively and consistently and at the same time you will be motivating your employees.

Myra Golden is an award-winning professional speaker and principal of Myra Golden Seminars, LLC, a customer service training firm serving clients in food and beverage, banking, healthcare, hospitality, and other industries. Her client list includes McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Michelin Tires, Pirelli, and Procter & Gamble, among many others.

For hundreds of ideas for customer service improvement for use in customer service training, visit the customer service training resource portal by going to http://www.totalcustomerservicetraining.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Myra_Golden