Archive for the ‘ICMI’s CMI’ Category
ICMI’s Customer Management Insight magazine
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 29, 2008
How did I miss posting about these great articles by Jay Minnucci? I went to link to them from the post I just wrote about Dr. Jodie Monger’s article on survey malpractice and that’s when I discovered I never wrote about them. They were both published in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI): Getting a Real Measure on Satisfaction (Part I) and Getting a Real Measure on Satisfaction (Part II).
Well, now I am! I loved this two-part series Jay did so much that I asked him to do a presentation on this topic at ICMI’s Dallas Call Center Demo and Conference last week. I think the live session was even better than the articles, because of the audience participation and the dialogue that took place, and just because Jay’s a fun and professional speaker.
These articles make an excellent companion to Jodie Monger’s article that I just wrote about, Are You Guilty of Survey Malpractice? She delves into the details of survey practices and Jay uncovers a whole lot of other factors that you’ve likely never considered.
Surveys alone do not reflect true customer satisfaction levels. Behavioral metrics hold the key to managing dissatisfaction.
I love the way Jay pussy-foots around touchy issues so delicately, as he does here: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Conferences, ICMI's CMI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 29, 2008
Dr. Jodie Monger knows surveys, and in this Customer Management Insight (CMI) article, “Are You Guilty of Survey Malpractice?,” she explains what NOT to do on your customer satisfaction surveys.
Measurement programs must meet certain scientific criteria to be statistically valid with an acceptable confidence level and level of precision or tolerated error. Without these considerations, you are guilty of Survey Malpractice. To defend your program with “it has always been this way” or “we were told to do a survey” is not sufficient. Research laws adhered to in academia apply to the business world. A deficient survey yields inaccurate data and results in invalid conclusions no matter who conducts it.
How hard is it to come up with a bunch of questions and create a survey? That’s what most of us think, and if you just want some quick and informal feedback, that’s fine. But your customer satisfaction measurements are another story altogether. Jodie explains seven warning signs of “survey malpractice”:
- Measuring too many things
- Not measuring enough things
- Measuring questions with an unreliable scale
- Measuring the wrong things or the right things the wrong way
- Asking for an evaluation after memory has degraded
- Accuracy and credibility of service providers and product vendors
- Wiggle room via correction factors
(See the article for the explanation associated with each.)
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, ICMI, ICMI's CMI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 29, 2008
Here’s more on the topic of First Contact Resolution (aka, First Call Resolution or FCR) in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI): FCR Unraveled: Getting to the Heart of First-Contact Resolution. It’s an important and complex topic, so the more insight the better, and Greg Levin lays out the issues clearly.
Few performance metrics are as critical to contact center success as first-contact resolution (FCR); unfortunately, few performance metrics are also as misunderstood.
As I’ve already written (First Call Resolution: Great Principle, Hard to Apply), FCR is simple to grasp but far from simple to put into place in a meaningful way. As Greg put it: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, ICMI, ICMI's CMI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 29, 2008
It’s common sense once you think about it, but applying marketing principles to your company’s image can be an important part of your approach to recruiting.
To bring quality candidates to your door, you have to have them at “hello.” Positive branding — attaching your call center’s name to a reputation for quality benefits for both customers and agents — can increase your desirability in applicants’ eyes.
read more | digg story
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Posted by Ted Hopton on April 29, 2008
In this excerpt from their best-selling book, How to Build a Speech Recognition Application, EIG’s Bruce Balentine and David Morgan touch on the unique application design issues surrounding speech-enabled IVR systems.
read more | digg story
Posted in Call Center Management, ICMI's CMI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on March 12, 2008
Call center metrics are the source of so very many questions we hear at ICMI. What should be measured, how should you measure, what standards or benchmarks exist for each measure, how do you interpret and act on measured results — all of these and more are issues that trouble many call center professionals at one time or another.
