Turn complaints centres into profit centres?

Is it possible to generate revenues from a call centre and still improve service? Support Insight Magazine holds an online debate into tommorow's vital call centre issues.

Join an online debate which affects the future of how organisations give and receive service

If you want to check out the debate click on the following link:

http://www.supportinsight.com/Snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=298

If you want to join in the debate, (and receive a free copy of support insight) click here:

http://www.supportinsight.com/Snitz/policy.asp

Customer service departments are getting a new mandate:

Start contributing to the top line.

If customer service can be successfully transformed from a cost to a profit centre, then business assets that once represented a cost, can be 'leveraged' to generate a performance gain.

The days of the complaint centre seem to be numbered.

What we need in order to gain an insight into the implications of this fundamental change, is to identify the key factors:

The need to boost sales

Many sales organisations have been struggling to meet targets.

Because customer service staff interact closely with customers, they are in an excellent position to help grow revenue.

CSRs (Customer Service Representatives) are now being viewed as being integral to the sales and marketing process, rather than being an exclusively 'after sales' resource

The emergence of new technologies and best practices

New solutions are making it easier for customer service organisations to better understand the customer and respond accordingly.

The transformation of customer service into a proactive, revenue-generating business activity has thus become feasible as well as being merely desirable.

Service first!

Service organisations can't make the step up to top-line service if they're still struggling with basic issues such as customer response times and accuracy of information.

Angry customers don't want to spend more money with companies that annoy them.

Companies that successfully make the transition to 'top-line customer service' therefore tend to be those that already have systems in place for giving customers immediate answers to their questions-whether they are asked over the phone, by email, or via the company's Web site.

These companies also typically have solid metrics in place to track the quality of service they're providing to their customers.

Harnessing CSR/client relationships

Because of they way they interact with customers, customer service representatives (CSRs) are often even better positioned to capitalise on these opportunities than sales representatives.

CSRs also often interact with customers at a time and using a communication channel of the customer's own choosing.

This places the CSR in the kind of intimate, consultative relationship with the customer that is ideal for selling.

Of course, CSRs don't have to actually close deals to contribute to revenue growth.

Often, the CSR's role is to pinpoint an opportunity and then refer it to the sales department.

These extremely well-qualified leads can generate significant sales with very short sales cycles.

In fact, without exception, every company that has made any progress whatsoever in the transition to top-line customer service has seen very encouraging results.

The incremental revenue is clearly out there. And the cost of capturing that incremental revenue is usually far less than any other potential new source.

So none of these service innovators are going back to running their customer service departments as mere complaint centres, because they are now irreversibly committed to top-line customer service.

So the question is:

How would YOU turn a complaints centre into a profit centre?

If you want to check out the debate click on the following link:

http://www.supportinsight.com/Snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=298

If you want to join in the debate, (and receive a free copy of support insight) click here:

http://www.supportinsight.com/Snitz/policy.asp

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