Customer Experience Optimization (CEO)

A Methodology for Improving Customer Experience, Loyalty and Shareholder Value

Copyright 2005 e-black.biz, all rights reserved.

Copyright Customer Value Optimization (CVO) 2005 e-black.biz with InterVox Group.

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Customer Experience Optimization (CEO) is a systematic methodology for a business to determine its customers’ top priorities conclusively and with precision at any given time, to more effectively align its service objectives and the structures to deliver them.

This paper will examine a streamlined, practical and results-based approach that has its roots in both statistical and financial theory and models, drawing upon academic references with a business purpose. A straightforward value proposition is supported by case examples with tangible benefits and results.

The CEO method consists of three basic steps or phases that allow a business (with a focus on the customer contact center) to:

1) AUDIT the Voice of the Business for its view of Customer needs through:

· Organizational Review and Fact-Finding

· Financial and Operating Impacts

2) Determine the ROADMAP for the Voice of the Customer based on facts and data:

· In-Depth Analysis of Customer Comments

· Statistical Modeling of Survey Data and Feedback

3) BLUEPRINT the Alignment of Business and Customer priorities with:

· Prioritization of Projects and Action Plans

· Focused Measurement Systems

In conclusion, the paper develops the concept that quality service, customer satisfaction and loyalty provide measurable return to the business, or Return-on-Service. This paper challenges schools of thought that view these as “soft” measures, or regard high service levels as inconsistent with strong revenues and expense reduction. Rather, the body of evidence is shifting to support new metrics that focus on the customer as a realistic calibration for success.

One of the primary differentiators of this approach is its deliberate application of this particular spectrum of techniques (proprietary to each client engagement) in order to achieve a comprehensive alignment of business priorities with customer perspectives for maximizing their loyalty and advocacy.

II. VALUE PROPOSITION FOR CEO

Loyal customer relationships are the ultimate competitive advantage for sustaining a profitable business. With ongoing changes in technology, markets and price-points, this loyalty remains the steadfast differentiator in customer retention, continued customer sales, their product/service experiences and recommendations to others.

Customer Loyalty & Shareholder Value

Upon finding a product or service that meets their needs, most customers would prefer to remain loyal than search for an alternative. As such, they are the most cost-effective sales and advertising force available to any business. Loyal customers require no pay, training or outsourcing, and yet they:

• Generate revenue through repeat business and warm sales recommendations with higher “stick” potential.
• Save operating expense through reduced customer churn/switching and new customer acquisition costs.

Understanding what drives customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty also reduces rework costs associated with NOT meeting customer needs in the first place, i.e., return trips, multiple callbacks, refunds and service penalties. Conversely, a continued emphasis on force reduction to the exclusion of service can only lead to fewer people having less time to do more work of poor quality from processes and systems that do not meet customer needs in the first place.

In addition to customer loyalty being an untapped resource for improving sustainable financial performance, it holds similar corollaries for marketing, particularly in brand development. Understanding what’s important to customers and delivering consistently on those attributes helps develop a brand that is relevant to the customer target and extends the delivery of the brand promise throughout the organization.

The alignment of priorities around the customer from executive leadership to front-line employees weaves a “Golden Thread” throughout the enterprise. This applies whether the goals are marketing, financial or operational in nature, providing a common focus for employees in contact centers, technical support or product/service delivery functions (customer “touch-points”). This focus pays dividends across the many opportunities to touch the customer as “Moments of Truth” if done well.

This paper presents a target application for CEO analysis that is primarily focused on (but not limited to) the contact center environment with the added value of aligning what are often perceived as divergent business vs. customer needs.

III. THEORY BEHIND CEO

It has long been held (and also misperceived) that providing good service and maintaining low costs are mutually exclusive, a zero-sum game that comes down to a tradeoff between the two. But solid research has amassed over the years to support the linkage between customer satisfaction, loyalty and shareholder value. Some noteworthy works in this area have included:

· Malcolm Baldrige National Quality (MBNQ) data that has asserted correlations between customer satisfaction levels and stock performance, as reported by Fortune magazine.

