How Does Your Call Center Measure Up?

How does your credit union handle member service at its largest branches? What about the call center? For most credit unions, the call center is easily one of the three largest “branches” in terms of members served.

Most credit unions are entering into their planning season. How does your call center measure up?

Take the following quiz and use your score to determine how effective your call center is – or where you need to make improvements. For any of the questions, if you do not measure that metric, use answer D.

Questions
1. What is your call center’s average speed of answer?
a. Less than 20 seconds = 15 pts
b. Less than 35 seconds = 12 pts
c. Less than 60 seconds = 8 pts
d. More than 60 seconds = 5 pts

2. What is your call center’s abandonment rate?
a. Less than three percent = 10 pts
b. Less than five percent = 8 pts
c. Less than eight percent = 5 pts
d. More than eight percent = 3 pts

3. What is your cost per contact?
a. Less than $4.15 = 15 pts
b. Less than $4.75 = 12 pts
c. Less than $5.20 = 10 pts
d. More than $5.20 = 8 pts

4. What is the average call handle time?
a. Less than 3.92 minutes = 10 pts
b. Less than 4.2 minutes = 8 pts
c. Less than 4.5 minutes = 5 pts
d. More than 4.5 minutes = 3 pts

5. What is the first call resolution rate?
a. More than 94.75 percent = 15 pts
b. More than 87 percent = 12 pts
c. More than 80 percent = 10 pts
d. Less than 80 percent = 8 pts

6. What is your call center agent attrition rate?
a. Less than 20 percent yearly = 10 pts
b. Less than 30 percent yearly = 8 pts
c. Less than 40 percent yearly = 5 pts
d. More than 40 percent yearly = 3 pts

7. What is your agent utilization rate?
a. More than 80 percent = 10 pts
b. More than 70 percent = 8 pts
c. More than 60 percent = 5 pts
d. Less than 60 percent = 3 pts

8. Do you have a business continuity plan?
a. Yes, and I can rely on the plan instantly = 5 pts
b. Yes, but it takes time to utilize the plan = 2 pts
c. No, I have no plan in place = 0 pts

9. What is your Net Promoter Score?
a. More than 50 percent = 10 pts
b. More than 45 percent = 5 pts
c. Less than 45 percent = 2 pts
d. I have not measured my Net Promoter Score = 0 pts

Results
Tier 1 – Gold: 100 Points
If your contact center falls into this tier, it is an effective, efficient machine. You’re answering calls in under 20 seconds while keeping costs per contact under $4.15. Agents are being utilized at a rate of more than 80 percent. Members are having their questions resolved during the first call 94.75 percent of the time, and the average call lasts less than 3.92 minutes.

Tier 2 – Silver: 75-99 Points
If your contact center falls into this tier, it falls just short of industry standards and needs a boost to help it succeed. Contact centers falling into this group are satisfying their members but may not be building member loyalty. You may be able to optimize your cost efficiency more by using an external call center to help better utilize your internal agents.

Tier 3 – Bronze: 50-74 Points
If your contact center falls into this tier it is not meeting standards and is costing you money, not making it. Contact centers falling into this category are considerably slower in the average speed of answer, and they are not always satisfying the member, let along building loyalty.

Tier 4 – Fired!: 49 Points or Less
If you contact center falls into this tier, it is failing and needs improvement in many ways. You are not able to provide your members with the service they need, and you could be spending too much in costs as well. It is highly advisable that you re-evaluate your call center or seek out an external one to help with the call volume.

Measuring the Intangibles – Improving Call Quality Increases Member Loyalty

In an earlier blog, we covered how to avoid being fired by your members – Build Member Loyalty with the FIRST Call. Tracking your credit union’s first call resolution rate is a necessary and objective way to measure member satisfaction.

When you are dealing with people, however, objective measures do not always tell the whole story. It’s also important to identify and measure a call center representative’s softer communication skills. Yes, you fixed a problem or completed a request, but was the member satisfied with the person-to-person interaction and overall experience?

