By Rob Pesick
Credit union call centers are always looking for ways to deliver the best possible member service. At PSCU, our call center experts decided to investigate how to help your credit union find the sweet spot between its mission to provide member-friendly service and its mandate to control costs and maximize ROI.
Here are four areas where ideal service levels are highly desirable but often hard to come by and achieve:
1. Managing Overflow Call Volume: Your call center’s volume may exceed your staffing capacity at times, but these times are usually possible to predict. Our studies show that Monday and Friday call volumes typically run 22 to 24 percent higher than mid-week.
Even predictable volumes make it challenging to keep abandon rates and speed-to-answer metrics on track, and there is a real financial downside to providing bad or inconsistent service. According to Nuance Communications’ Millennialization of Customer Servicereport: “67% of consumers say they have cancelled or ended a company relationship because of a bad customer experience.”
2. Staffing for Extended Service Hours: Extending call center hours past the typical workday can sound like a terrific member service innovation, but longer hours can be tricky to staff. That is because statistics show early morning call volumes can run 50 percent higher than in the early evening.
Changing even a few agents’ shifts to start later can leave morning peaks understaffed and evening employees with unproductive time on their hands. Additionally, long or uncertain shift scheduling can be a major source of agent dissatisfaction and attrition.
3. Scheduling Staff Meeting and Training Time:Removing the distraction of ringing phones allows for unified department meetings and uninterrupted training sessions and also sends an important message to members of your workforce about your concern for their morale.
With today’s emphasis on reducing call center fraud and creating ROI-driven initiatives to reimagine call centers as loan origination, onboarding and cross-selling profit centers, highly trained agents with specialized knowledge and skills are an investment worthy of careful nurturing.
4. Disaster Recovery and Special Circumstances: Hurricanes, floods and fires have shown call centers firsthand Mother Nature’s wrath, but there are many happier reasons that cause call center disruptions, too. Perhaps your credit union has recently increased its membership or is experiencing a major uptick in demand from a successful marketing campaign. When unforeseen events threaten your business continuity, all eyes turn to the call center to send the message that stability is being restored.
Is outsourcing the answer?
There is no question that providing “just right” service will set your credit union’s call center apart, but trying to coordinate these items in-house can be an expensive and daunting task.
That is why exploring an outsourced solution such as PSCU’s Total Member Care can be a great alternative. Outsourcing call center services is a flexible way to smooth out the everyday bottlenecks and will go a long way toward helping your credit union provide the personalized service your members deserve.
Rob Pesick is a solutions consultant at PSCU based in St. Petersburg, FL. He has over 20 years of experience in the call center industry, with the last nine at PSCU providing expertise in establishing and growing PSCU’s Total Member Care product line.