· Joint work by University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center and Stony Brook’s Harriman School for Management & Policy (Fournell, Anderson, Mazvancheryl) showing linkage between the firm’s financial value and customer satisfaction (see Figure 1).

• Models developed by Dr. Roland Rust, University of Maryland/American Marketing Association, aimed at identifying the financial impact of customer satisfaction performance levels.

• Gustaffson and Johnson’s integrated measurement/management system, Improving Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty and Profit, aimed at developing the Customer’s “Lens” and associated drivers.

• A “Revenue Enhancement” model and case studies from Stanley Brown (Coopers & Lybrand’s Centre for Excellence in Customer Satisfaction) in What Customers Value Most linking high satisfaction levels to increased customer retention, reduced employee turnover and improved productivity.

• TARP’s publication of a host of white papers, case studies and industry statistics that show recurring correlations between customer satisfaction (CSAT) and brand loyalty, profitability, productivity and employee satisfaction.

TARP further identifies an area of customer requirements and expectations that are closely linked to customer loyalty and their willingness to recommend for the contact center environment. These fall under the category of Easy To Do Business With and are summarized in a March, 2004 article for ICCM Weekly by John Goodman:

• Accessibility of Information (how to contact the contact center)
• Availability of People (IVR opt-out to service rep)
• Amount of Customer Information Required (identity verification)
• Responsiveness to Requests (first contact)
• Follow-through on Commitments (without need for callback)

With the exception of “First Call Resolution”, customer satisfaction surveys tend NOT to measure these attributes yet customer comments will bear them out to varying degrees. Operationally, the contact center is usually in the midst of implementing a technology program intended to further reduce human contact with its customers! TARP observes in What Drives Satisfaction In Your Call Center: It’s Not As Simple As You Think that customer feedback surveys are often focused on attributes that may be linked more strongly to basic operations than loyalty:

• Accessibility (speed of answer) and Time on Hold
• Rep Knowledge (clarity of explanations)
• Helpfulness (attitude, empathy)
• Courtesy (tone, professionalism)
• Follow-through (simple commitments, promises)

The Customer Experience Optimization methodology (CEO) is a multi-phase approach that has precedent in the above business-academic publications and related works. Using the linkage between CSAT, loyalty and shareholder value as foundation, CEO focuses on making the theory operational. The best way to leverage that correlation is to pinpoint the areas of highest impact to customer satisfaction overall.

FIGURE 1 depicts where CEO draws upon these models in bringing customer feedback to an actionable level on a case-by-case basis for each client using their specific data from existing systems and data sources. CEO consistently analyzes both qualitative customer feedback (verbatim comments not directly measured in the survey) in conjunction with quantitative feedback (directly measured by the existing survey instrument) to arrive at a robust set of client-specific DRIVERS.

In the next section of this paper, tangible case examples are cited which illustrate that, by understanding and acting upon customer priorities from a fact-base, the business in question also reduced expense, increased revenue or eliminated failed programs. In addition to the theoretical models shown here, significantly enhanced shareholder value can be demonstrably measured by such indicators as:

• Reduced Rework, Cycle Time & Defect Rates
• Reduced New Customer Acquisition Costs
• Increased Customer Retention, Reduced Losses to Competition

• Increased Repurchases, Renewals & Recommendations

While CEO builds on pre-existing theories, the approach is unique in its deliberate selection and application of techniques to achieve an alignment of business priorities with customer perspectives for maximum loyalty and advocacy. The aim of CEO methodology is to Customer Experience Management as Six Sigma is to Total Quality Management or PMI is to Project Management.

