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CSAT = f (ESAT)

During my travel a few weeks ago, I met Joel D'souza, an operations manager in a leading contact center. He has had diverse experience within this industry (encompassing areas such as TeleSales, Technical support, Banking, Insurance etc.) He is currently working for a fortune 100 company which specializes in the credit card business. Joel believes that operations management is a very interesting and challenging job mainly because the end product i.e. customer satisfaction, is quite elusive. My discussions with him got me excited, and when I later spoke to other managers, I saw that they felt the same. Most managers agreed that the biggest challenge is achieving high Customer satisfaction. Many believe CSAT is an ambiguous and abstract concept where the state of satisfaction varies with the person involved, the options a customer may have (to compare products and services), time of survey, the sample size of the survey, customer’s mood etc. As I began to empathize with Joel, my mind wondered and I realized that customer satisfaction is extremely important as it not only enables customer retention but it also brings in future business through customer advocacy. This implies growth for companies i.e. more customers and better margins. 

So how can we achieve good customer satisfaction, or atleast, nullify customer dissatisfaction to a large extent? What are the elements within our control that can help towards good CSAT?

Let us use Joel’s business (the credit card business) as an example to understand important drivers for customer satisfaction. The difference between an average company and a good company is not which sells more cards, but which retains more customers, which encourages more transactions and collects more payments. In short, companies that increase the velocity of cash flowing through the customer stand to gain. In order to do this, credit card companies incentivize customers through a variety of means including giving them goodies, discounts, special passes etc. As most companies are already doing this, the only differentiator among credit card companies, from a customer’s perspective, is the service they provide. Therefore, excellent customer service can be the only sustainable competitive advantage for the company. 

I believe the key to retaining customers is building lasting relationships with them. But… how? Is there any opportunity available to build lasting relationship? In my opinion the only way to build relationships is by providing them with excellent experiences every time they call for support. Joel mentioned that in his business, customers call approximately 2.5 times a year. How and what the customer support representatives do during these times thus becomes imperative in building lasting relationships. This in turn suggests that customer support representatives are the key in enabling customer satisfaction. Interestingly a study of call centers conducted by The Radclyffe Group found that….

"satisfied contact center employees make for satisfied and loyal customers... customers decide whether or not to make future purchasing decisions with a company, or to recommend its services to others, as a direct result of their experiences with a contact center representative..."

The most important component that distinguishes a great company from an average one is its staff. How they build relationships with the customers during their interaction with them defines the moment of truth for that customer. In other words Employee Satisfaction (ESAT) is one of the main drivers for good Customer Satisfaction (CSAT). That is,

                                                CSAT = f(ESAT)

Lower ESAT results on numerous problems, all of which will eventually affect the customer. Disengaged employees will not perform as expected and may miss out steps in the customer service process. Higher attrition rates (which means lower average tenure of employees), will prevent employees from reaching their peak performance. As a result, service delivery becomes that much more unstable due to loss of knowledge and experience. Therefore, the need to understand and focus on improving ESAT is second to none, in impacting CSAT positively. A quick check with Joel revealed that most his top performers were those who were intimately engaged with the organization. They also had longer tenures than others, and were among the happiest of the lot. 

Now, what is employee satisfaction (ESAT) and what drives it?

                                                ESAT = f(????)

ESAT is the measure of satisfaction of internal customers i.e. “the employees”; our most important resource in achieving business vision. Many companies conduct ESAT surveys periodically (annually, quarterly etc.)  to gauge the satisfaction level of their employees. The number of questions asked in these surveys range from 25 to 60 (sometimes even more) and they deal with various aspects of the business that could impact employees’ performance and satisfaction. Comprehensive data has been gathered by many companies to statistically correlate ESAT with CSAT and eventually the Revenue/Profit margin, incidentally studies say that the correlation is strong and is positive (“Better Human Capital Management leads to Higher Market Valuation”: Watson Wyatt’s Human Capital Index Study)

However what seems to be obvious from my personal experience is that the ESAT scores of very good performers are high and that of poor performers is low (again, as verified by Joel). This implies that acting upon the feedback of what good performer’s emphasis may not necessarily work for poor performing employees and vice versa. However, there is one thing that most employees, irrespective of their performance, long for and that is, a good boss. Many employees, I have spoken to within contact centers emphasize the need for good managers and team leaders. I don't intend to infer that the existing managers are not capable of doing their jobs. However it may be fair to infer that most people grew up to become managers by looking at their own managers’ styles and have modeled themselves around the same (atleast to a certain extent). The nature of Real-time businesses such as contact centers is such that employees need to be busy throughout their work period. Therefore, many of them may not be able spend enough time on self-development or questioning their own leadership styles in terms of effectiveness and value-addition to the company. Also, very little training has been delivered to enhance the front-line manager’s capability and required skill sets.

