New Research Shows Service Leaders How to Balance Both Rep
Productivity and Customer Service Quality
STAMFORD, Conn. -- (Business Wire)
Service organizations that make their frontline reps a top priority can
improve both productivity and customer loyalty, according to new
research from CEB,
now Gartner. The study of more than 2,000 customer service reps from
nearly 30 companies worldwide shows that by making
reps a priority, service organizations can increase their
productivity by 19 percent and their intent to leave decreases by 25
percent.
However, the average service organization operates under a model that
puts the customer as the top priority. And, for good reason. An
above-average customer
experience correlates with increased customer loyalty.
"We've been living in an age of quality — organizations are focused on
improving the quality of customer interactions, in order to increase
customer loyalty," said Rick
DeLisi, principal executive advisor at Gartner. "We see this in
online services through more options, more control and more
functionality, as well as in live service interactions by creating a
more 'effortless
experience' for the customer."
This translates into more systems and tools for the service rep to
utilize to not only be more productive, but also to provide a more
seamless and effortless customer experience. By default, this is
creating a much larger problem: More complexity and hurdles for the rep
to overcome in order to solve a customer's problem.
Despite the investment in adding more systems and tools to improve the
frontline, service leaders see little return. While these tools and
systems should support and enable success, a majority (76 percent) of
service leaders report they struggle with the planning and execution of
these projects. Research shows that the average live service interaction
is taking longer than it did in the past, and most service organizations
report either flat or increased call volumes year over year. It has
become clear that these projects do not return the expected productivity
gains.
"The element that most service leaders overlook is what we call the 'rep
experience' — we're so focused on the customer experience and how it
translates into increased loyalty. Or, why it's important to feel
empathy for the customer," said DeLisi. "However, our research shows
that the rep experience is just as crucial to ensuring a high-quality
customer experience."
Gartner defines the rep
experience as: The interactions of frontline reps with systems and
tools required to resolve customer issues. To shift focus from the
customer experience to the rep experience, service leaders must
understand that by improving the rep experience, the organization will
see improvement in operational efficiency and the customer experience.
In fact, improved rep experience can help to increase customer
satisfaction by 11 percent and reduce customer effort by 9 percent.
"It's only through the performance of your reps that you create a
superior live customer experience for your company and increased
operational efficiency," DeLisi said.
To better support reps, service leaders must lighten the load during
live interactions. Specifically, Gartner research shows three key ways
service leaders can tame the complexity for reps and allow them to focus
on helping customers:
- Identify and remove barriers to rep productivity: Service
organizations devote a large amount of effort to understanding their
customers' pain points through customer experience measures, such as voice
of the customer (VoC). These same activities can be adapted to
assess rep experience improvement opportunities as well.
- Uncover creative, quick-hit wins: Uncover the nonobvious,
quick-hit solutions to help reps focus their time and attention on the
customer. By studying reps as they work and enabling rep-led
solutions, service leaders can take near-term actions to improve the
rep experience.
- Balance productivity and quality: Research reveals four key
strategies and tactics for quick wins in balancing productivity and
quality. These include eliminating unnecessary customer contacts,
keeping customers on the website, training reps to focus on the best
customer outcome and helping to avoid a follow-up issue.
More information on what service organizations can do to improve the rep
experience is available to Gartner clients in the report "Unleashing
Rep Productivity in the New Work Environment." Visit us online for
details on Gartner
for Customer Service & Support Leaders.
About CEB, Now Gartner
Leading organizations worldwide rely on CEB services to harness their
untapped potential and grow. Now offered by Gartner, CEB best practices
and technology solutions equip clients with the intelligence to
effectively manage talent, customers and operations. More information is
available at gartner.com/ceb.
About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), is the world's leading research and advisory
company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with
indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their
mission-critical priorities and build the successful organizations of
tomorrow.
Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and
data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the
issues that matter most. We're trusted as an objective resource and
critical partner by more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100
countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise
size.
To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of
business, visit www.gartner.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180613005870/en/
Contacts:
Gartner, Inc.
Kelly Blum, 571-303-5745
kelly.blum@gartner.com
Source: Gartner, Inc.
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