KIDS — AND A FEW ADULTS, TOO — have latched on to the catch phrase of PBS' Bob the Builder: “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!” And why not? After all, children of all ages like to feel confident, competent and in control.
It's no surprise, then, that empowering phone reps to make decisions that can boost customer service — and the bottom line — is one of the most effective motivators in the industry.
Unfortunately, many people don't equate customer service with telemarketing, says Mary Ann Falzone, president of Chalfont, PA-based Falzone & Associates. Often reps aren't trained how to be proactive and do positive problem-solving by offering suggestions.
“It's a basic hole in many telemarketing programs,” says Falzone. “You need to make people feel like they've been serviced.”
Vicki Lincoln, a principal at Princeton Consulting Resources Inc., Princeton, NJ, notes that allowing agents to make decisions and be part of the business process benefits both them and the customer. Reps should be encouraged to share feedback from customers, so changes can “bubble up from customers,” rather than come down from the top. “It really makes employees feel valued” when their input is requested, she says.
At Academic Management Services (AMS), the company works toward giving reps the ability to solve problems at their level, says senior vice president Claudia Schutz.
For example, if a customer calls complaining about a late fee they feel is unjust, the rep can look at the documentation and see if this is an ongoing problem with that customer. If not, the rep can waive the fee if he or she feels that's the right solution. They're trained to negotiate and educate customers on how to avoid such fees in the future.
“People enjoy the fact that they can fix things,” she says.
Swansea, MA-based AMS is a provider of integrated payment solutions for higher education — such as federal loans, loan consolidations and payment plans and counseling.
AMS' busy season is May to mid-September, with call volume tripling in July and August when tuition bills hit. Across the company's two call centers in Swansea, AMS receives about 1 million inbound calls per year. The center that handles servicing on monthly plans gets two-thirds of that volume, with about 300,000 calls coming in the summer. There are about 100 core inbound and 20 core outbound reps — a.k.a. “tuition pay consultants” — with another 30 added in the busy season. Every Monday in July, the volume is probably three times what it is the rest of week. Scheduling outbound reps to handle inbound calls on those days allows AMS to answer 90% of calls in those periods.
In a manual mode, between 10,000 and 15,000 outbound calls are made per month, many in partnership with client universities that provide lists of incoming freshmen. Schutz is looking at tripling that volume with automated help.
The company doesn't outsource any of its teleservices at present, primarily because of the complexity of the product offerings and the Oracle-based system used for the monthly plans, “which is a challenge to train users on,” says Schutz.
Lincoln says she shies away from recommending it for inbound efforts. “When consumers call, they expect to reach your company,” she says. An outsourced rep is typically only trained on one product, service or campaign. “They can't answer questions about the company at large, and that gets frustrating for the customer.”
Jon Hamilton, president of JHA Telemanagement Inc. in Kennett Square, PA, points out a pitfall: when telereps don't feel connected to the company they're representing. Having outsourced representatives who are dedicated to your project is key.
“If they're being moved back and forth from one program to another, you can't get that connection on the service side,” says Hamilton. “They've got to believe they work for you every bit as much as they work for the company that signs their paycheck.”
Hungry for More
Telereps definitely need to be properly trained, coached and motivated, notes Falzone. “The problem is that many people think ‘It's just a phone, anyone can answer it.’ Good reps who are well matched [to their jobs] are hungry” for additional training.
AMS reps receive anywhere from four to eight weeks or more of formal training to learn the products, legal ramifications and loan options. There is also consultative training to help reps understand individual customer needs and translate them into a solution, which could be a combination of products. “We spend a lot of time role-playing and coaching,” she says.
Training is ongoing, concentrated primarily in the off-peak time.“We have the other six months of the year where we introduce quality assurance training based on things that came out of our peak season,” notes Schutz.
One customer service problem AMS never could have anticipated was the aftermath of Sept. 11. The company has New York's CUNY system as a major client, as well as many New York families with children in schools across the country, so it immediately set up sensitivity training to help handle these calls.
“We have some people who would freeze, they wouldn't know what to say,” Schutz notes. “Other folks wanted to start crying with the people on the phone. It was a very emotional and challenging time.”
The training paid off quicker than expected. “We were shocked on that first Friday when we got our first phone call. It was a woman who had lost her husband and was very worried about her child in school,” says Schutz. “That's what made us realize that there's a real urgency in families to create normalcy, to not disrupt what was going on in the school and the education of their children.”
One of the things that initially attracted Schutz to AMS was fact that there were many reps who had been with the company for five years or more. “People enjoy working here and that's half the battle, because call center jobs are hard.”
Schutz does things like giving “Applause Awards” for good service, and distributing goodies and bottles of water to call center stations during peak seasons, just to let employees know they're appreciated.
“I always call the customer service call center the lifeline,” says Schutz. “Those are the folks reaching out to our customers. They're that first touchpoint and it's critical. There is no philosophy that these are ‘just the backroom people.’”
