What You Can Learn From Your Least Satisfied Customers by David Lewy
dlewy@knoah.com, 1.908.788.7232
As a leading provider of contact center outsourcing services, Knoah Solutions strives to make each and every customer transaction a positive and productive experience. Realistically speaking however, we (nor any other contact center) will ever achieve 100% customer satisfaction. The question then becomes what can be done with those bad customer experiences? The expectation is that you keep the number of bad customer transactions to a minimum but it is the best contact centers that make full use of this data.
Dissatisfaction Analysis (DSAT Analysis)
Knoah has pioneered the process of DSAT Analysis. DSAT Analysis is the detailed collection, aggregation, codification, review, reporting and analysis of specific customer transactions identified as “Dissatisfied” by customers through Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys. Clearly a prerequisite for DSAT Analysis must be the distribution and collection of CSAT Surveys. Included in the CSAT Surveys must be two components; a question requesting the customer to indicate his overall satisfaction with the “Support Transaction” and secondly, an opportunity to provide an explanation for the respective response.
Survey Questions
With regard to the overall satisfaction question used in the customer survey, there is much debate as to whether an organization should use a 4 point scale, a 5 point scale or even a 10 point scale. As that is a topic for another discussion, suffice it to say that a 4 point scale which allows for no neutral response will elicit more negative scores. More important to DSAT Analysis is providing the customer an opportunity to provide candid feedback. This is usually facilitated through a free-form text box although it can also be facilitated through a comprehensive set of choices in a drop-down dialog box. Analyzing data using a pre-defined list of menu choices is certainly easier but to truly understand what customers are concerned with, free-form responses are the best forum. Below is a sample customer survey that is presented in written form following a WebChat transaction.
Figure 1 - Simple Customer Satisfaction Survey
Delivering Surveys
The manner by which surveys are delivered partially depends on the channel in which the service is provided. Surveys emailed to customers lend themselves well to support provided by email. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) surveys are an appropriate and effective means for collecting data from customers that seek support by phone. Although Knoah offers IVR survey capabilities to all of its clients, many companies without this technology will email a survey to customers subsequent to a phone transaction; the latency factor contributing to a lower response rate. Also note that if a support organization does not provide 100% recording of all phone transactions, analyzing dissatisfied phone transactions that are linked to dissatisfied survey results may prove very difficult. Knoah records 100% of its phone transactions for this very reason.
The WebChat channel, which offers many benefits over traditional phone and email channels, can immediately provide surveys at the end of a chat transaction without the customer having to request it or opt-in. The net result is a much higher return rate for surveys than from voice and email channels.
Aggregation & Codification
When it comes to being dissatisfied with a customer support transaction, there are primarily three groupings of dissatisfaction; 1) Dissatisfaction with the Customer Support Process, 2) Dissatisfaction with the company’s Support Policies and 3) Dissatisfaction with the company’s products or services that support is being requested on. On top of these groupings, we must also introduce the notion of Locus of Control, meaning who is responsible for the poor customer support transaction and who is capable of improving the experience. As illustrated in the table below, the Locus of Control generally rests in the realm of either the Customer Care organization or the company’s product/service group.
Dissatisfaction with the Support Process
Dissatisfaction as it is related to the support process is entirely within the control of the Customer Care organization. Examples range from knowledge issues to communication issues to comportment issues. Knowledge issues include providing the incorrect resolution, providing an incomplete resolution and issue misidentification. Communication issues range from poor listening skills to weak oral skills to shoddy written skills. Comportment issues range from rude and insolent behavior to more subtle issues such as managing conversation control. All of these issues can usually be addressed through retraining. Of course it is important to note whether the issues in this category are related to individual agents or whether there are trends that can be identified on an aggregate basis. Aggregate trends may require a review of the training curriculum being used or perhaps the knowledge tools/content being employed.
Dissatisfaction with the Product/Service
Conversely dissatisfaction with the product/service entirely falls under the control of the company’s product/service organization. Examples in this category include bugs, defects, missing features and broken parts. No matter how polite, effective and knowledgeable a customer support agent might be, if a customer is angry about the product/service, it will often reflect in the survey results. Nonetheless, this feedback is invaluable to companies’ R&D and Product Marketing groups and too often there is no communication link between customer care and these divisions. The irony of course is that often times there is more contact with a company’s target audience through the customer support organization and yet valuable information is either left untapped or poorly communicated within the organization.
Dissatisfaction with the Support Policies
Support policies do not fall exclusively in either Locus of Control as certain polices are within the control of the support organization like how escalations are handled whereas other policies are mandated by the company such as product returns and refunds. Again, no matter how polite or knowledgeable an agent is, if the customer wants a refund and corporate policy dictates that this is not allowed, the customer will be unhappy. If the collection of data indicates significant concern with rigid support policies and customer satisfaction is a goal, serious consideration needs to be directed towards these policies. Of course, without this level of detailed analysis, the root cause for dissatisfaction might not be discovered.
Figure 2 - Codification of Dissatisfaction Data
DSAT analysis by the very nature of the detailed review required is a manually intensive process. Depending on the volume of surveys that are received, DSAT analysis may require multiple full-time resources to properly execute. The codification of dissatisfied transactions as exemplified in Figure 2 is crafted after an extensive review and analysis of reams and reams of transactions as identified through customer survey results. It is extremely labor intensive when employing free-form customer responses but the benefits of not limiting customer responses through pre-defined choices enables a more comprehensive picture of customer support issues.
Every transaction is reviewed (either read or listened to), and then coded based on the corresponding codification table. It is a difficult and time consuming process to take qualitative data and transform it into quantitative information but the results are well worth the effort expended.
Figure 3 shows an example of one week’s worth of analyzed DSAT data.
Figure 3 DSAT Graph
Taking the analysis one step further, Figures 4 and 5 provide a detailed breakdown of dissatisfaction issues based on the subcategories of Support and Product and Policy Issues.
Figure 4 - Breakdown of DSAT Support Issues
Figure 5 - Breakdown of DSAT Product and Policy Issues
The analysis, review and presentation of this data provides a myriad of opportunities for the organization as a whole to target critical and significant areas of improvement, not just in the Contact Center but also within the company’s Product/Service arms as well. Too often companies ignore this data, collect it but don’t act on it or collect it and fail to disseminate it to the appropriate internal groups for further processing. Done right, the effort put forth in DSAT Analysis provides a comprehensive picture of an organization’s weakest links and the opportunity to create multiple roadmaps towards improvements both within the contact center and throughout the whole organization.
About Knoah Solutions
Knoah Solutions is an Award-Winning Global provider of business process outsourcing (BPO) services. Since 2001, we have been providing high-quality, award-winning multi-channel customer service and technical support. Our flagship client earned the J.D. Power & Associates customer service award three years in a row and we’ve received global recognition as a Top Service & BPO Provider, and Rising Star. With facilities both on and offshore, Knoah supports a range of offerings from customer service, technical and sales support to data entry and third party QA services.
To learn more please visit www.knoah.com.