Should I be calling my own contact center?

Don't only call your call center from HQ on good-quality business phones, either. Call it from a range of places your customers hail from. Use business phones, residential phones, cordless phones, cellphones with the battery half run down. Call from the sticks as well as the local CBD. Call using VoIP from outside Starbucks, from airport lounges, from next to highways.

Use good quality telecomms equipment. If bad calls come from certain locations, talk to the telecomms providers in those locations and see if you can get a premium service.

Train your call center staff in voice projection and clarity. These aren't magic, they're skills anyone can learn. Get call center phones which can boost signals and filter out buzz and pop. Implement policy which allows call center staff to call callers back if their signal fades and they have a known contact number. Don't just blow off the call - own it.

Any call center should certainly keep an eye on voice quality among other metrics. Many contact centers record all calls for "quality assurance and training purposes". In addition to using mystery shoppers, depending on your resources you could have somebody internally rate the voice quality on certain number of randomly selected calls per day or week.

Regards,
Kirsi
http://pronexus.com

In addition to the comments above, with which I concur, I often find that not enough time, effort, energy, focus is put on developing a formalized QBR (quality business review) protocol to evaluate all critical aspects of execution. This is especially true I find with "internal" client contact center environments -- as most clients put much more rigor in contracts around quality with their vendors than they ever put on themselves. (This is a general statement and not inclusive of ALL, some internal client contact centers are world class.)

As there are many aspects of a formal QBR that can be deployed as my colleagues have mentioned above, I won't waste your time by simply listing other strategies -- but will leave you with a "pitfall" to avoid. I have found that not only are some negligent in putting a QBR in place, but even those that put emphasis on quality frequently make the mistake of only emphasizing "quality" upon initial launch or ramp-up. For some reason thinking that "in 4 months" quality somehow goes on auto-pilot. Invest in a QBR leader, someone that is held accountable for measurable, trackable, quality results metrics, and make QBR an ongoing #CSuite sponsored and involved activity. Afterall, when quality is bad -- who do you think will get the nasty phone call and or letter? Your #CSuite, not you(usually). Oh, BTW, poor quality will find its' way into the #Socialmedia #custserv #customercare channels too --- very quickly.

Bottom-Line: YES, you should be calling your contact centers.

-Brad Lindemann

We test all of our lines weekly to ensure proper call flow and quality throughout the system. This is done during different times of day and call volume times - both peak and normal and has shed light on a few issues that were not specifically brought to us by customers. We utilize our Voice of Customer position to test and communicate any issues, and resolve them with customers as necessary.

As a Customer Service Trainer, I make test calls into companies to see what kind of experience I would have if I were an actual prospective customer. I then share the recording of the call with the business owner. They are often mortified with how the call was handled, starting with the greeting and lack of enthusiasm from their employee and ending with the missing component of actually asking for the sale.

So to answer your question, should you be calling your own contact center, without a doubt, the answer is YES. Just be prepared for what you might hear!

In any business I have worked I advice management to follow their complete product/service flow from beginning to end on a regular basis. This gives them inside in what the customer experiences when they are doing business with them and makes it easier to recognize possible flaws within the organization.

The customer service department is an easy step in this approach to check upon, because all you do is dial that number, open that chat or send that e-mail. Instead of being flooded by averages, you will experience first hand the waiting sequence, including the music your organization picked to anno...eh...amuse customers. Same goes for the quality of your staff. Instead of hearing from the on the floor leadership team who quote their quality charts and surveys, you will yourself experience the quality of your customer service team.

So yes... I would advice you to contact your customer service center/team on a regular basis and to find out how you are doing. Last tip: a great read on this subject by Harvard Business Review can be found at: http://www.ksmartin.com/downloads/Staple-Yourself-to-an-Order.pdf