Lean gone wrong - Unintended consequences of some misguided attempts at Lean

[Wes Bucey]

Presented to identify unintended consequences of some misguided attempts at Lean.

CRM (Customer Relationship Magazine) reports this week

Abandoned calls at record levels as companies put costing cutting before service delivery

More customers are calling contact centres than ever before - but consumer impatience means that 13.3% of calls are abandoned before they are even answered. The Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2005 finds that the number of abandoned calls has risen for the sixth year in a row, and the situation is worst in the telecoms sector where one in five calls is abandoned.

The report attributes this to the fact that nearly half (48%) of contact centres cite cost reduction and increasing efficiency as their main commercial driver. Almost six out of 10 contact centres have cost reduction targets in their business strategies, while metrics to measure performance are based on call handling and throughput, rather than first call resolution rates (used by only 17% of organisations surveyed).

 

[jmp4429]

Yikes! That's not lean, that's cost cutting!

It has me wondering, though, how DOES one eliminate waste at a customer call center?

 

[Wes Bucey]

Yikes! That's not lean, that's cost cutting!

It has me wondering, though, how DOES one eliminate waste at a customer call center?

Actually, there are lots of ways, including

• adequate script preparation
• structured bifurcated Q/A to drill to the heart of a customer's issue.
• ensuring the vocalization of the operator is understandable and intelligible to the customer.
  (I had an incoming customer service call yesterday from one of my trade magazines, encouraging me to renew my subscription. The plain and simple fact was that I could understand only about 25% of the caller's words because of her extremely heavy asian accent. I asked three times to speak to her supervisor and finally hung up in frustration. I expect I will get another call since the purpose of keeping a valued customer for the advertisers was not accomplished.)
• add automatic dialers and other state of the art equipment to avoid operator error in dialing outgoing calls
• add CRM software to identify incoming callers and give the operator a full history of the customer's relationship to the company to shortcut asking customer for repetitive information (ever had an operator ask you to repeat a fifteen digit ID code [credit card number] AFTER you had just laboriously typed it in on the automated menu? CRM software allows operator to ask, "Is this Mr. John Doe? What can we do for you today?")

 

[Rob Nix]

• add CRM software to identify incoming callers and give the operator a full history of the customer's relationship to the company to shortcut asking customer for repetitive information (ever had an operator ask you to repeat a fifteen digit ID code [credit card number] AFTER you had just laboriously typed it in on the automated menu? CRM software allows operator to ask, "Is this Mr. John Doe? What can we do for you today?")

I heartily agree with that last one, Wes. I recently called my insurance company (name shall remain unstated, only cryptic initials: BCBS) and each of several times that I was transferred to "the more appropriate department", I had to explain the who, why, what, etc. to EACH person. Arrgghhh

 

[David Hartman]

Yikes! That's not lean, that's cost cutting!

It has me wondering, though, how DOES one eliminate waste at a customer call center?

I worked for just over a year setting up an ISO 9001-based management system in a customer/dealer complaint call center for a major truck OEM. When I first arived their metrics included such measures as:

Number of calls handled by each operator/technician
Number of missed calls
Time the customer was on hold
Elapsed time per call

Their goals all related to handling a greater number of calls each year.

The stated purpose of this organization was to handle these calls, note the issue, and either provide corrective action (where known) or route the issue to the appropriate engineering group (reliability, design, procurement, or manufacturing).

After several meetings I was able to lead them to understand that their goals were inverted. The goal of any complaint center should be to work towards reducing/eliminating calls, not handling more each year. [The `ole root cause corrective action ploy - as Maxwell Smart would say.]

We began by evaluating how well we were tracking and transferring these issues to the appropriate engineering group, and then developed a process that allowed the call center personnel to track the issue to closure. We also established a history file, so that the Reliability Engineers could ensure that historical issues were dealt with in new product design.

Eliminate the issue - eliminate further calls related to the issue.

 

[Jim Wynne]

I worked for just over a year setting up an ISO 9001-based management system in a customer/dealer complaint call center for a major truck OEM. When I first arived their metrics included such measures as:

Number of calls handled by each operator/technician
Number of missed calls
Time the customer was on hold
Elapsed time per call

Their goals all related to handling a greater number of calls each year.