FIG. 1: Customer Experience Optimization

A Business Model for Satisfaction, Loyalty and Profitability

Financial Performance Measures

Shareholder Value

as measured by

“Tobin’s-Q*”

Firm’s Market Value

Replacement Cost of Assets

KEY

REFERENCES:

Correlation >> National Quality

Research Center/

Satisfaction & Loyalty Harriman School

Indicators (Fournell et al)

Drill-down >>

Key Driver Analytics & Modeling

Company-Specific Performance Attributes:

Overall Satisfaction (CSAT per survey instrument)

-- Product Quality

-- Service Rep Attributes

-- Other Call Handling Factors

Recommend/Repurchase Info

Gustaffson

& Johnson,

Rust, TARP

*Tobin’s-Q is named after James Tobin of Yale University who developed it.

IV. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS & BENEFITS

The following are compelling illustrations where leveraging the Voice-of-the-Customer to drive business decisions has led to more profitable results. In all, there are over a dozen applications of this methodology referenced in the Appendix (Section IX):

CELLULAR-WIRELESS CONTACT CENTER OUTSOURCING

• Business Issue: An outsource contact center was paying substantial penalties for consistently missing its service quality targets by 15-20 percentage points and therefore in jeopardy of losing its largest wireless customer for both domestic and international accounts.

• Customer Focus: Initiatives to “reduce hold time” were not improving customer satisfaction (CSAT) performance. Statistical prioritization revealed significantly higher key drivers with quantifiable relationships to number of contacts and billing cycles as supporting factors (specific to the client).

• Resulting Alignment: Refocus of customer service initiatives accounted for 75% of the gap between CSAT performance and target levels. Service penalties in excess of $150,000/month were lifted and the client contract was retained (subsequently renewed/continued revenue).

TELECOMMUNICATIONS INSTALLATION & REPAIR INTERVALS

• Business Issue: Marketing promotions for “same day service” created large-scale training programs in business sales offices and increases to technician workforce at installation and maintenance garages, with little impact on customer service overall.

• Customer Focus: Fact-based analysis of customer feedback showed no difference in customer satisfaction between same-day and next-day installation but significantly higher preference for 24-hour repair.

• Resulting Alignment: Focus on keeping commitments (high customer value) instead of “forcing” same-day installation, cost reductions for scheduling changes and missed appointments also achieved increased customer satisfaction as well as revenue from fewer order cancellations. Additions to technician base were deployed to repair crews.

GLOBAL COMPUTER MANUFACTURING SERVICES

• Business Issue: The largest customer (an international consulting firm) threatened defection unless this company provided consistent service policies and pricing for laptop repair (the client’s personnel traveling worldwide required urgent turnaround with minimal disruption for “break-fix” situations).

• Customer Focus: Key business customer segments (from various industries) highly valued global service level agreements, standards and processes that provided predictability and measurable supplier performance. A knowledge sharing solution for the largest customers provided further control and lower cost (for a higher business volume), which was strongly preferred by the high-end market segment.

• Resulting Alignment: The largest client was retained and eliminating call volumes to the customer contact center significantly reduced cost of service for all client segments. Supplemental feedback from other markets was used to improve Internet self-help/knowledge tools, further lowering costs.

RESIDENTIAL-COMMERCIAL DIRECTORY INFORMATION SERVICES

• Business Issue: Low operational performance in speed-of-answer drove contact centers to manage workforce for answering calls on the first ring, with significant associated technology investment.

• Customer Focus: Factual analysis of customer feedback showed little/no difference in customer satisfaction overall for answer time (to a specified number of rings or elapsed time) when compared to quality of service, i.e., customers preferred accurate information in one call.

• Resulting Alignment: Substantial workforce management savings were achieved (approx. 10%) across a dozen locations involving a 6000 service representative base, plus avoidance of unnecessary capital investment.

The approach is highly applicable to the contact center environment (though not restricted to it) and can be considered industry-independent. The recurring theme is that acting on customer priorities, when demonstrated by facts and data, can have significant impact on reducing expense, increasing revenue or improving productivity simultaneously.

