Where Data Turns Into Action, Producing Measurable Results!
This blog will be perky and pointed. There are some things in life you just have to do - - and you get a lot out of them. Benchmarking is one of them.
True, some contact centers just seem to bump their way to excellence. However, most truly excellent contact center operations take a disciplined approach to their efforts. They analyze, discuss and act to improve people, process and technology issues that have an impact on the service they provide to customers.
The starting point for any disciplined approach to evaluation and improvement must be benchmarking. Consider that:
- Improvement initiatives are always a matter of cost and impact.
- Impact analysis must include effect on competitive position
- Competitive position can only be measured through operational results, i.e. metrics
- Those metrics must be compared with other organizations in the same sector to determine how a center stacks up.
- Where metrics show a negative gap, the disciplined approach requires mapping over to people, process and technology issues that can move the needle on the metrics.
That’s it. It’s simple, but powerful. Basically, you are not in line with management best practices if you do not benchmark, because you cannot see where you need to improve in the context of your industry in the absence of a benchmark.
Without benchmarking, you are likely to make the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons.
With contact center benchmarking you have the data you need to conduct the analysis you need to form the insights you need to pick the fixes you need. (Yes, it’s a bit of a run-on sentence, but truer words were never written). Good management is about optimization, and you surely cannot optimize rationally without the insights that come from benchmarking.
After years of benchmark analysis, I can see issues in contact centers by looking at their benchmark reports, much as a physician can see issues by looking at your blood panel. So many centers have gone from sorry states to success by embarking on journeys to excellence that start with a benchmark-based assessment [View the BCBS Florida case study]. We have seen this time and again, also in the government and non-profit sectors.
Managers always ask questions. Some of those questions can only be answered through benchmarking. Managers always want results. Benchmarking is part of a methodology that leads to results - - and provides the measurable impacts that can be translated to dollars for management presentations.
Get your questions answered. Manage your center better. Obtain results and compute improvement in ways you may have never done before. Benchmark.
Bruce Belfiore, CEO, BenchmarkPortal
Bruce Belfiore is Senior Research Executive and CEO of BenchmarkPortal, custodian of the world’s largest database of contact center metrics. He hosts the monthly online radio show "CallTalk" and is chancellor of The College of Call Center Excellence, which provides courses for call center professionals. He has consulted for many Fortune 1000 companies, helping them to improve the strategic value, efficiency and effectiveness of their customer contact operations. He is the author of the book Benchmarking At Its Best for Contact Centers and holds bachelor’s, MBA and JD degrees from Harvard University.
