Contact Centre / Call Centre Health Check
More than ever, the contact centre is becoming a critical business function managing customer enquiries, complaints, sales orders, technical support functions and more just to name a few.
Those critical functions are also coming with increasing complexity with contact centres requires skills across technology, people management, stakeholder management, process design, workforce management, customer journey mapping and more.
Yet for most call centres, key personnel such as Team Leaders and Contact Centre managers have either evolved from working on the phones or perhaps transferred across from another part of the business, so have little exposure to global contact centre best practices.
So, whilst some or all of your calls may still be being answered, the call centre may still be a long way short of being efficient and effective and not contributing to the overall business strategy.
With decades of real-world experience (actually managing a contact centre) and winner of numerous industry awards, my call centre health check (aka call centre assessment, call centre audit or call centre review) is designed to provide you with independent, expert advice on all or a specific part of your contact centre operations.
In short, I’ll identify real, practical opportunities to improve your call centre operations – I’ll tell you what you are doing well, the areas you need to improve in (including industry benchmarking where needed) and provide you with a roadmap on how to get from A to B.
A Call Centre Health Check is perfect for:
✅ Gaining an independent insight and review of your contact centre operations.
✅ Getting a clear roadmap on how you can improve your operations.
✅ Getting independent, expert advice on specific components or all of your contact centre operations to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
✅ Understanding how your operations benchmark against best-practice and industry norms.
✅ Identifying any roadblocks that are preventing your contact centre channel from achieving their objectives.
✅ Receiving guidance on new technology and optimisation opportunities including moving to multi-channel operations (e.g. emails, live chat, SMS, Social Media etc.
WHY I’m engaged for call centre health checks
There can be a wide range of reasons why people engage me to do a contact centre health check, but in my experience, the scenarios below are the most common:
- The senior executive team has lost confidence in the contact centre and they want to get to the bottom of the issues.
- An executive with limited contact centre experience inherited accountability for the contact centre channel and they would like to gain an independent understanding of how their contact centre is operating compared to best practices and gain some expert assistance in identifying some key focus areas to optimise performance.
- The contact centre has had the same manager for a long time, and the executive team would like an independent, expert view if the contact centre manager and the resultant performance of the contact centre is performing at an optimal level.
- There is some consideration about outsourcing some or all of the contact centre.
- The executive accountable for the contact centre manager would like to provide support to the contact centre manager by gaining some insights into what they are doing well, identifying areas that might need some improvement and providing some expertise in steering things in the right direction.
The above is not an exhaustive list, but they seem to be the most common scenarios as I mentioned.
Why my call centre audits/health checks are different
Contact centres are deceptively complex business units.
A successful call centre manager requires skills across various disciplines, including people management, workforce management, performance management, process design, establishing the right Key Performance Indicators, technology design and execution, etc.
But it’s even more than that.
The contact centre also needs to be aligned with the corporate KPIs and objectives, so strategy, stakeholder management and, of course, being the customer advocate all play a key role.
And that’s a lot to ask of one person, especially when you consider that 75% of contact centre managers started on the phones.
Unparalleled Experience
As you can read in my bio, I have decades of real-world experience from starting on the phones through to senior executive and industry leadership roles and it’s this insight, being able to see things through multiple lenses, that makes me unique in the call centre consulting marketplace.
I have no interest in trying to pad out my consulting engagements, conducting extensive and time-consuming analysis, nor will I be trying to sell you programs that will take months to implement or lock you into long-term consulting arrangements.
Given my experience, I’m typically able to complete most Call Centre Health Checks within a few days whilst still providing you with sufficient analysis and a clear roadmap so you can make informed decisions beyond the consulting engagement.
If you need copious amounts of data analysis and a nice big report, of course, I can do this for you as well, but I typically find most people are happy to know the key findings without all the fluff that you ultimately pay more for.
I speak your language, and theirs!
If you’re new to the contact centre and customer experience (CX) industry it can often sound like everyone is talking a different language.
ASA, GOS, AHT, Erlangs, Conformance, Adherence and so on are just some of the over 160 acronyms, abbreviations and slang that are used within the industry.
And I would know, as I literally wrote the industry glossary!
View the Industry Glossary here >
So it’s fair to say I’m comfortable talking to the contact centre staff in their language.
But I’ve also worked as a Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Executive Officer, so I know my way around the boardroom and can speak to your senior executive in a language that they understand.
This often enables me to acts as a great conduit between your operational teams where they can ‘talk the talk’ and then I can translate that in clear English so it makes sense to someone not as familiar with the industry.
How much does a Call Centre Health Check cost?
When you engage any industry professional with decades of experience, it’s common to pay anywhere between $800 and $5,000 per day, ex GST.
Once I have a clear idea of the outcomes you need and the amount of time it will take me to deliver to your expectations, I will be able to provide you with an exact quote and can also provide flexible payment options to assist you with your procurement processes.
But as a ballpark, most of the Contact Centre Health Checks are typically around the $10k range ex GST.
There is no question the cost of living increases are impacting life in just about every direction. When it comes to consulting, there is a range of prices you can expect to pay, but the old adage of “you get what you pay for” certainly applies to consulting and this great fable is a good reminder on the value of experience.
