Another gripe voiced was being made to wait for weeks for a written response to a telephone enquiry - even when the enquiry is of a relatively simple nature. The author makes a simplistic but perhaps valid point that if all companies simply picked up the phone and answered enquiries promptly, GDP could be a great deal more than 0.3%.

Organisations frequently pride themselves on offering an increasingly large choice of contact channels but in reality some channels (often those preferred by a significant number of customers) become far less consumer-friendly and simply harder to access. Choice becomes an illusion rather than a reality and as a result consumers are left with the impression that organisations are trying to avoid contact. There's nothing more frustrating than being forced to go online because your attempts to just pick up the phone and sort things out have been thwarted.

There seems to be an illogical belief among organisations that if they publish their numbers openly then we will all go mad and phone them - the ‘forbidden fruits’ theory. But seriously, how many of us have the time or inclination to make unnecessary calls just because we can?

Most organisations in the CCA network are well aware of the need to reduce failure calls and to proactively reduce the need for inbound calls in order to free up valuable time for productive conversations. But achieving this is easier said than done as evidenced by the numbers of calls still being received despite a proliferation of multichannel offerings.

Undoubtedly the issue of diminishing trust lies at the heart of why many consumers feel the need to call, check and check again. Fixing this is a hard nut to crack and requires relentless focus from the whole organisation and support from the board, on treating customers openly, consistently and fairly.

CCA research shows that in the financial sector regulations designed to protect consumers increasingly result in robotic interactions rather than empathetic conversations. Organisations need to take an innovative approach to counter this: there are encouraging developments which augur well for the future eg Barclays Wealth is making intelligent use of voice biometrics for customer ID verification security checks reducing the need for Personal Identity Numbers and for repeated ID questions. Also, RBS is training all frontline staff to deal with technology enquiries rather than referring them on to a specialist team.

Sometimes it is the simple things that are easiest to fix. If every organisation that uses IVR did a regular and thorough test of its effectiveness and helpfulness to customers then I am convinced that levels of customer trust would improve and levels of frustration would fall. Who knows, maybe that would encourage consumers to do more business and provide a much-needed fillip to the economy. At the risk of repeating myself, good service doesn't need to cost more than bad service.

Love her or hate her, the death of Margaret Thatcher has sparked heated debate on the nature of leadership and the legacy of the Iron Lady.

The arguments are particularly pertinent for the customer contact sector as the reforms Thatcher introduced - deregulation and privatisation - paved the way for the emergence of large scale private businesses serving huge swathes of the population with essential services such as gas or electricity and of big call centres to serve those customers.

The popularisation of share ownership during Thatcher’s premiership also resulted in a new hybrid of customer-shareholders,  creating a new and more complex customer service dynamic. Also, a monolithic service culture in state-run enterprises gave way to a plethora of management creeds as newly-privatised businesses sought to put their own stamp on service methodologies.

The Thatcher years also saw major technology developments which impacted on the growth of contact centres, as advances in such things as automated call distribution enabled businesses to concentrate activities in purpose-built centres and employment in the sector rocketed. Technological advances (accompanied by political decisions to encourage greater competition) also fostered new business models such as insurer Direct Line in 1985 and First Direct Bank in 1989.

Thatcher lit the touch paper for change and passed the torch to the bosses of the deregulated businesses. From a consumer viewpoint, the lofty ideals in which those businesses were born have become tarnished. This is not a political statement but a factual observation in the wake of numerous publicly-recorded instances of abuse of power and mis-selling which have driven a wedge of mistrust between companies and their customers.

The sectors most often in the dock are banking and utilities. Banks seem further advanced in making concerted efforts to repair trust but utilities are lagging behind. It requires strong and principled leadership to restore customer trust and to ensure that brand promises made in the boardroom are kept throughout the entire organisation, from the sales force to front line customer contact teams who bear the brunt of customer anger when things go wrong...and many things have gone wrong. Consumers are too often confused or misled by choices not in their best interests and the onus is on companies to confront these failings bravely and honestly.

Tackling change requires nerves of steel and strong convictions but an unyielding approach will not work. The nature of leadership has, by necessity, changed from Thatcher’s time and today’s business leaders should cull the best characteristics of her leadership and adapt them in a way which best serves modern customers.

Whether or not you agreed with her politics, Thatcher had unshakeable conviction, clarity and strength of purpose. She once said: “I’m not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.”  

The two are not mutually exclusive. Why can’t we embrace a leadership style which combines clarity and conviction with a more consensual approach than the Iron Lady?

Thatcher was famously obdurate, declaring “The Lady’s not for turning.” But, at a time of crisis in terms of public loss of faith in corporate integrity, such obduracy has no place. Where companies have lost customer trust, leaders need to make a major U-turn and to introduce a relentless focus on re-establishing integrity.  Customers deserve no less.

An insightful case study was presented by our host, Barclays Wealth, detailing their journey from a cost to value service, aiming to harmonise global operations.  Groundbreaking developments such as the use of voice biometrics for real-time verification will surely delight those customers weary of memorising multiple passwords, not to mention repeatedly confirming pets names and special places.  Of course the benefit extends to advisors who can instead focus on the conversation they really want to have; a neat example of technology enabling the whole human experience.