How to Measure Softer Skills

Measuring the softer skills of communication can be subjective and, therefore, difficult to identify and track. My experience with credit unions and call centers has helped me to specifically identify and recommend ways for credit unions to score their agents in the following categories:

• General tone – Is the agent pleasant to speak with? Do they speak with the same rate of speed as the caller?
• Clarity – Is the agent speaking clearly?
• Listening skills – Has the agent shown they understand the member’s issue?
• Avoiding dead air – Does the agent avoid long, awkward silences during the call?
• Empathy – Does the agent relate to members? This is especially important for emotional issues such as stolen cards, late payments and other issues that could upset the member.
• Courtesy – Is the agent polite? Is the agent using the member’s name? Thanking the caller for being a member?
• Sticking to the correct script or process – Does the agent follow the procedures that will best resolve the member’s call?
• Timeliness – Does the agent avoid wasting time on the call?
• Additional help – Does the agent ask if the member needs help with anything else before ending the call?
• Survey – Is the member given the chance to share their opinion of how well the credit union met their service expectations?

Keep an Ear Out

The best way to measure call quality is to record and monitor calls. Agents can then be scored on a range of factors to arrive at a “quality score.” Monitoring call does not have to be time-intensive. Credit unions can add analytic software to their phone systems that identifies and flags calls with high emotional responses or long period of silence, helping identify agents or scripts that need to be improved.

It is important to set two levels of acceptable scores – a base score to establish minimum standards, and an incentive score to encourage agents to strive for high scores. Then, promote the rewards that come with those scores – loyal members and a job well done.

Credit unions with high call quality will better impress their members. This helps create memorable experiences and increase member loyalty, which drives both retention and new member referrals.

Related Articles
Building Member Loyalty with the FIRST Call
Is Your Call Center Solving Issues? Or Just Answering the Phones?
Don’t Think Basic, Think NECESSARY Call Center Metrics
Calls Cost, But How Much is Too Much?

Unhappy Customers Can Spread Their Gloom to Millions

We learn the lesson again and again…a negative experience can live for eternity in the hearts, minds and – now – YouTube accounts of those affected. Fail to serve a member’s needs, and you could end up seeing your credit union being ridiculed online by thousands – or even millions – of people. A couple of examples from this week have really brought this to light.

United Breaks Guitars

In 2008, musician Dave Carroll witnessed his band’s guitars being thrown around by United Airlines baggage handlers, which resulted in major damage to his custom-built guitar. In Dave’s own words, he tried to work with the airline’s call centers for nine months before giving up and making his video.





That video hit YouTube on July 6, and has been viewed nearly 3 million times in less then two weeks. In addition, the story has now generated more than 550 news stories across the country.

Bank of America – Making Customers Call Different Numbers

Think this couldn’t happen in financial services? Consumerist, a consumer focused blog from the publishers of Consumer Reports, shares three examples of customers getting nowhere with Bank of America’s call centers. Worse, even the bank’s own employees couldn’t work their way through the call center:

On May 14, 2009 I called the Risk Department around 1PM. … Immediately after this phone call, I walk into my local Bank of America branch. … I explain the situation. … She tells me there's no use in her calling the Risk Department as they will only tell her the same thing they told me. She gives me a card to Customer Solutions. She tells me to call the number, as it is my best bet at getting this issue resolved…I call Customer Solutions at 1-800-831-4419. I explain my story. They put me on hold as they contact the Risk Department. They come back on the line and give me the exact statement the Risk Department told me. … I ask her if I have ANY other options to get this issue resolved. She responds, "No."

That’s two different phone calls (to two different numbers) and a personal visit to the branch, still with no resolution.

The Consumerist story was read more than 12,000 times in its first week. Both of these stories have generated online comments and other blog postings, with most writers stating their intent to no longer use these companies. Maybe they can afford to lose the business, but could your credit union?

The best way to avoid having to deal with situations like this is to have a competent call center in place. Credit unions must evaluate their call centers, which often handle as much member business as a branch, and make the changes necessary to make them effective sources of true member service.

Building Member Loyalty with the FIRST Call

Your members are firing you every day, and you don’t know it. Credit unions claim that their pillar of success is great member service, but is it? How are you measuring your contact center’s member service?

Maybe you’ve been tracking the metrics discussed so far in our series, and you think your service levels are superior:

• You’re answering your calls on the second ring.
• Your abandonment rates are under 5 percent.
• You’re listening to the recorded calls and scoring your employees highly on their “quality” - tone, empathy, using the members name and thanking them for being a member.