A giant ship’s engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one ‘professional’ after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the broken engine.
Then they engaged a man who had been fixing ships since he was young.
He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship’s owners were there watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.
After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something.
Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away and the engine was fixed!!!
A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.
What?! the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything..!!!”.
So they wrote to the man; “Please send us an itemised invoice.”
The man sent an invoice that read:
Tapping with a hammer………………….. $2.00
Knowing where to tap…………………….. $9,998.00
Effort is important but experience and knowing where to direct that effort makes all the difference.
What’s included in a Call Centre Health Check?
Prior to commencing, I’ll conduct an initial planning session with you to understand your current pain points and enable me to tailor our Call Centre Health Check to ensure I focus on the areas that matter the most to you, and deliver you the outcome you need.
As a general guide, the following areas would typically be included in a call centre health check:
What’s the process if I engage you?
No two call centres are the same, and the same applies to my Call Centre Health Checks.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there is a standard framework that I follow.
My standard framework is designed to ensure I deliver the best outcome for your business and typically follows the phases below.
Step 1 – Initial Planning Session
The initial planning session is used to determine the key objectives you need from your Health Check and to ensure I obtain the right balance of cost versus outcome you require.
Consultants can be great in convincing you that you need extensive analysis, complete reports etc. that can add considerable time and expense to the engagement that, in my experience, will ultimately provide you with very little additional value.
During this session, we’d typically discuss:
- The type of report you want at the end and the amount of supporting data you will need.
- How many stakeholders you need to be engaged in the process (ranging from frontline employees through to the CEO).
- The timelines for delivering the health check results to you.
- If there are any particular areas of focus you need or if you just need a general overview.
Ultimately, the cost of consulting is based on time – so if there are extensive reporting requirements, listening to hundreds of calls or interviewing large numbers of stakeholders, it will add to the cost.
One of the primary reasons I am typically engaged is that you are paying for my 30 years of experience in quickly and accurately identifying strengths and weaknesses and articulating those succinctly with authority to senior stakeholders without the need for 100-page reports and weeks of analysis.
Step 2 – Discovery
The Discovery phase will be a mix of on-site and remote activities that will typically include:
- Interviews, focus groups and workshops with key stakeholders (frontline agents through to senior executives)
- Observations, including sitting with frontline staff to listen to calls and observe how they interact with your systems and customers.
- Reviewing your technology, processes, training and of course, operations in real-time.
- Information gathering, including reporting, KPIs, process documentation etc
Step 3 – Analysis
I’ll review the collected data, processes etc. and prepare your report, including benchmarking to industry norms where applicable.
Step 4 – Report
Some clients opt for a presentation immediately at the end of the engagement, others like a written report and some like both. The format itself will be agreed in step one, but either way you can be assured that the information provided will:
- Being easy to understand and follow – no ‘fluff’ and corporate verbiage.
- Include clear timelines with quick wins, medium and long-term objectives.
- Contain useful references to industry benchmarks where relevant and applicable.
Highly Recommended!
We engaged with Justin to unpack and health check our call centre operations and service team. This enabled us to identify and reinforce areas of strength, support business cases for improvements and to also make some immediate efficiency changes.
Justin’s knowledge and expertise was exceptional, providing many learnings across the Customer Management team in best practice and industry standards. We were able to streamline a complex call centre system enabling staff efficiencies and high-level reporting, with Justin providing the insight and expertise required with ongoing support.
In addition to streamlining of business operations, the suite of development and training sessions offered by CX Skills complimented the work with the team including customer experience and interaction training. Well received by the team and implemented into day to day practices. The Customer Experience Management Fundamentals course was enlightening and not only was the learning insightful, it was refreshing to spend time with like-minded individuals.
Justin has made a significant impact on the Customer Service operations, aligning with our strategic priorities. It was as a pleasure to work with him and I highly recommend the services available.
-Katrina Bye, Manager Commercial Operations and International, The Gordon (View more customer testimonials >)
Below is a range of Frequently Asked Questions about our call centre health checks.
How much time do you need to spend on-site at our call centre?
No two health checks are the same and I will tailor our call centre health check to ensure we meet your key objectives.
The advantage of having decades of industry experience in managing contact centres, however, does enable me to quickly identify key pain points and opportunities.
As a general rule though, the larger the centre or the more depth you need in the report, the more time I need.
Is there a minimum-sized call centre to do a health check?
I would recommend a minimum of five seats to get the best value from a call centre audit.
How do you present your findings?
I can either send my findings to you in a report or I can present my findings to your key stakeholders, often immediately following the onsite review.
Will you provide an overview or hone in on a particular area?
I can do either, so I’ll work with you on defining the key outcomes in our initial planning session before I provide you with our health check proposal.
Are you able to conduct a Health Check remotely?
Yes, and sometimes it’s not always possible to conduct our consulting on-site, especially if you are running at-home workforce.
But there is no question that to get maximum value from a health check, an onsite review is more effective.
Are you able to conduct your review discretely?
I understand that for a range of reasons, there may be a high level of discretion required in reviewing your contact centre operations.
I’m used to working with businesses to disclose as much or as little as required and I have a number of methods I use to do this. If this is of particular concern, please let me know and I’ll address it before we begin.