The Nair Group recently did an extensive research on continuous improvement programs to help organizations improve service and support operations within their contact centers. It used a rigorous process to measure the drivers for continuous improvement for these leading organizations. A couple of notable trends were highlighted and became evident as they found that situations for the majority of service operations had worsened within the past year. Staff reductions, deeper budget cuts and declining service revenues have placed a tremendous pressure on organizations to do more with fewer resources. In this economic turmoil and uncertainty, they were expected to maintain service levels and increase shareholder expectations.
However, through this period customer satisfaction rates held steady which is a testament to the dedication and commitment of the service teams and their management which supported them. There was a cautionary note which should be also mentioned as a corollary to this phenomenon, which was the fatigue and burnout amongst the teams. The results also showed that in the coming year, most organizations interviewed were beginning to address these factors by increasing staffing levels and invest in training for their staff. There would also be additional investment on new technology to continue to help organizations become more efficient and deliver high quality levels of service to their customer base.
200 Executives from around the world responded to the survey which was broken down into 5 categories based on their responses. Participants answered questions about the impact of the recent financial crisis on their environment as a whole and on specific areas such as service revenues, staff morale, performance and customer satisfaction. They were also asked to comment on their outlook for 2012 and beyond.
Key Findings:
Most respondents are likely involved in managing the financial aspects of their service operations and were therefore in a good position to comment on the impact of the downturn on their service business. The cumulative effects of all of these drastic measures taken by organizations shown below had a devastating impact on morale and ultimately the quality of service and support to their customers.
· 70% of the respondents felt that the recent downturn in the US and crisis in Europe had a moderate to significant impact while 28% experienced minimal impact.
· Staffing levels were impacted the most at 79% and this was due to forced reduction in headcount and not replacing staff lost due to downsizing.
· 68% included furlough programs and a freeze on merit increases while 67% reported that business travel was curtailed.
· 57% reported that investment in service technologies were halted or eliminated altogether.
Out of 48% reporting no change to the customer satisfaction ratings, 27% stated that they actually improved while 18% reported a decline or degradation in their customer satisfaction levels.
As a result, 45% of the respondents see an increase in spending to the overall operating budget for 2012 while 30% expect it to remain the same while 25% expect to anticipate a further decrease in spending which indicates that their market has yet to experience signs of recovery.
Optimizing processes (75%), increasing the technical expertise of staff (60%), implement knowledge management (54%) , improving product quality (47%) and to increase the adoption of existing online services (47%) were the top 5 initiatives where these respondents will be investing their efforts in 2012.
They were also provided insight and commentary on 5 themes:
a) Execution and Strategy – review approach and strategy for survival in the new economy
b) Increased Efficiency – focus on streamlining processes and driving high performance
c) Customer Focus – continue to build lasting customer relationship and loyalty
d) Resource Management and Development – optimize resources effectively
e) Survival – develop contingency plans, review and adjust plan accordingly
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