Another significant business benefit of having gathered this type of customer intelligence is higher utilization of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software investment for implementation purposes, to better leverage the customer’s perspective and insight. According to CRMguru.com, CRM software has not enjoyed high customer satisfaction levels when compared to ratings across other industries, particularly in the areas of “ease of implementation” and, ironically, “customer focus”.

V. VOICE OF THE BUSINESS (VOB)

Every business considers itself to be customer focused. The reality is that most are aligned by product or function with the best intentions of operating in a customer-centric manner. The question remains, what factual basis is there for knowing the customers’ priorities and what is the cost of not knowing? Can it be demonstrated how well customer needs are reflected in business planning and day-to-day business practices?

VOB AUDIT -- A Factual Basis For Where You Are

The best place to start is with a baseline evaluation of the degree to which customer requirements are known and acted upon as reflected by policies, processes, resources, systems and behaviors delivering critical customer needs. The CEO structured approach matches operational understanding of customer requirements with basic customer feedback (e.g., summary data from existing surveys). Examples of such qualitative and quantitative information include:

· Interviews with key leaders and stakeholders to determine the degree to which customer feedback is reflected in policies, business decisions and operating procedures.

· Interviews with supervisors/managers and direct observations of front-line contact center employees at (service representatives, workforce management, etc.) to determine how customer feedback is reflected in day-to-day work practices.

· Job satisfaction interviews providing the Voice-of-the-Employee to determine underlying environmental, policy, operating or managerial issues that may ultimately impact customer interactions.

· Review of available quality assurance data (e.g., standardized service representative observations) to determine how front-line employees are measured in relation to customer feedback.

· Review of customer complaints and/or commendations to determine the types of issues that become so extreme as to have potential for either driving customers away or cultivating their loyalty.

Primary outcomes include:

The “Golden Thread” Summary: An assessment of customer needs as perceived and operationalized in the Voice-of-the-Business, i.e., how customer expectations are met at all levels of the organization to provide a consistent and satisfactory customer experience.

The “Low-Hanging-Fruit” Summary: An immediate identification of those high-gain/low-cost discoveries that come from the recurring customer experiences as recounted by employees or through basic workplace observations, e.g., areas of significant customer pain/dissatisfaction or operational inefficiency.

Another aspect of assessing the Voice-of-the-Business is the identification, from relevant data, the benefits of meeting customer needs vs. the price of not doing so (stranded customer value) or the financial impact for customer service not meeting performance targets. For this, the focus shifts:

“Stranded Value” Report: A costing/financial model that allows the contact center to “scan”, i.e., prioritize those activities for which productivity and performance can be improved or unnecessary traffic volumes isolated and avoided. This allows costs to be identified for activities and/or business drivers that could potentially reduce traffic to the contact center. For example, in a self-service website, it would be focused on assessing the impact of website features/functions, rework or other “triggers” driving traffic to a customer care group, consistent with dissatisfied customer feedback or abandoned transactions (lost revenue).

Outcomes include financial reports and summaries, plus a “baseline” of activities, costs and volumes showing impact of avoiding calls to the contact center. Key scenarios that are best aligned with customer priorities are then modeled for their projected impact on service time and cost.

VI. VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER (VOC)

Many businesses collect some form of customer feedback, from word-of-mouth to formal tracking systems. Some companies review service performance on a daily basis but see little change in results over time. So the question remains, does the business ask, understand and ultimately deliver what’s important to its customers? Can it quantify with precision those factors that drive customer loyalty and retention and those that do not drive ultimate customer choice? Does the business know what it means to fill these needs routinely and become customer-centric, i.e., take action to organize processes, systems resources and behaviors to deliver value?