Sky's innovative use of iPads for their engineers to demo additional services to customers in their own homes reminded us of the growing need to understand those situations where customers want us to be there for them in their journey - a perfect sales through service example.
 

Progress towards the ‘Camelot’ round table scenario from last year’s Convention was described by Standard Life with their appointment of a Chief Customer Officer - a title which will surely find its rightful place in most large organisations before too long.
 

Our consultation with members highlighted a desire to understand more about how the ‘giff gaff’ customer collaboration model could apply to different sectors.  Professor Alan Wilson from Strathclyde University shared his considerable expertise in this field using Tom Tom satellite navigation as a working example. This topic will be a main focus for the group over the next few months and we will highlight case studies demonstrating benefits for both customer and of course employees.
 

So lots to be getting on with - but after the Easter break of course! 
 

Have a lovely weekend - enjoy the chocolate if not the weather!

I was delighted to present yesterday at Verint’s Global Sales Kick-Off event in Atlanta, bringing to the agenda the latest trends and thinking around customer insight and experience, to the Verint team from all around the world.  It’s been a fascinating few days here with lots of great discussion on how we can better use customer feedback and trends to improve processes, journeys and ultimately customer experience.  A huge thanks to David Parcell, MD at Verint and the rest of the team for inviting me to participate and making me feel so welcome at the event.

CCA was also in Belfast this week with our latest member study tour hosted by Invest Northern Ireland.  The case study from Ulster Bank on agent engagement at the time of the Natwest outage last year was really fascinating.  Engagement levels increased drastically showing real dedication and commitment from the front-line team to deliver for customers at a very critical time.  Some real learnings to be had.

We were also delighted to be invited by Kcom to present at the Dorset Public Sector Network session focusing on the latest trends and improvement programmes in the public sector, with a particular focus on shared services.  The group participants appear to be making lots of progress at a very challenging time for local government as they strive to deliver on the ‘Digital by Default’ agenda and the Civil Service Reform Plan.

If you’d like information on any of the outputs then please do get in touch.

Scientists predict that about 73% of the Universe is made up of dark energy - a pervasive energy field that acts as a sort of anti-gravity to stop the Universe from contracting back in on itself.  The other 23%, researchers believe, comes in the form of dark matter.

The challenge is that until now, nobody has seen it.

In a funny way there are certain parallels with what’s going on in our sector - we are attempting to find out everything about customers’ experience, preferences and behaviours to try to get more out of the relationships. Every day, according to IBM, ‘we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals to name a few’.

The information collected actively in our contact centres and passively as we go around our daily business is of tremendous value; if - and it’s a big if, we know what we are looking for and more importantly how to use it.  

Like the scientists searching for dark matter, perhaps we are also searching for the holy grail in a quest for the unknown data - we know it’s out there but accurately and scientifically collecting and utilising it is quite something else.

At a recent CCA event, Professor Carsten Sorensen from LSE likened our current economic situation in customer contact with ‘Fordism to Amazonism’, in other words a world where products are a given, and where success depends on being able to consistently and accurately codify customers personal experiences .

This transition needs us to better understand our ‘dark matter’ of crucial customer insight. He also believes that we need to urgently fix the broken processes which cause us to pollute our communication channels with unnecessary calls - only then can we start to see the wood from the trees and truly move into an environment where we really do understand and can respond to what customers are saying and doing.

The first week of 2013 has seen lots of coverage in the press about customer service and how some of the leading brands are faring.  Tesco’s results announced yesterday are showing they are ‘back on form’ in comparison to their leading competitors.  Shop Direct Group sales were also up with a 5% growth in sales in the 6 weeks to Christmas with online sales accounting for 80% of the total - up from 74% in 2011.  Marks and Spencer however didn’t fare as well over the Christmas period as anticipated with a 1.8% fall in like for like sales.

Regulators are beginning to show their teeth with Ofcom announcing a crackdown on silent calls to home landlines which have doubled in the last year – ironically much of the responsibility for this lies with claims management firms who promise refunds on mis-sold PPI. The Financial Ombudsman Service has been forced to recruit 1,000 extra workers to deal with the ‘unprecedented’ number of complaints about mis-sold PPI, taking on a further 245,000 cases since last April accounting for two-thirds of its total workload.

HMRC is being challenged about its service delivery by the National Audit Office as complaints from citizens continue to rise and other leading brands such as Santander, Talk Talk, EDF, Halifax and Vodafone have been profiled in mainstream press who claim their service leaves a lot to be desired.

CCA will continue to work closely with members to ensure the products and services we offer are best placed to support the challenges ahead. We will be launching our research and benchmarking programme in the next few weeks to offer real insight for our network on the best approach to tackling the key issues head on so watch out for the programme announcement.

In the meantime, I’d like to wish you all a happy, prosperous and hopefully positive 2013!

It has been an amazing year in so many ways but also probably one of the most challenging in memory.  In a funny way this has helped us to focus on what's important and what's less so.  

We have thoroughly enjoyed working with you over the past 12 months and look forward to getting stuck into our agenda for next year, helping to create better ways of dealing with the growing complexity of keeping our customers happy. 

Until then, everyone at CCA wishes you a happy and restful break and all the best for 2013!