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by Katie Sanders, Director of Business Development, SupportSeven and Ross Vance, Client Engagement Specialist, SupportSeven - July 19, 2013

We live and work in a unique period of human history. Now, more than ever, customers are demanding a higher level of service from the companies they choose to do business with. Nine out of 10 U.S. customers say they would be willing to pay more to ensure a “superior” customer service experience. Further, the same percentage also indicated that they would pay more to a company whose service representatives go above and beyond to address their needs (RightNow, 2010). This trend calls for contact centers to be more focused on customer experience and more diligent in equipping service representatives with the tools to be problem solvers.


72 % of customers today would rather get service from a "live person"

Many contact centers have already recognized the trend and are striving to make the customer experience a top priority. However, 80 percent of companies across the U.S. say they deliver “superior” customer service in their call centers when, in reality, only 8 percent of customers think those same companies deliver that “superior” customer service (Tutle, 2011). With this apparent disconnect, there has never been a stronger need for service representatives to be well trained and highly specialized to meet the needs and expectations of customers today.

No longer does contact center specialization mean segmenting traditional work teams, like sales, support, service, retention and leadership within the contact center. True specialization involves considering what competencies service representatives need to meet the expectations of today’s customers by thinking about competencies from the perspective of the customer. This isn’t easy. Understanding the customer’s thought process involves shedding decades of preconceived notions and getting to know the customer all over again. SupportSeven, a contact center dedicated to providing a unique, customer-centric experience for its clients, believes that the key to what customers need can be found in the service representatives themselves. Many companies today view online, self-support options as a way to provide faster access to information, be more technologically savvy and avoid costly interactions with their customers. However, 67 percent of customers today would rather get service from a live person because they feel they have a greater chance of getting their needs met (Consumer Reports, 2011). In a global study, “better human service” was recognized as the most requested improvement for companies in 2009 (Genysis, 2009). Based on this research, it’s time to consider how truly understanding what customers need may allow contact centers to improve service more than the traditional specialization of service representatives. It also promotes the idea that each representative must be trained in a universal foundation of skills that include how to better connect with customers on a personal level.

The impact of focusing on contact center specialization is much greater than one realizes. A business’s mission, growth, financial outlay and recruitment can all be affected by how well service representatives are developed and mentored. Specialization from the customer’s perspective means doing away with traditional departments and training service reps on sales, critical problem solving and other specialties in order to promote first-contact resolution and give them the power to assist in every situation. More specialized service representatives have a widening effect on a company’s mission by taking greater ownership in the corporate culture. In addition, when the same representative can focus on first-contact resolution and customer retention, it greatly impacts a business’s bottom line. In a contact center environment, the capabilities and competencies of specialized service representatives depend on how well an organization develops each representative, but none of this is possible without first building a universal foundation of skills.

Customers have been more vocal than ever about what they expect from customer service, making it easier to recognize and train foundational competencies. Active listening, empathy and problem solving scored the highest in a survey measuring what would have the biggest impact on positive customer experience (ASTD, 2010). Call centers also have a unique ability to recognize the capability of their service representatives. One way to recognize this capability is to search for representatives doing things exceptionally well. Far too often, quality analysts spend all of their time searching for errors to fix, rather than successes to celebrate. It is important to find representatives with this level of competence and challenge them with assignments, training, or additional specializations to help them grow in their current position. It is also important to utilize a performance review process to identify key talent and create growth plans to help individuals develop skills, knowledge, and experience for future roles. Keeping attrition down is more than a way to keep operating costs down, it is also a vital customer service strategy. Representatives who have grown in knowledge and experience within a company’s culture are exponentially more valuable then those with the same knowledge and experience from another organization’s culture. A contact center’s culture is their brand of service, and it is visible all the way to the customer.

In the end, today’s customers are looking for two things, a positive customer service experience and a resolution to their issues. The ability to meet both of those needs depends on a well-trained and highly specialized service representative. As the voice of the organization, each representative wields the power to engage the diversity of customers in our society, increase a company’s customer satisfaction, foster customer loyalty, and promote positive customer experiences. That makes developing and mentoring more specialized service representatives the key to an effective customer service strategy.