VOC ROADMAP -- A Factual Basis For Knowing Where To Go

The most direct route is to map out the specific statistical model that describes the relative importance weights of key service attributes on overall customer satisfaction (derived from actual survey data). These results are combined with customer verbatim comments to develop a comprehensive pattern or “roadmap” of quantitative and qualitative KEY DRIVERS which includes:

· Determination of relative importance weights derived from a multivariate statistical model consistent with the service attributes, data elements and parameters for qualitative and quantitative information.

· Content analysis of customer verbatim comments to determine key themes, their role as rewards or penalties in customer perception and the degree to which they are measured by the existing survey instrument.

· Overlay of performance metrics against their corresponding importance weightings. These dimensions respectively define a relative ranking of key service attributes both in terms of their EFFECTIVENESS (Doing The Right Things) and EFFICIENCY (Doing Things Right).

Primary outcomes include:

Survey Optimization: Specific recommendations for upgrading existing surveys to capture substantive customer issues not currently measured (or dropping those found to have low impact) by the current instrument.

Reward & Penalty Map: A graphical analysis providing a comprehensive set of qualitative and quantitative customer “pain-points” and satisfaction drivers. To the extent that complaint/commendation data is available for review, a more robust Voice-of-the Customer perspective can be provided accounting for extreme satisfiers/dissatisfiers.

Value Map/Impact Graph: A precise identification of areas for maximum leverage or “lift” to achieve the most significant and sustainable performance improvements in the shortest time, providing fact-based support for investment in corrective actions, technology upgrades or other contact center programs. Figure 2 is an EXAMPLE of one key element at the heart of the CUSTOMER VALUE ROADMAP:

FIGURE 2: CEO VALUE/IMPACT MAP

In the above graphic, Time-to-Resolve (RSLV-TIM) and First Call Resolution (1^st CALL) account for over 60% of the impact on Overall Satisfaction (CSAT). Traditional performance measurement would focus on low-scoring Hold Time (HOLD) and Call Transfer (TRNS), which together account for less than 10% of the total impact on CSAT. In this example, Customers placed low importance on Technicians and Service Representatives because they recognized that TECH’s & REP’s had little control of poor processes. This company was also investing heavily to improve Speed-of-Answer and IVR/Speech technology when IVR-ANS was not a key driver.

Voice-of-the-Customer Analysis: An aggregation of findings and conclusions from Complaints/Commendations and Rewards/Penalties analyses with other relevant data built by the VOB AUDIT. This serves to fully compare and contrast high-value customer experiences or “pain-points” from actual feedback with what the business perceives as customer needs. It is the stage at which an ALIGNMENT of Business and Customer needs can occur, the primary outcome of CEO analysis.

VII. ALIGNMENT OF PRIORITIES

Once the Voice of the Business and the Voice of the Customer have been articulated from a fact base, the degree to which they are in synch can be clearly demonstrated. The question then becomes, does the business take action to realize the benefits of aligning its priorities with those of its customers? What is done to ensure results match expectations (customer AND business needs)? Is customer-centricity fully integrated into the business’ TOTAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT program?

VOB-VOC SYNCH-UP -- A Factual Basis For Getting There

The vehicle best suited for making the trip successfully is to align business priorities (found in the VOB AUDIT) with those of customers (found in the VOC ROADMAP) through specific and targeted adaptation of working processes, metrics, infrastructure, etc. This usually involves progress monitoring to reward performance or determine interventions needed and implementing potential changes to operational programs or technology investment. Solutions as well as their ongoing effectiveness may include:

• Real-time tracking of center/agent performance against key drivers
• Development of effective Service Recovery strategies

• Root Cause Analysis (people, methods, policies, systems, etc.)
• Process (re)definition, documentation & measurement
• Systemic Corrective Actions (procedures, scripting, escalations, etc.)
• Training, skills and behaviors (re)alignment
• Technology & infrastructure adaptation (e.g., CRM)

• Leadership & agent compensation/incentives for high-quality service

CEO programs and Action Plan details will be unique to each client. However, there are certain areas of consistent focus and impact that provide a baseline closure point to having completed both the VOB AUDIT and VOC ROADMAP. These involve (1) the alignment of current business activities or potential investment according to relative customer impact, and, (2) the capture of feedback consistent with customer priorities.

