Benchmarking Report 2009 Overview
Dimension Data's Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2009 is a market research report that provides in-depth information on contact centres - their inner workings, actual performance (on over 350 performance metrics) and likely future development.
This year's Benchmarking results indicate that, as an industry, we are on the cusp of the next stage of evolution. More and more organisations are recognising the role the contact centre can play in creating value for the business.
This year's results show that this transition to value generation is underway. Contact centres are identifying sales opportunities and organisations are managing customers in a more pragmatic way. Technology in the contact centre is changing to deliver integrated solutions to support value generation.
The 2009 Report findings are drawn from seven chapters covering:
• Strategy and Development;
• Financial Rationale and Management;
• Customer knowledge and Management;
• Performance Measures and Metrics;
• Processes and Procedures;
• Organisation and the
• Technology Environment.
Introduction to the 2009 Report
The 2009 Report registered over 550 participants in 2009, more than in any previous year since we started in 1997. In doing so we also achieved a fantastic geographic spread and participation across all industry sectors.
It is now 12 years since our inaugural Benchmarking study and this year it is clear that so much has changed and so much has stayed the same. In this year’s report we will describe what we see as being some very interesting and encouraging new trends emerging including:
• Customer lifetime value is back on the radar
• More complexity for agents
• Home-working becoming a reality
• Call volumes are on the rise
• Deploying IP becomes the number one technology trend
We’ll also describe some of the predictions we’re making for the future. The rate of change in customer contact is increasing and it’s hard to imagine it slowing down as the next generations of Facebookers and Tweeters start to become more and more important to our entire business – both as customers and employees.
Unfortunately we’re not in a position to tell you exactly how it’s all going to play out by the year 2020 – our vision isn’t that perfect. What we can do is give you a sense of what’s happening now and what we think might evolve and develop. We don’t think that there’s a revolution coming, but we do suspect that the world of customer contact is going to change quite a bit over the next decade.
Highlights of the 2009 Report
Highlights from the 2009 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
Major Themes and Findings
A Mixed Bag for Operational Performance
Looking at aggregated operational performance data always requires a degree of license. This year we’ve seen some positive movement in terms of Average Speed to Answer and Overall Customer Satisfaction and some negative movement on the Average Handle Time (AHT) and First Contact Resolution (FCR) metrics. Every year we discuss the challenge with these metrics, given the different methods and means used to measure and report across regions, industries and even technology platforms. Overall, we would summarise this year’s operational performance as ‘mixed’ - there have definitely been no great strides forward or any significant decline in standards.
You will see various mentions throughout this year’s report of the need to review and amend the Management Information that is being used in our contact centres to assess performance and the contribution to the organisation. If you are looking for a positive in all of this, it is definitely true that the role of the contact centre is being recognised as more significant and is receiving greater degrees of Executive attention than ever before.
Call Volumes Still On the Rise
Overall call volumes have risen slightly this year with 20.2% of respondents reporting a significant increase, contradicting predictions of the demise of contact centres as self service and contact avoidance initiatives are developed. Growth in call volumes is more pronounced in emerging markets.
Since the onset of the Global Economic Crisis there has been a clear shift in the reasons for customer contact. Across virtually all industries the nature of inbound calls has changed creating challenges from a forecasting and scheduling perspective. Historically it was feasible to predict call volumes by type up to 12 months in advance; over the past year customer behaviour has been changing monthly thereby making these predictions much more challenging.
Complexity for Agents
Average Handle Times have continued to creep up but we believe that this is largely down to the migration of the simpler, commoditised transactions to self service channels which continues to increase.
This obviously leads to front line agents having to handle more complex interactions that often require a greater degree of empathy, communication skills and access to the relevant information. Knowledge management and Case Based Reasoning tools can definitely help, but hiring and training are the two factors that are most important as complexity increases along with customer expectations.
Still Work to do on Management Information
Management Information (MI) reported at board level under the guise of Strategic MI is still too focused on service levels. Instead of focusing on the inner workings of the operation, strategic MI focuses on outcomes. We believe this is an issue across the industry and we are still measuring the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
As organisations continue to focus on value creation, the core metrics and measures used need to be revised, especially from a Financial Management perspective. We have seen a significant increase this year in the number of organisations looking to focus on Customer Lifetime Value Management within the contact centre.
Process Optimisation Remains Primary Focus
From a customer and agent perspective, the ongoing trend towards more End-to-End Process Automation is good news. Through increasing the number of processes that can be handled within contact centres, hand-offs will reduce as will operational costs. Reduced Hand-Off and Extending the Reach of Processes Performed within contact centres are two areas receiving attention.9
The move towards giving contact centres the capability to handle a wider range of contacts is a welcome development and something we’ve been forecasting for several years. It’s likely to have the greatest positive impact on call resolution rates and ultimately customer satisfaction.
Outsourcing Still a Cost Decision
While we continue to see the role of outsourcing maturing, the top three reasons for outsourcing are all cost related: Potential Cost Savings, Flexibility and Greater Cost Control. Cost remains the biggest driver for adopting an outsourcing strategy, but it is encouraging to see results that indicate a more balanced approach to outsourcing decisions.
There is a greater recognition of retaining core functions and focusing the decisions on a balance of value, performance and risk rather than cost alone.
Customer Lifetime Value is Back on the Radar
Over the past 12 months there has been a positive indicator trend suggesting that organisations are looking to improve the way they show how Customer Lifetime Value is impacted by customer interactions taking place in the contact centre.