So how can team leaders and managers take care of employee development and help their team members become successful? What, from their perspective, are the drivers of good ESAT ? The answer is the “Agent Cycle”

AGENT CYCLE
 
The agent cycle is a set of five drivers that will directly affect ESAT of contact center employees.

Driver 1: Focus on Current Performance
As the new agent joins a contact center they enjoy the training and MNC culture for about 2-3 months. As they finish training they begin to take calls and start to encounter a higher level of pressure. At this point they need to know the expectations of their job, how they are measured and should have enough support mechanisms/resources to achieve their goals. During this phase they may also be impacted by the society’s perception of the brand call center. If they are not managed well at this point, many of them will end up as part of the infamous “Infant mortality” i.e. people who leave companies early in their career. A checklist for team leaders and managers to deal with new employees is as follows:

• Have the employees been educated about the industry, company and what is in it for them?
• Do they clearly understand what is expected of them and why?
• Do they have enough resources to achieve their goals (as seen by them)?
• Do they perceive their immediate supervisors as approachable?

Driver 2: Focus on Future Performance
As they move to overcome the driver-1, they start to perform with a higher level of consistency. However, they start to think what others (managers and peers) think about them. They may also be concerned that no attention is being paid to them through feedback, coaching, rewards and recognition. A check-list for team leaders and managers at this point is as follow:

• Do employees get feedback on a weekly basis?
• Are they coached on a weekly (or atleast monthly) basis?
• Are they recognized for their efforts periodically?

Driver 3: Focus on Professional Growth
As they move ahead employees start believing that they are good and know a lot about the job. They also feel that they can contribute towards improvements to their project or process. At this point, working on ego and giving them responsibility becomes need of the hour. A checklist at this point is:

• Are their ideas respected ? Are they explained what are the pros and cons of their ideas? Do they understand why their idea was implemented (or not implemented)?
• Is there focus on improving their interaction with peers and superiors, on understanding of corporate functions, on improving professional behavior, on gaining knowledge in various fields etc?
• Is there a career plan for their future (improve current performance and acquire new skills) while setting expectations on the time frame for growth?

Driver 4: Focus on Personal Development:
As employees mature within the organization, they start to “level out” because the rate at which they are acquiring new knowledge reduces. They start to feel uncomfortable with change, may feel that they are no longer required, may burnout etc. Therefore, there is a need for self development. A checklist here is as follows:

• What role is the manager playing to reduce the real or perceived stress the employee is facing?
• Have they been exposed to some team building games or activities to manage interpersonal conflict and relationships?
• Is there a focus on helping employees achieve a work-life balance?

Driver 5: Focus on Personal Lives
Eventually the feeling of monotony takes over. Even if the employee’s job is rocket science, it will still have significant repetitive components. Therefore, the need of the hours is to create a motivating environment. A checklist here is:

• Is the manager aware of the physical health or the mental fatigue levels of the employees and is help being offered to them to address these issues?
• Are important events in their lives kept track of and are they wished on these occasions?
• How many fun activities have been conducted in the recent past?

The time frame for each of these phases would be on an average 3-4 months. This implies that one can expect good and consistent performance from agents generally after 8 months on the floor. But the problem is that the agent’s frustration starts as soon as they believe that they are beginning to do well. It is thus necessary to manage people proactively and manage the transition of agents through this cycle.

Joel tells me that the agent cycle exists in most cases and interestingly, every manager has been through the same cycle. This only makes it that much more difficult to manage people because as managers we start preaching, what we did not or don't currently exhibit. Our own behavior can become a bottle neck to our employees’ success. ESAT is not only getting agents to behave appropriately but also for us as managers to behave appropriate. Joel said that he learnt a lot from his mentor, who once told him to ask the following question:

Since then, Joel says, he has truly enjoyed working in his telemarketing operations and his team has consistently achieved excellent CSAT scores. He also says that his absenteeism and attrition levels are very low.

                                                                                      OnTrac Internal Staff

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iOps is a newsletter created for Operations Professionals in the BPO and Call Center Industries in India. This newsletter is published by OnTrac, a unique provider of Operations and Management training for Call Centers and BPO companies.

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