Primary outcomes include:

Project Prioritization: A ranking of improvement programs or investment that the contact center has the option to pursue against the priorities and perspectives of its customers. The same model used in the VOB AUDIT is called in to develop financial reports and summaries against the “baseline” of activities previously developed. Key scenarios that are best aligned with customer priorities are modeled for their projected impact on service time and cost, e.g., impact of avoiding unnecessary call volumes to the contact center. From there, customer-centric Action Plans can be implemented.

Focused Metrics: A measurement structure to obtain feedback in response to the key drivers found by the VOC ROADMAP. This further allows the contact center to adapt quickly to changing customer issues, new dynamics in the industry or modifications to internal service delivery systems. The approach to such a measurement structure typically involves:

· Accelerated Capability to obtain customer feedback on key drivers at the time of the actual transaction/interaction with the contact center, reducing the performance feedback interval to virtually real-time.

· Immediate Notification or alerts for escalation (severe instances of customer dissatisfaction, potential complaints) or other “pain-points” requiring follow-up with the customer directly.

· Online Reporting of agent performance on key drivers, or customer-centric “dashboard”, with summaries at various levels allowing timely interventions, corrective action, training/coaching and relevant process changes.

Measurements are the key means by which to align performance with priorities. If contact center representatives are held to service objectives along with sales quotas, the message given and resulting behavior places equal importance on sales and service. Taken a step further, if Quality Assurance includes what’s important to customers in the course of observations, contact center representatives are more likely to receive the training and support needed to deliver the level of service expected by customers to keep their business.

NOTE: Accelerated delivery of such information is rendered useless unless business policies and infrastructure support taking action by the development of appropriate service recovery strategies in direct response to customer feedback. For example, service representatives need to have the latitude and flexibility to make decisions and respond to reasonable customer requests without referring them to multiple departments (e.g., refunds, confirmation letters, etc.).

Either the VOB AUDIT or VOC ROADMAP can be performed on a standalone basis but their value is derived from having aligned priorities through the VOB-VOC SYNCH-UP. With these resulting structures in place, the differentiating value proposition for CEO is a solution set that yields technology, organizational and process improvements aligned with customer needs by design.

VIII. RETURN-ON-SERVICE

The linkages between customer experience, loyalty and shareholder value were presented in this paper under Section III as theoretical models and Section IV as real-life case examples. Sections V, VI and VII then focused on prioritizing relevant data sets to develop a robust business-customer alignment. Resulting improvements that close service performance gaps while driving increased profitability can literally be termed “Return-on-Service” (ROS) and are demonstrably measured by:

Shareholder Value and Related Measures:

• Reduced Operating Expenses/Increased Revenues

• Reduced Rework (repeat calls, site visits, etc.)
• Reduced Cycle Time (duration of problem)
• Reduced New Customer Acquisition Costs

Customer Loyalty and Related Measures:

• Increased Retention/Reduced Defection (“churn”)
• Increased Repurchases/Renewals
• Increased Referrals/Recommendations

Interestingly, Shareholder Value measures are commonly considered “hard” while Loyalty measures are considered “soft” -- but it’s actually hard when a business loses its customers or they won’t buy from them again, recommend them to others or switch to the competition!

The improved decision-making value of the CEO model comes from the VOC ROADMAP described in Section VI of this paper. It refers to the relative customer satisfaction/CSAT “lift” that can be expected by focusing on attributes with higher vs. those with lower importance weights.

EXAMPLE: A customer care center conducts phone call and e-mail surveys from which it can be estimated that contact volumes run 100,000 per month. Their current CSAT ratings are 4.5 of 7 or nominally a 65% +/- satisfaction level. If the customer’s experience were improved toward the target (say, 5.5 of 7), this would approach a much higher range of 80% overall satisfaction for upwards of 1,200,000 identifiable contacts that “touch” the customer care center annually.

