It is SQM’s belief that the call center’s main purpose is to retain customers in order to protect the organization’s greatest asset – its customers. Given that low complexity calls are being handled by other customer contact channels, and that customer service representatives (CSRs) are taking on more complex calls, the call center plays an even more important role in retaining customers. The call center is the organization’s only contact channel, in many cases, where the customer’s inquiry or problem can be resolved due to the complexity of their inquiry or problem.

SQM’s research shows that, on average, 58% of customers who expressed intent not to continue to do business with the organization are a result of organizational issues (e.g., products, services, policies, etc.). In addition, 65% of customers’ calls that are not resolved on the first call are also a result of organizational issues. Based on the fact that organizational issues have such a profound impact on the call center’s ability to retain customers and their operating cost, it is critical for call center management to conduct SQM’s Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ study. Furthermore, senior call center management must share the study results with both call center and non-call center stakeholders in order to make improvements for both call center and organization issues that are hindering the call center’s ability to reduce customer defections and resolve calls on the first call.

The CP SCORE™ study is an in-depth assessment of your call center’s performance for retaining customers. Specifically, this study provides detailed feedback and analysis for why your customers are defecting, as well as what it would take for your customers to continue to do business with your organization. This study includes valuable information such as CP SCORE™, potential revenue loss, products or services that customers will stop using, organizations that customers will be switching to and why they plan to switch. This valuable information is important to have in order for the call center to improve its operating costs and to help reduce customer defections.

At SQM, we use the CP SCORE™ as the main metric for evaluating call center impact on customer retention performance. As shown in Figure 1, the CP SCORE™ is based on customer survey results meeting the below criteria for the three related metrics (i.e., customer call is resolved, customer is satisfied with call center and customer continues to do business as a result of their call center experience).

Figure 1. CP SCORE™

In addition, this study benchmarks the relationship between your call center’s efficiency (e.g., speed of answer, cost per call resolution, labor rates, average handle time, etc.) and effectiveness (i.e., CP SCORE™). This analysis provides customer protection optimization opportunities for properly allocating resources (i.e., people, processes and technology) for reducing customer defections and/or improving operating cost. Some efficiency areas have more of a positive impact on customer satisfaction or protection than others. The key to optimizing your efficiency is to identify efficiency areas that are critical to improving or protecting your customer retention performance and/or to find efficiency areas for improving operating cost that have little or no impact on your customer retention performance. For example, in Figure 2, if you are XYZ Company call center, your average speed of answer is 60 seconds, which is substantially better than the benchmark average of 120 seconds. Also, your CP SCORE™ effectiveness is substantially lower than the average call center in your industry. Although your speed of answer efficiency is higher than the call center industry average, it is very likely that you could change speed of answer performance to 120 seconds which would improve your labor cost and have little or no impact on your customer satisfaction or retention performance. By eliminating unnecessary labor costs, you can now re-allocate the savings to other efficiency areas that have more of a positive impact on improving your CP SCORE™.

Figure 2. Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Optimization Grid

Why Participate in SQM’s Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study

Do you know…

• why customers are defecting to your competitors as a result of their call center experience?
• what it would take to keep customers from defecting to your competitors?
• the main sources of your customer defections(e.g., organization, call center, etc.)?
• how critical it is to share the customer defection results with non-call center stakeholders?
• how your customer protection performance compares to over 450 leading North American call centers?
• the revenue that was lost as a result of a customer’s experience calling your call center?
• the organizations that customers will be switching to and why?
• the reasons why customers have to make repeat calls to resolve their call?
• if you are properly allocating resources (i.e., people, processes and technology) for reducing customer defections and/or improving operating cost?

If you don’t have quality answers to these questions, let the experts at SQM Group assist you in assessing your call center’s Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ performance.

Top Reasons to Improve your Customer Protection – CP SCORE™

Reduce operating cost - for the average call center that SQM benchmarks, a 1% improvement in their FCR performance equals $276,000 in operational savings. If you are performing at the call center industry average of 69% FCR rate, you need to understand that at least 33% of customers calling your call center have to call back because their inquiry or problem is not resolved on their first call. SQM research also shows that the average call center has 52% of inbound calls to be repeat calls. The cost for not resolving calls on the first call is enormous.

Reduce customers at risk - customers that are at risk of going to competitors are a result of unresolved customer inquiries or problems and have the biggest impact on the call center’s financial performance. The cost to the organization of customers at risk (as a result of their call not being resolved) is 5-10 times greater than the operational savings received from improving FCR performance. Most call centers are not aware how much revenue they are losing as a result of the customer’s inquiry or problem going unresolved. SQM’s research shows that if the customer’s call is not resolved in the first call, 40% or more of those customers will not call back. Therefore, the call center has lost the opportunity to resolve those customers’ calls and retain those customers.

Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study Methodology

Our Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study takes key aspects of your call center’s customer retention and operational ratings and brings them together for a deeper insight into your customer protection performance using the two surveys outlined below.

1. Post-Call Customer Survey

A random sample of 400 customer protection phone surveys are conducted with customers who have been identified as potential customers who might defect (e.g., non FCR customers, customers who used the retention or escalation queue, customers that are flagged in the CRM system as at risk, etc.). The customer protection survey is conducted by phone, is an in-depth interview based on up to 20 rating and open-ended questions and is 7-10 minutes in length.

2. Operational Survey

Call center management complete an operational survey which has 45 metrics covering areas such as speed of answer, talk time, number of calls a CSR handles per day, CSR salary and CSR turnover.
Our Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study report combines the data from these two surveys and provides you with greater insight into what you need to improve in order to reduce customer defections and improve operating cost.

Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Report Deliverables

A 75 page Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ report will be delivered to you and your management team via a conference call or on site with a senior SQM consultant outlining your call center’s Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ performance.

Specifically, SQM’s Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study will provide the following:

• Customer Protection – CP SCORE™
• Amount of revenue the call center protected and lost
• Reasons why customers want to defect
• What it would take to keep customers from defecting
• Companies that customers are switching to and why they choose them
• Benchmarking comparison to over 450 leading North American call centers
• Benchmarking comparison to peer group, call center industry and world class call center
• Unresolved calls impact on operating cost
• Top 5 repeat call reasons and their improvement opportunities for financial savings
• Targeted opportunities for reducing repeat calls
• Operational benchmarking data for 45 metrics
• CP SCORE™ Optimization assessment relative to 45 operating metrics
• One copy of SQM’s book, World Class Call Center

Your Investment

The total investment for the Customer Protection – CP SCORE™ Study is $12,000 plus applicable taxes. The only additional charge would be to cover travel and accommodation expenses for a SQM senior consultant to present the results to you and your team on site.