Benchmarking: Why? How?
In spite of benchmarking’s popularity, some critics have called it a short-sighted, surface approach.
When it comes to customer service, we find that too many companies disregard their unique sales propositions in favor of “what the other guys are doing.” But copy-cat approaches don’t define how your customer interactions need to unfold to reflect your specific brand and business objectives.
One Response to “Benchmarking: Why? How?”
IS THERE ROOM TO TAKE BENCHMARKING METRICS IN A CALL CENTER OUTSIDE OF OPERATIONAL KPI’S?
Benchmarking in a call center is something that is traditionally viewed as client driven, for example 80/30 (80 percent of the calls answered in 30 seconds) service levels are recommended or in some cases expected with very little discussion on the important question asked in the article, Why? What are the impacts on cost, service and customer experience? Moving the traditional call center thinking from price to value and overall return related to all metrics is often an intimidating conversation, the familiarity leads towards price per minute, average handle time and number of quality coaching sessions.
The idea of customer service focused companies in collaboration with clients and call centers may be a way to optimize core-competencies and bring a new benchmark metrics to the call center industry that are perhaps longer-term focused. These may include average length of customer, increase in average order size and repeat purchases.
By Matt Cockell on Apr 24, 2008