An approximate 15% gap is significant to close and would require focused effort in areas of highest impact vs. random programs or technology upgrades that would otherwise result in misdirected (and potentially wasted) investments. If the VOC ROADMAP had found 1-2 attributes accounting for, say, 65% of the impact on customer satisfaction, the maximum likelihood or “critical path” to significantly close the CSAT performance gap is focused improvement efforts in those attribute areas, potentially effecting 1.2 million customers per year.

A Reality Check On Success Measures

Ever wonder why cost reduction programs and systems almost never seem to bring in the projected ROI or why sales campaigns may fall substantially short of revenue targets? Even the stock market varies (sometimes wildly) from project earnings, causing Wall Street to reset stock prices. What then happens to the sales forecasts, marketing research studies, financial models and business case NPV’s?

Dr. Sam Savage of Stanford University captured this well in his October, 2000 article for the San Jose Mercury News, The Flaw of Averages. Whether it is consumer behavior, contact center traffic, service delivery or other operations, these processes are all random variables, i.e., dynamic in nature with an underlying “distribution” or range of occurrences and outcomes. Traditional business measures tend to focus on single-point metrics, targets or averages without taking such variability into account.

And so it is with traditional measures of customer satisfaction, loyalty and shareholder value. However, what the CEO model does is maximize the chances of achieving performance improvements by directing them to the highest areas of impact. Using the EXAMPLE from Section VI of this paper, if Resolve Time and 1^st Call Resolution account for 60% of total impact on CSAT while Hold Time and Call Transfer account for 10%, it is six times as likely to close a performance gap of any significant amount by focusing on the first two attributes (as a statistically random variable, 60% of Overall Satisfaction can be explained by or attributed to them).

From a risk management perspective, this is a more realistic way to present options for decision-making (cost reduction, service improvement, etc.) than to assess solution alternatives and their associated investment as deterministic outcomes.

Another progressive view is offered by Customer Relationship Metrics in using positive customer experience as a function of ROI in a Sept., 2005 article, New Metrics No Contact Center Can Live Without, and modified/simplified here:

Contact Center ROI (for a given time period) =

% Positive CSAT x # Customers Served x Avg. Revenue per Customer

Fully Loaded Contact Center Costs

A novel concept for contact center return to be driven strictly by positive customer experience and not allow counting “dissatisfied” revenues for ROI purposes!

Traditional metrics can drive the wrong behavior in terms of developing and maintaining a customer-centric service delivery operation that is BOTH effective and efficient for maximizing loyalty and shareholder value. CEO provides a solid alternative and highly differentiable approach as a means to that end.

IX. ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND

Prior Applications

The quantitative aspects of this approach have been rigorously developed for telecommunications. The technology has successfully been applied in precisely identifying the unique drivers of customer preference/perception for cellular-wireless, internet services, high-end business, consumer marketing, directory assistance, repair services, residence vs. small business installation, business office operations (call centers), custom calling features, electronic billing, brand image, lost customers, vendor selection and purchasing/procurement operations.

About the Author

Elaine Squittieri-Black is a successful practitioner of applied business research with 25 years combined corporate, consulting and academic experience. She has held senior level management positions in Fortune 100 telecommunications and professional services. Elaine’s focus on bottom-line results has enabled top executives and their teams to “speak with data” in achieving more effective strategy and efficient implementation. She has successfully applied practical analytics in venues ranging from flagship product deployment (DSL) to large-scale contact center performance (7000 service representatives). She has also helped improve areas of high customer-response sensitivity including 911, deaf/disabled services, past-due collections and annoyance calls. Elaine holds an MS in Operations Research from the Stanford University School of Engineering, a BBA in Statistics from the City University of New York and instructs applied business research at the university level.