In my previous two blog posts, I talked about the Ps of contact center, and we have covered the first two already, People and Processes (see previous blog posts).
The P’s are what are at the core of a successful contact center and contact center outsourcing relationship (at least, in my experience).
Today is the final P of the three and it is Priority. – Like everything else in a partnership, this is a two-way street. Let’s start with the vendor…
- In my very first blog post (you should go to the website and check it out), I talked about trying to find out from the eventual winning vendor how important your business will be to them. What level of priority are you going to receive? This is the most important of all factors when considering outsourcing and who with. If your business is prioritized and valued, there is not much the two of you can’t accomplish. If there is little to no or “medium-ranged” priority, you are going to find that there is going to be a lot of frustration. You can determine how valuable you will be to them in a fairly easy way… how much do you bill monthly versus their other clients. It can be hard to get to this answer from a potential vendor but ask them what the normal head count is for their typical projects. If you need 20 FTE and the normal headcount for them is 100, you are not going to be a priority. If you need 100 FTE and the average headcount is 500, you are not going to get a prioritized seat at the table. Why? Simple, you don’t bill enough each month. All businesses work this way, and they are not wrong in doing so. But, you need to know that if you are not a priority, it is going to be a struggle. How this manifests itself is when an issue or problem comes up and you need resolution, do you get attention? Does your issue get resolved quickly and correctly? Or, in another real-life scenario, where is the talent in the organization going? For example, if you are a low-priority client and some good people come through the organization, they are likely going to be allocated to the high-priority client. Especially if you are both hiring at the same time and in the ever-revolving doors of contact centers, that is probably likely occurring all the time. When there is a good Customer Service agent on your current project that is groomed and ready for management, what happens to them… Well, when and if a supervisor role becomes available on the prioritized contract, where do you think that person is going to end up? Exactly! This happens, behind the scenes, all the time. Here is another one to think about… is your current provider coming to you with new and innovative ways of doing things? If yes, they value and prioritize your business. If not, then they are doing some version of the minimum as a partner. The list goes on and on, but everything that occurs decision-making-wise usually boils down to where you rank in the list of prioritized clients.
- The other side of the priority conversation is for the client to think about. What level of priority does the client place on customer contact? In other words, do the C-Level people think contact center is important? Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no. Every prospect I have ever talked to has said some version of “price is not the most important factor”. Although that is true to some extent, it is also not exactly true in most others. The amount a company is willing to spend on customer contact will determine the level of partnership they get. For example, if you just want to go with as little expense as possible, that is a reflection of your priority when it comes to customer contact. If, on the other hand, you say, customer contact is going to be at the top of the spending, then you will get a contact center partnership that reflects that (once you find the right one). The idea is to get as optimal as you can for the services you want versus the cost associated with it. Here is an example to think about. Sitting in the car in the Disney World Parking lot in the A/C, I might think that $8 for a cold bottle of water is ridiculous and I would never spend that. Why? I don’t see the value, so it is not a priority. Once I have been out in the 100-degree Florida heat all day, that $8 bottle of water is a great buy and I’ll take two! Why? The priority has changed. This decision is usually made by the C-Level (not at Disney World, in the contact center, BTW). Where the customer contact priority lies with your organization is likely a byproduct of how the C-Level views that expense. Each company is different and different industries need different levels of customer contact and that is a factor, but some (many) C-Levels think it is a cost that is a necessary evil and I would argue it is a cost that can not be quantified if it is not done well.
