The client is an internal support department that provides technical problem solving for all global employees. Support is provided round the clock, 7 days a week from three different hubs located strategically to provide a full round-the-clock service to support different company functions – production, HR, accounting etc. Number global employees approximately 21,000. Support centres each had between 10-20 technical engineers specialised in SAP, general tech, as well as specific HR system support. Often work with third parties such as Orange telecommunications and SAP adding complexity to driving issue resolution for customers.

This case is about one of the support centres which was the lead centre with majority of the technical engineers, divided into the three groups mentioned above.

Problem

The head of department recruited our services as he was concerned that:

1. Time to achieve resolution was too long

2. Customer negative feedback was increasing – specific points included:

- Lack of listening

- Taking too long to resolve each issue

- Slow response time

We were hired to address both issues, except the slow response time as this was an internal systems issue.

Process

Analysis of almost 50 calls to identify how engineers were communicating with customers, what patterns of behaviour were evident that were not contributing to the goal of providing excellent customer service and driving a resolution.

From analysis of these calls, it was evident that engineers were often unconsciously inciting and escalating the customer to become irritated and perhaps even aggressive because of their tone of voice and manner of communicating with the caller. In turn this was increasing the length of time to reach a suitable resolution.

Often cross-cultural issues were thrown into the mix affecting communication and overall call outcomes.

Solution

Initial 2-day module, delivered face to face with a further 2-day module 3 months

later focusing on written correspondence. Content design and delivery built

according to the needs of the customer.

Overall goals:

- To interact with customers in a confident, professional and attentive manner

- To be assertive while communicating with the customer verbally and in writing

- To drive resolution of each situation

Goals for the first and second modules:

1. Verbal Communication

- To structure communication in a positive, goal oriented and professional manner

- To use the feedback loop to ensure understanding and demonstrate listening

- To set customer expectations and manage them effectively

- To use question technique to support understanding of each situation

- To lead the situation and drive resolution.

2. Written Communication

- To structure communication in a positive, goal oriented and professional manner

- To write clearly and logically to ensure understanding

- To effectively manage written communication to decrease customer time

- To identify do's and don'ts of writing on different platforms to avoid misunderstandings.

Training was interactive and based on real life situations taken from call analysis. In the first course content included:

The basics of effective communication and relationship management

Transactional analysis to understand the levels of communication and nuances of what the customer was saying

• Levels of listening
• Responding clearly and using feedback loop to check understanding
• Managing difficult situations

Content delivery included interactive exercises. Role plays with playback was critical to engineers hearing how they were communicating was impacting customers’ responses, as well as applying learning to change patterns of behaviour and experience a positive outcome.

After three months the engineers attended a further 2-days training focused to written correspondence. (details not covered).

Outcomes after 6 months

• Engineers demonstrated increased confidence in communicating with customers.
• Call time decreased by 15% due to quicker resolution times both on the call and the overall number of calls required.
• Negative customer feedback decreased by 35%.
• Decreased call escalation to managers due to engineer ability to instil confidence in the customer.