Can You Prove It?

By Peter L DeHaan

February 28, 2007

You say and believe that your call center is the best, but can you prove it?  Sure, you have callers who say how much they value and appreciate you but so do your competitors.  You have written testimonials about your quality and professionalism but so do your competitors.  The truth is that your competitors are also likely saying that they are the best.  Remember that only half of any group can be above average and only one out of 100 can be in the top percentile.  So who is someone to believe: you or your competitor?  The reality is, with conflicting claims that can't be substantiated, neither assertion will be believed!

How then, can you truly distinguish yourself from your rivals?  How can you prove to upper management that you are as good as you claim?  Next year's budget or this year's belt-tightening initiative could be at stake.  So whether it be for competitive reasons or internal justification, you must be able to substantiate your high level of excellence; you need a credential.  A credential is nothing more that a verifiable recognition from an independent third-party that you have earned and meet a standard level of performance.  Three types of credentials come to mind: certification, mystery calling, and benchmarking.

Certification: Certification can be directed at your call center's technical or management practices, your supervisor processes or training programs, or your agents themselves.  Certification comes from an independent third-party who has reviewed the staff or procedures in question and verified that they meet or exceed some pre-established, published, and accepted criteria. 

Certification confirms that specific standards of excellence have been met.  For instance, site certification may require that adequate UPS and generator capacity is present, that system redundancy is available, that remote database backups and maintenance are done, and so forth.  It doesn't promise that technical problems won't exist, rather that they should be greatly minimized and any negative consequences contained.

Certification also implies consistency.  For example, a certified training program has documented teaching processes in place; therefore, there is a high likelihood that all agents will be trained in the same manner and provide consistent service.  This would presumably be irrespective of the instructor providing the training.

Certification, however, does not necessarily guarantee excellence, merely that the potential for excellence exists.  At the very least, a certified entity is one-step beyond a non-certified counterpart.

Mystery Calling: Independent, third-party mystery calling is a highly reliable way to verify agent quality.  In much the same way that a manufacturer can statistically substantiate the quality of products by randomly testing every n^th widget to roll off the line, a call center can do the same by evaluating every n^th call.  This can be accomplished by monitoring live calls, making random selections from a voice logger, or by staging realistic call scenarios.  Many call centers use a combination of these.  Regardless of the source, these phone transactions are then objectively evaluated using pre-defined criteria.  The one critical factor is that the grading of these calls must be independently accomplished if the integrity of the results is to be realized.

Mystery calling is potentially the most valuable and accurate means of verifying call center quality.  Unfortunately, it is also the most expensive, as it is both labor intensive and ongoing.  As an alternative, automated post-call surveys can somewhat accomplish this objective; however, it is important to be cognizant that caller-evaluators have not been trained in providing consist and objective feedback.  In fact, their perspective will be quite subjective.  Nevertheless, it will have some value.

Benchmarking: At its basic level, benchmarking involves comparing a set of call center metrics of one call center with another.  Of course, at this elementary level, all that actually determines is how call center A is differentiated from call center B.  They could both be good, they could both be needing improvement, or one could be above average and the other below.  The results, although useful, are relevant only to those two call centers.

To add significance and improve the process, one call center's metrics can be compared to average metrics from a large group of similar call centers.  In this case, the results are quantifiable, with areas of distinction and areas needing attention quickly determinate.  This allows the degree of excellence or deficiency can be ascertained.

To add even more relevance, a call center's metrics can be compared, not to all call centers, but to only the statistically superior call centers, allowing assessments to be made relevant to top performing operations.  This effort is not for the faint of heart, but is of real value to those call centers who truly desire to know where they stand and yearn to improve.

Benchmarking has many more benefits and valuable outcomes than can be covered in this limited space.  Benchmarking offers more relevance than credentials and is less costly and time-consuming than mystery calling.  Suffice it to say, benchmarking is a viable, valuable pursuit, worthy of consideration and implementation.  The results are a reliable credential that you must have.