Call Center Industry Research
Concierge Service

What is Concierge Service?

The practice of concierge service is moving from the hotel industry to the call center industry. To most people, a concierge service means employees were working at a high-end hotel, standing behind desks, providing them with information about the best restaurants, directions, or where to purchase theater tickets. In some cases, they can make dinner reservations or purchase event tickets on a customer's behalf. In most cases, they provide information, just as websites or call center agents do. Interestingly, providing concierge service is an excellent opportunity for call center agents to resolve customer calls on the first call that otherwise might go unresolved.

How concierge service works in a call center environment is an agent assists a customer who needs to call or contact another department or organization for a reference code, more information or authorization, to help resolve the customer's call. Specifically, for call center concierge service, an agent tells the customer that they will call the necessary department or organization on their behalf or with them on the line to get the required reference code, information, or authorization. In most cases, when using concierge service, an agent calls another department or organization while the customer is on the phone and a three-way conversation occurs.

Concierge service makes the customer feel like the organization has taken complete ownership of resolving their inquiry or problem. Also, when an agent uses the concierge service practice, it provides higher First Call Resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction (Csat) performance. The higher FCR is because the customer does not have to call or contact third parties such as a doctor's office, head office, bank, or retail store. When the concierge service is used, the customer feels the call center agent is an advocate for them, and as a result, the customer has a higher customer satisfaction experience.

SQM tracks the reasons why customers have to call back two or more times. Our research shows that customers who have to call back to provide the agent with more information are one of the main reasons why a customer has to call two or more times to get their call resolved. In fact, 4% of all repeat calls result from a customer having to phone the call center back to provide the agent with more information to resolve their call.

Concierge Service – Key Performance Indicators

Define Concierge Service Best Practices

The concierge service best practices that help the call center improve the performance of its FCR, Csat, call resolution, and cost per call resolution is as follows:

• Rather than focus on AHT, managers focus on doing the right thing for the customer. Managers remove AHT metrics from individual agent scorecards and instead concentrate on calls resolved and FCR at the organization level

• Concierge service standards are developed and communicated to all stakeholders

• Call handling standards clearly state that whenever customers have to call another department or organization to get more information, to have their issue resolved, it is the agent's responsibility to get the required information on behalf of, or with, the customer

• The call center's QA program and post-call customer surveys are used to measure whether or not agents provided effective concierge service

• Using customer feedback, concierge service is measured, benchmarked, tracked, and reported on an ongoing basis and this information is used to make improvements in their service

• Agents are trained and coached on how to provide concierge service

• Agents are recognized for delivering concierge service

• Agents are held accountable for their Csat and call resolution performance

• Agents educate customers, when possible, on using self-service channels to get information

• Agents are educated on what fulfillment departments need to do to process items such as requests, orders, and claims

• The call center is always looking for ways to improve its people, process, and technology practices to avoid customer call-backs due to the customer having to provide the agent with more information

• Agents go the extra mile and have a customer advocacy attitude to resolve the customer's call. This attitude is primarily manifested by concierge service calls but is also transferred to other call types