This is indeed encouraging although we have yet to see how organisations are going to actually achieve this, given the general inability to create a consolidated view of a customer’s portfolio. It’s an easy thing to say but a much more challenging initiative to implement.
Channels Are Still Too Siloed
Organisations are still not using customer insight across the organisation. It’s a clear and disappointing indicator of the extent of the challenge facing the industry to deliver a joined up end-to-end experience.
Joining up the customer journey across different units of the organisation will improve the overall customer experience, yet in reality it remains one of the main challenges facing the contact centre industry.
Why Not Measure Cost Per Interaction?
A third of all contact centres report that they do not measure the cost per interaction of agent assisted telephone calls.
When you consider that this is the most accurate means of determining the cost effectiveness of an operation, it is a worrying trend that we have not seen improve in recent years.
Segmentation Becomes More Sophisticated (But Fewer People Are Doing It)
More companies are using increasingly sophisticated methods of segmenting and differentiating their customers. The top three methods used for segmenting the customer base are: Product Holding, Value of Customer and Transactional data.
There appears to be a very real desire to generate more value from customer interactions. What is worrying though, is the drop in the number of companies using segmentation.
Quality Management Becomes More Integrated
Quality monitoring is becoming more widespread and comprehensive. Nearly all of this year’s participants report using some form of monitoring system. Quality monitoring is moving from a stand-alone function, that has little relevance on the day-to-day lives of the agents or the delivered customer experience, to a more integral element of the way contact centres are managed.
This is good news for agents, as their overall performance will be assessed on a wider range of metrics including customer satisfaction with the way they handled calls. The next stage of evolution is to integrate the quality function further with training, development and Workforce Management.
Customer Satisfaction Has Increased – But What Does It Really Mean?
Customer satisfaction has risen 3.4% year on year. Given the varying techniques used to measure customer satisfaction, this measure can be misleading. An average customer satisfaction score is a combined metric looking at satisfaction with the organisation and the contact centre specifically.
We expect to see the growth of near real time surveys and the increased use of Net Promoter scores (NPS) as a substitute or complementary measure of ‘satisfaction’.
How Long Before I Speak to a Real Person?
While customers do consider Time to Answer important to customer service, it does not generally feature in the top three factors affecting satisfaction. Worryingly, we see some organisations introducing even more complex IVR solutions that are creating longer waiting times. We predict this will reverse in coming years as customers express their concerns.
Worth noting is the apparent drop in perceived importance of Agents having Access to important Customer Information (details, contact history) or the ability to Handle Multiple Queries in one call. To deliver a positive customer experience, this type of information is crucial and is in contradiction to the stated desire to focus on joined up customer processes.
Home-Working Becomes a Reality
The number of home-working agents is generally growing in more mature markets across the globe. The largest proportion of home-workers appears to be in the Americas and Australia and is particularly prevalent where organisations want to retain specialist skills despite changes to employees’ personal life circumstances.
One third of respondents are considering home-working, signifying a major shift in approach to employee management, where benefits include lower staff turnover and cost, improved productivity and reduced travel through the use of
technology. While the management of remote agents will require a different style of specialised management, we expect to see a rise in the use of remote agents as more centres adopt this progressive approach to working.
Attrition and Absenteeism – Signs of Improvement
Both Attrition and Absenteeism figures are slightly lower year on year and contributing factors may include an effort by companies to put Attrition policies in place, as well as the effect of a global economic downturn on people retaining their positions. There may also be an element of downsizing affecting attrition figures.
Absenteeism is still over 10% overall across the different regions which equates to over 20 working days per year and this presents an ongoing problem for many contact centres. In the pressured environment of a contact centre, staff should assume responsibility for their own performance and good quality relationships between staff and management should be encouraged. Addressing attrition is a clear priority for most respondents with 80% either having or intending to address the issue with specific policies.
What Are People Doing To Manage Attrition?
While there is a broad range of attrition reduction initiatives taking place, most appear to focus on people rather than financial elements. The end result of such policies is likely to be an overall improvement in contact centres as a place to work. Given that people are core to the contact centre industry, it is surprising to note the 20% of respondents with no attrition initiatives in place.
Addressing Pay is significantly lower than other management elements except in the Americas. Centres can focus on specific elements to encourage retention and thereby reduce attrition such as agent training, on the job support, more vigorous screening of candidates on recruitment and improved opportunities for career development.
Knowledge Management – A Key Part of the Solution, Or Maybe the Glue Itself
Organisations are placing a high level of importance on upgrading existing applications including Knowledge Management, Customer Relationship Management, Business and Support.
This indicates that companies may be under pressure to optimise current processes and the high ranking for upgrading and planning to install Knowledge Management suggests that it will be a key area of activity in the near future.
Deploying IP Becomes the Number One Technology Priority
This is the first year that Adoption of IP has been named as the top technology trend influencing the contact centre. It’s a further indication that most contact centre owners are planning how and when to introduce IP rather than questioning its validity.
Availability and Business Continuity is still a top priority and there is a definite trend towards Reducing Complexity through fewer technologies from different vendors. This will result in simplified architectures and support models and enable better integration of the contact centre into the rest of the enterprise.
Hosting and ‘On-Demand’ Becomes Mainstream
Most contact centres are still owned and managed within the organisation. The number of centres owned by organisations continues to drop year on year (75.9% to 67.1%).
With hosted technologies more secure and easier to manage than in the past, we expect to see an increase in the number of hosted centres due to the economic climate and convenience of the technology. This is chiefly possible because of technology advances towards IP and web-based architectures.
For these and more in-depth analysis and insight into this year's results, order your copy of the Global Benchmarking Report 2009.