Friday, February 19. 2010Time To Leave A Tropical Paradise Again....John Linton and start the zig-zag trip home in a few hours. We wound up the Exetel SL review about 30 minutes ago with a quiet dinner with the SL general manager. Earlier in the day we signed the new lease for 6,000 sq feet of office space on the 25th floor of the East Tower of the World Trade Centre building where we have operated (on the 9th floor) since June 2008. We obtained a remarkably good deal, for whatever reason, and will get double the space on a much higher (theoretically more expensive floor) for not much more than we are paying now. I'd like to claim credit for being a really good price negotiator but I doubt that's true. We also signed the contract to move our current operation from Level 9 to Level 25 at a much lower total cost than had been quoted and we arranged to move banks to get the benefit of lower operating charges so we had a very good 'financial' day. I suppose the reality is that we were true 'babes in the wood' when we first came to Sri Lanka and we are now, having learned the hard way, paying more realistic prices for things than we did when we first came here some two years ago. Although those financial 'accommodations' were a pleasant surprise the real benefits from this review have come from the discussions on how to improve the rate, width and depth of the knowledge transfer processes. Moving 6 key operating 'departments' from one country to another via recruiting 40+ people whose knowledge of the products, services and processes was zero is not the easiest task in the world to try and accomplish. I think that, via the amazingly effective hard work and dedication of everyone concerned we have pretty much accomplished those very, very difficult tasks. Perhaps our total lack of experience of carrying out such a transition and our total ignorance of how to go about it has assisted us, in a perverse way, as we just used common sense and ignored the difficulties in setting up and operating a new company 10,000 kms away from 'home' and have been rewarded with a sophisticated company larger than the Australian operation it supports. We have discussed, debated, mutually agreed and now established the twin targets of zero TIO complaints and zero 'unnecessary' support calls as the bench marks for the next two years of the Sri Lankan company's existence. This is to be accomplished by a unique new knowledge inculcation process and measurement system/set of processes that, while as far as I'm aware, have never been put in place by any other company seem, at least to me, to have the potential of solving everything that is 'wrong' in operating a 'support' function for a relatively complex service. At this stage it's only a concept and it may well turn out to be impractical but it seems, at least logically, to have more likelihood of success than anything else I've ever become aware of. In case that sounds totally stupid or, worse, perversely coy, let me simply say that if every customer had all the knowledge, tools and capabilities of the most knowledgeable and experienced 'help desk' person - why would they need to call a 'help desk person'? So we will continue the long process of putting in pace the tools and 'instant' answers to any possible support question in a way(s) that the end user, irrespective of their knowledge/experience level can access and radically increase their own ability to diagnose and fix whatever problem they encounter. Pretty simple really. Why haven't the millions of call centres around the world ever done this? I have no idea. Perhaps they work in a world where a call centre is a given as being necessary part of the company they work for? I don't really give a damn either way as I have had a stimulating, and I think productive, few days looking at really difficult, even complex, scenarios and have, through sensible discussion reached some stimulating conclusions on how to radically improve how Exetel provides better, and quicker, support solutions to those of our customers who need them. I believe it's going to be possible to ensure that a much higher percentage than 60% of our customers will have no need to call a 'support person' in Exetel in 2010 - and that would be a very good outcome of a few day's discussions. Trackbacks
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A 'zero call" helpdesk is achievable, I was peripherally involved in such a project many years ago (although the operation was not on the scale you'd be facing).
As you note, making all the tools and information available to the end user is key. The only stumbling block was the user type who flat out refused to help themselves - "It's broken, I pay you for the product, you fix it" mentality, even if the problem turns out to be their own fault, and/or correctable at their end. I think though, that you'll suffer from a customer perception problem, in that a lot of people don't understand that ISP's differ in their service approach, reflected in their product pricing. The sentiment will be "well, Bigpond/Internode/BigNameISP provide the support to me, why don't you, even though, with Exetel, I only pay half the price I would if I was with one of those bigger companies!" Still, those type of customers will be in the minority. Comment (1)
Nice to hear someone else doesn't think it's impossible.
While you're views on 'expectations' are spot on the market is large and there are no black smiths except at race horse establishments today so why should there be 'call centre operatives' tomorrow? Comments (4)
"why should there be 'call centre operatives' tomorrow"
Wrong person to ask - I work in the call centre industry, and my Dad was a blacksmith ... The approach that seemed to work best in reducing the call volume, was to find the most common type of call and the matching resolution (assuming a mostly 1 to 1 correlation), and then design and publish the self help tools to resolve that situation. Once that is in place, and the impact measurable (which provides confidence that the customer base is taking the new approach to heart), then focus on the next item - it's reiterative, and possibly longish term, but allows the customers to learn for themselves, the information and skills they need, at a comfortable pace. Comment (1)
That is the approach we have been taking and why 60% of our customers never have a need to call us.
Comments (4)
Hopefully those customers will be out weighed by people who like the immediate feed back of being able to access information directly without having to go through a human intermediate who you are never quite sure that you can trust to have communicated accurately...
I just love the fact that with exetel I can examine and check almost any detail of my account at any time, and I am currently very frustrated with T who I recently discovered are still charging for a service that they said they would terminate some months ago... I'm sure it'll get sorted out, but I don't need the hassle. (I say 'almost' for exetel because I think that when I requested a change to a mobile plan the website didn't show that this change was pending (though I had an email confirming it, and it did happen as expected)). Comment (1)
I totally agree with the idea that some people refuse to want to help themselves. My ex girlfriend just today called me up asking if I could help her setup a Telstra wireless broadband connection. I refused, saying it would be simple if she reads the instructions and call Telstra when she fails, because that's all I would do. Thank God I didn't recommend her to Exetel
I'm sure Telstra have put in the money so that blind Freddy can set up their service! Have a fun weekend. Comment (1)
The banks went through a phase of forcibly encouraging people to go online. They found that it decreased overall loyalty, because the organisation had no 'feel' to it. As a result they have completely reworked their branch and call centre experience, realising that they were key to developing long term relationships. Eg Commbank's reworked branch experience and Westpac re-opening many previously closed branches. (note I don't work in a bank, but have observed this)
The other thing to consider is how will this affect the makeup of your customers? Will it mean you only attract a certain type of customer who feels that they are knowledgable and self-sufficient while discouraging the people who want/need their hand held. Just some thoughts. I don't want to say don't do it, as I think that as an experiment it needs to happen. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds and whether it actually nets you the desired result. Without risk there is no gain. Good luck. Comment (1)
Another interesting read.
I really enjoy the voyeur aspect of watching over your shoulder and seeing how a different company tackles it's day to day running. I also learnt a new word today "inculcation". Maybe Exetel could add consultancy to it's SL business ventures. Assisting foreign companies in setting up shop there (you might even have some space to sublet if you can reach your twin customer service targets). Your targets are admirable and I see no reason why you cannot at least come close to achieving them. You certainly should at least be able to drop the average number of support calls per customer per year by a third to Comment (1)
My thinking is pretty much the same - reducing the umber of support calls by eliminating the reasons calls are made should be a simple process.
Comments (4)
I have clearly, as usual, expressed my thoughts badly.
Today, 60% of Exetel's customers never call Exetel in a twelve month period - they have no reason to. Of the 40% that do 30% shouldn't. That 30% is the figure that we will address - by eliminating the need to call in the first place. It really isn't anything like your bank analogy - or I don't believe it is. Comments (4)
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