As a contact centre grows, there is an increasing number of moving parts—technologies, processes, and procedures—that have to mesh interactively to make sure that the customer experience is something that’s going to be memorable, and not a nightmare. And with growth comes complexity. As complexity increases, one of two things invariably happens: Either the contact centre plateaus or something goes off the rails. In either case, a current state assessment of your contact seems to be in order. But will that assessment get the contact centre back on track?

The Contact Centre: Report Card Assessment

When organizations decide to assess their contact centres—either using an in-house process or by contacting with an outside consulting agency—they often default to a “report card” model.

On the one hand, a report card can be very helpful:  It shows us what we’re good at, and where we need improvement.  If you have a good industry-wide benchmark for comparison, you can use that report card to get a sense of how you are doing relative to others in your field. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, current location, and the lay of the land around you are all vital to guiding your contact centre along its journey.

But a report card isn’t a roadmap.  With their assessment finished and report card in hand, many organizations struggle to determine the path they need to travel. In the case of an internal evaluation, this can arise from a lack of perspective: It’s next to impossible to take the long view and chart a course when you are caught in the daily muddle, with so many details fighting for your attention. When the assessment is performed by a third party, the opposite can be the case: Having their eyes on the industry as a whole can bias them toward seeing the similarities amongst contact centres, instead of zeroing in on a given organization’s unique qualities—which tend to be the very strengths and challenges that will determine a centre’s success.