The stated purpose of this organization was to handle these calls, note the issue, and either provide corrective action (where known) or route the issue to the appropriate engineering group (reliability, design, procurement, or manufacturing).

After several meetings I was able to lead them to understand that their goals were inverted. The goal of any complaint center should be to work towards reducing/eliminating calls, not handling more each year. [The `ole root cause corrective action ploy - as Maxwell Smart would say.]

We began by evaluating how well we were tracking and transferring these issues to the appropriate engineering group, and then developed a process that allowed the call center personnel to track the issue to closure. We also established a history file, so that the Reliability Engineers could ensure that historical issues were dealt with in new product design.

Eliminate the issue - eliminate further calls related to the issue.

Great point . The prime purpose of call centers--beyond the basic need to help the caller--should be data collection, and that data should be used to reduce the need for customers to call and ask for help.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Great point . The prime purpose of call centers--beyond the basic need to help the caller--should be data collection, and that data should be used to reduce the need for customers to call and ask for help.

Absolutely! I agree and so do the editorial folks at CRM. So if Quality folk and the editorial voices are in agreement, why do so many incoming and outgoing call centers operate on MBO (management by objective) with the sole objective being handling the most amount of calls in the least amount of time with no regard for reducing the number of calls by eliminating CAUSES for complaints in the case of incoming calls?

In the case of outgoing calls, the scripts and operator training are often atrocious - hence the recent U.S.A. legislation which allows people to opt out of most outgoing sales calls (high customer/prospect annoyance and frustration factor.)

My own recent experience outlined above is probably NOT rare as some of you can attest from your own experiences.

More than once I have asked myself after dealing with such a call, "What were the managers who approved this call thinking? Do they EVER bother to listen to a tape of one of the calls? If they do listen to such a tape, do they merely fire the operator or do they try to help the operator learn how to speak? How did the operator get employed and put in position in the first place? Don't they have an audition?"

 

[Tammy N]

My most recent experience

Last week I called my credit card company to change my contact information. This call should have taken 2 or 3 minutes at the most. I was on the phone with this gentleman for over an hour. I can now tell you what he presently makes, used to make, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc.

He started our conversation with informing me that he just got off the phone with an @@@ that should have realized that with the push of a button he could disable that guys credit card. This would be why I sat and let him ramble on.

It seems to me that if there is such a thing as quality and monitoring phone calls, this guy wouldn't be employed. Just my opinion

 

[Wes Bucey]

Last week I called my credit card company to change my contact information. This call should have taken 2 or 3 minutes at the most. I was on the phone with this gentleman for over an hour. I can now tell you what he presently makes, used to make, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc.

He started our conversation with informing me that he just got off the phone with an @@@ that should have realized that with the push of a button he could disable that guys credit card. This would be why I sat and let him ramble on.

It seems to me that if there is such a thing as quality and monitoring phone calls, this guy wouldn't be employed. Just my opinion

The really scary part is imagining that if this guy were a crook instead of just a jerk, he would be in a perfect position to loot someone's account, since he obviously had no oversight by a manager who could have detected such a security breech.

Maybe even worse to imagine: What if he were a stalker? Empowered with all the personal information in a credit card file, he could make a person's life sheer he!!.

 

[Mike S.]

My own recent experience outlined above is probably NOT rare as some of you can attest from your own experiences.

More than once I have asked myself after dealing with such a call, "What were the managers who approved this call thinking? Do they EVER bother to listen to a tape of one of the calls? If they do listen to such a tape, do they merely fire the operator or do they try to help the operator learn how to speak? How did the operator get employed and put in position in the first place? Don't they have an audition?"

Good posts, all.

Wes, in fairness to the call center industry, poor performance and your last paragraph of questions (similar questions) could apply to many businesses. I recognize one of my weaknesses as being too naive in many situations. In this day and age I am still amazed when I come across a case of terrible management -- especially when it is on the part of a mid-to large company and not a Mom and Pop startup -- despite the fact it happens relatively often.