So it should not be surprising that the March 2008 issue of ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI), includes two articles that address call center metrics. Cliff Hurst, of Career Impact, Inc., offers his thoughts in “Identifying the KPI’s that Matter Most” and Fred Van Bennekom, of Great Brook Consulting, provides his own explanations in “Measuring Service Effectiveness.” I know both of them, as well, since they have been speakers at ICMI’s conferences and I respect the experience and judgment that each brings to the table.
It’s interesting, though, that Fred is in his “sweet spot,” since his area of expertise truly is in measurement, particularly statistical measurement, while Cliff is probably best known for his work on quality monitoring. I think this difference shows in the two articles and the approaches each writer takes.
You’ll see in Fred’s a precise organization, where every metric or method gets defined and then has its advantages and then its shortcomings explained in order. He knows in depth what he’s talking about and so can get to the point concisely. I like the graphic he included, too, which again shows the orderly way he has addressed his subject:
The Portfolio of Customer Feedback Research Techniques
What I like about Cliff’s approach, however, is that this material does not come across as routine when he writes about it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Publications, ICMI's CMI, Metrics | Tagged: Call Center Management, Call Centers, Career Impact Inc., Cliff Hurst, Customer Service, Frederick C. Van Bennekom, Great Brook Consulting, ICMI, KPI, Metrics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 5, 2008
Ever since I was first tasked many years ago with implementing a first call resolution (FCR) measurement in my call center, I have been acutely aware how big the gap is between the simple, laudable concept of FCR in contact centers and practical, accurate measurement of it. Donna Fluss tackles the topic, “First-Call Resolution Drives Contact Center Improvements,” thoroughly in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI), but my favorite part is the graphic she includes that lays out the pros and cons of each option for implementing an FCR solution in a call center. If you’re trying to figure out how to make FCR work in a practical, feasible way in your call center, click on the graphic to expand it and take a look:
Analysis of Call Completion Identification Methodologies
Is it just me, or is there no truly appealing option among all those FCR implementation choices — what’s a call center manager supposed to do? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Publications, ICMI's CMI, Metrics | Tagged: Call Center Management, Call Centers, Donna Fluss, first call resolution, first contact resolution, ICMI, KPI, Metrics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 5, 2008
We get more questions at ICMI about metrics than just about any other call center management topic. This article, “Metrics: Expanding Perspectives to Increase Effectiveness,” by consultant (and popular speaker at ICMI’s conferences) Tim Montgomery, in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI) takes an in-depth look at conventional views of call center metrics — such as accessibility, productivity and quality objectives — and explains alternative approaches to measure what matters most in your contact center.
It’s a good review of the key principles for getting call center metrics right, so I recommend that you read it. Here’s Tim’s conclusion:
The best contact centers know that metrics are simply an indicator of opportunities, and that real positive change happens when leaders focus on the right behaviors that help the voice of your company get better.
call center metrics 
call center management
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Conferences, ICMI Publications, ICMI's CMI, Metrics | Tagged: Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, ICMI's Customer Management Insight, Metrics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 5, 2008
Introducing a new measure of call center performance: ICMI’s Global Service Index Report offers insights into customers’ perceptions of the call center service experience across sectors and countries.
Developed and executed by OmniTouch International, an ICMI Global Partner headquartered in Singapore, the Global Service Index Report will focus on a different industry sector each quarter. Upcoming sectors include the mobile industry, consumer electronics and hospitality. The results can be used to identify country, regional and global trends on an ongoing basis, and to document individual company performance standards within each selected country.
There’s a wealth of contact center management data and analysis in the report, so it’s certainly worth taking a look for yourself. Here’s an excerpt from the findings: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Benchmarking, Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Publications, ICMI's CMI, Research, Statistics | Tagged: Benchmarking, Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, mystery shopper, OmniTouch, Research | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 5, 2008
Learn what another contact center is doing in the Contact Center Spotlight on Pacific Gas & Electric, featured in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI).
Pacific Gas & Electric may be dedicated to turning the lights on in northern and central California, but in the competitive customer contact area, PG&E is shooting the lights out.
call center management
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, ICMI Publications, ICMI's CMI | Tagged: Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI's Customer Management Insight, Pacific Gas and Electric | Leave a Comment »
