Achieving excellence in the contact center

Whether it’s through net promoter scores (NPS), average handle time (AHT), customer effort score (CES) or first contact resolution (FCR), there are many ways to measure excellence in the contact center. Achieving excellence, however, comes with its own set of challenges, among them, the design and management or processes that ensure CX is seamless.

“In customer care, excellence is about focusing on processes and knowing what a customer wants,” says Mazen Khalaf, the former group customer care manager for Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) and the newly appointed customer care manager for Q-Mobility. “At the end of the day, the customer doesn’t know what is happening inside the company – they don't know what sort of technology or platform we use – they care how the purchasing process is simple and flawless. Post-purchase, they want aftersales to be seamless and require minimum effort to get an issue resolved with full transparency. To achieve that you have to know what is happening in the kitchen, so to speak!”

During his time at MAF, Khalaf was part of the group customer care team within the holding company unit, which oversaw the group’s five business units. As such, the CX managers for each business unit   collaborated closely with the group customer care team, working together to drive customer care initiatives. Following a restructure, his position moved to the future solutions business unit where a stronger focus on operations saw Khalaf working as the Center of Excellence and domain expert for the customer care and contributing to the co-creation of the group’s customer care strategy.

This closer focus on operations is not exclusive to MAF. It is driven by a stronger trend that has emerged in CX over recent months: the recognition that a seamless customer experience is the result of great operations, and that to deliver operationally, departments must work together.

In fact, this trend is becoming so important Jim Tincher CCXP says that unless CX can connect to operational measures it risks becoming irrelevant.

“In the future solutions, we worked in collaboration with the CX managers of all five business units because, at the end of the day, we had the same objectives,” says Khalaf. “Our goal is to enhance targeted metrics, like NPS and positive voice of the customer feedback, because this drives stronger retention, reduces churn and attract more customers, which then reflects on revenue,” he adds.

When collaborating at this scale, clear communication is vital. The CX managers of MAF’s five business units work collaboratively with the Group Customer Care Team through workshops, “where we share insights on what needs to be done, such as improvements to the website, from a customer care perspective, or processes that needs to be redesigned,” Khalaf says.

“It’s about fostering excellence across the business units in direct collaboration with the managers. The Center of Excellence is focused on staying aware of what's happening within the business and staying informed about trends and innovations beyond it, too,” he adds.

Naturally, this requires a deep understanding of the market and the factors shaping it, including the tools that can help enhance and simplify operational processes. 

Selecting solutions to support operational excellence

As outlined, customers care prioritizes outcomes. However, achieving those outcomes cannot be delivered without the right tools and, with more technology solutions available to the contact center than ever before, knowing where to focus is challenging.

At MAF, Khalaf focused on self-service, as this had the power to drive customer satisfaction while reducing overheads, directly through reduced costs and indirectly through greater efficiency. To do this, the team explored how generative AI could support customer goals and outcomes, as well as processes.

In the first instance, generative AI is enhancing how automated chatbots support works, with the goal of reducing customer effort by eliminating rules-based functions.

“Customers are trying to skip the chatbot because it didn't prove that it was completely efficient in reducing the call volume and resolving customer queries. Even after interacting with a bot, customers still preferred to talk to a live agent,” Khalaf says. “Now, it is possible to integrate ChatGPT with the knowledge base and the backend systems that hold the transaction data to leverage them for real time assistance. Instead of the customer selecting from a menu, they can freely talk to the bot without the restrictions of a decision tree.”

“Most organizations are in the very early stages of brainstorming how they can best be used. There are also cost implications to figure out; identifying which approach is more cost effective and how to calculate the payback and ROI,” Khalaf says.

With so many variables and outcomes to consider, calculating ROI on artificial intelligence is far from straightforward and requires CX leaders to think broadly about the full spectrum of benefits AI solutions bring.

Taking the simplest approach, Khalaf says for an artificial intelligence (AI) solution like agent assist tools, one key metric to measure is AHT. “Producing canned responses for an agent to use when interacting with customers will reflect on reducing the transaction duration, which will impact the cost for the number of human resources,” he says. For more in-depth analysis a qualitative matrix is recommended, which in this case would also consider customer satisfaction (CSat), NPS and FCR.

How empowerment and transparency support better processes

In customer service, great operations alone will not deliver excellence. To truly reduce operational burdens, Khalaf says agent empowerment and transparency in communication are also required.

“Agents should have the autonomy to resolve the customer's issue seamlessly without the customer having to exert more effort or make contact again,” He says. “We must also be transparent with customers, for example about where delivery is up to or what is happening on their case. Automating this prevents the customer from reaching out and placing additional pressure on service levels.”

Perhaps the best approach, however, is to pre-empt customer pain points through regular process and journey analysis. The final string in the bow is tying this all together with more established operational efficiencies, such as process automation.

“Customers care about outcomes and right now, all eyes are on automation and generative AI. But what we really need to know is, are you leveraging these tools to serve your organizational purpose, or to say you are leveraging them?”

The key to success, especially for those able to invest, is having clear use cases and a solid understanding of how to achieve results. Without this roadmap, investments can turn into a white elephant—costly to maintain with little practical value

He concludes: “Identify your goals before looking at the solutions and automating processes. Technology should not be used for the sake of using it, it has to impact your customers.”

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