Contact Center Monitoring

Research has shown that the quality of customer service provided by independent contractors reflects directly upon a company's reputation. This suggests that periodic evaluations of vendor performance must occur.

Billions of dollars have been spent by businesses in recent years to expand customer contact technologies such as websites, email and "live help" text chats, and to improve contact center efficiency through customer relationship management (CRM) software and consulting. Overall, the effect of these efforts on the marketplace has been positive. Technology has expanded the range of available customer service channels and call center metrics have become more manageable.

On the other hand, the purchasing public doesn't always perceive the business value of these improvements and many times these undertakings actually negatively impact customer satisfaction. At best, where properly implemented and maintained, technology increases expectations to the point that customers become less tolerant of inconvenience. Where improperly implemented and maintained, e-services can frustrate current and potential customers to the point of counter-productivity. Poorly managed e-service systems can cost more than they were expected to save and often result in a reputation for bad service. Customer-to-business contact should be mystery shopped across all communication channels (telephone, e-mail, text chat, etc.) to ensure that telephone technologies and e-services are functioning effectively.

Customer contact technologies and relationship management initiatives are great tools, but the quality of human interaction is still the key determinative factor for customer satisfaction. Therefore, contact center agents should also be mystery shopped, again across all communication channels, to gauge their competency and effectiveness. Performance metrics alone are insufficient to measure contact center agent aptitude. A good telephone agent might not be a good e-mail or text chat agent with strong writing skills. Further, it is harder for employees to problem solve, project goodwill and exhibit professionalism when the rapport of auditory communication is absent.

Contact centers can utilize mystery shops as a part of training programs to make sure sales force automation does not cause customers to be treated as an afterthought. This is particularly important for businesses that global-outsource, home-source, or otherwise utilize agents outside of the parent contact center. It is easy to forget, but the lowest-paid and least-trained employees are often those who face the customer every day.