You may be doing all of the above very well, but it is not enough to keep members loyal.

Why?

After ten years of consulting credit unions, I have not met with many that have the tools to track whether the credit union resolved the member’s need on the first call. Did the employee answer the member’s issue? Or was the member transferred to another area of the credit union? Does your contact center need to call the member back? Or, even worse, did you ask the member to call another number?

While these scenarios are horrible. The situation is worse because no one knows the extent of the problem. First Call Resolution is simply not tracked or reported.

First Call Resolution Rate – The BEST Driver of Loyalty

First Call Resolution Rate (FCRR) is the percentage of calls resolved on the first call without being transferred to another agent.

According to a 2009 report by The Ascent Group, “First Call Resolution is perhaps the most powerful call center metric. When you improve FCRR you’re improving quality, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction, all at the same time.”

FCRR is the primary driver of member satisfaction. Credit unions who improve FCRR usually see an improvement in their efficiency metrics.

We like to see an FCR of at least 90 percent. Why so high?

The Ascent Group report added, “An 80 percent FCR rate sounds pretty good. However, an 80 percent FCR means your customers call you, on average, 1.2 times to resolve a question or issue. This 20 percent in 'repeat calls' represents increased call volume, inflated operating expenses, and most importantly, dissatisfied customers. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to defect and more likely to tell others about their experiences."

There key to having a great FCRR is installing the proper tools to ensure the caller reaches the agent who can best assist them. This means having a call routing system in place to send questions about mortgages to the lending department or questions about password resets to the technical support department.

In the case of the small New England credit union we shared last week, partnering with a call center provider also made an impact on first call resolution. When we began working with the credit union, we found that only 75 percent of calls were being handled on the first call. In less than a year, the credit union changed their processes to empower their call center partners and agents to take action on a wider variety of calls, improving first call resolution to 88 percent.

So how can a credit union measure first call resolution? The simple way is to end each call with the question, “Are You Happy?” If so, thank the member for their business. If not, listen to their needs and keep working with the member to resolve their issue.

Related Articles
Is Your Call Center Solving Issues? Or Just Answering the Phones?
Don’t Think Basic, Think NECESSARY Call Center Metrics
Calls Cost, But How Much is Too Much?

Calls Cost, But How Much is Too Much?

Whether a call is made to your internal call center or your call center partner, there is a cost associated with it. Knowing the cost of each call determines the resources required to run a call center as well as its effectiveness. Two useful metrics to measure cost are Call Handle Time and Cost per Contact.

Call Handle Time is more than just the amount of time an agent spends on the phone. It is calculated by combining total talk time with total wrap-up time, which includes any follow-up e-mails, paper work, or calls. It is important to measure this because for many call centers, the administrative and follow-up can account for more than 50 percent of an agent’s time.

Cost Per Contact is one of the most accurate ways to measure efficiency. The metric is determined by dividing the total cost of the contact center by the number of calls completed. For example, if it costs you $50,000 to run your call center for a month, and you took 10,000 calls in that month, then your cost per contact would be $5.00.

Metrics Explained
Cost per contact and call handle time can vary greatly. Most credit unions aim for a cost per contact between $3.18 and $5.30 per call. However, maintaining a higher cost per contact ratio may be worth it if it means higher service levels. There is a real danger if questions are answered too quickly, and revenue and loyalty-building opportunities are lost.

Call handle time should also be compared to the types of calls an agent is taking. Complex issues, such as a new loan application, are going to take more time than a call to get directions to the nearest branch.

Measuring all these metrics can help credit unions make the changes needed to maximize the efficiency of their call center. I recently worked with a small New England credit union to improve efficiencies throughout the call center, including expanding their hours of service to 24 hours a day.

The credit union experienced a dramatic 71 percent improvement in cost per contact and 9 percent savings ($40,000) in annual contact center expenses even though they experienced a three-fold increase in call volume demonstrating the major scale advantage outsourcing brings. Additionally, the call abandonment rate dropped from 15 percent to three percent.

All of the metrics discussed to date have touched on efficiency. However, credit unions must be careful not to sacrifice quality for efficiency. Next week, we’ll look at more qualitative measures and how credit unions can ensure an efficient call center is also delivering the high quality demanded by its members.