CCOs: Why Advocate for Downward CSAT Trends

Transcript

[00:00:00] Steve MacDonald: Welcome to the Contact Center Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host. Today, we have a fascinating conversation with Candace Wallace, the Chief Customer Officer at Relias.

I will ask you in just a moment to expand on who you are, but I’ll share a tidbit right after I do that. We’re going to discuss why we advocate for downward CSAT trends and why we advocate for some of the key metrics that we rely on report on and that the board looks at to go in the opposite direction.

Why would we want to do that? But before we get into that, you have an exciting part of your background that ties directly into what we’ll discuss today. You are a former archaeologist. 

[00:00:54] Candace Wallace: That’s right, Steve. It’s always my fun fact at any event. Sometimes, it’s helpful for folks to understand that you can switch careers at any time and bring skill sets with you along the journey, even though they seem miles apart.

But one of the things that was always fascinating in archaeology is still really fascinating in software as a service: data, like information. I think I’m probably a data-driven person, so when I think about something like a contact center, I realize that we live and breathe data every single day.

In my world as an archeologist, it was the same thing. How do you look at thousands or millions of data points to tell a story and understand what’s happening? Sometimes, the absence of information becomes a major driver for insight into what you’re looking at. But that’s a little passion that will help me find my way in different places moving from archeology into the software world.

[00:01:46] Steve MacDonald: I’m glad you’ve given us that little insight because now I know that archaeology isn’t just like Indiana Jones.

We want to start unpacking because this is reframing the conversation in a very important way. What happens in a contact center and funding for a contact center are often based on how we’re doing and hitting these key metrics.

But let’s step back for just a second. You wanted to talk about a growth plan and what that looks like. As you’re scaling, what does that mean for the team? Then, that’s going to segue into our conversation about how we track metrics. 

What do you think about the plan to scale and the team to do that?

[00:02:27] Candace Wallace: Yeah, absolutely. These are all things that we’re all talking about. One of the most important things for the scale of a contact center is self-service and leveraging different technologies to help meet your customers where they are, giving them insights and information in real time.

When they need it in the channel that they want, it’s all the things that really drive us day-to-day. One of the important things when we talk about this is, I always say, ‘When you’re trying to scale and grow your business, one of the most important things you have to do is put the customer at the center of that.’

Doing the things that are sometimes painful, like journey mapping and analyzing all of your data, but understanding your customer journey across your full universe is really important. So, when we think about how we scale, it’s important that you understand how they engage with you across the pre-sales function, how they engage with sales and customer success teams and service teams because holistically what the customers are looking for come across quite a few different teams and in a lot of businesses, a few different P&Ls as well. When you think about budget and how folks are focused on that, if you don’t holistically look at it, you’re not going to get the significant impacts you’re looking for when trying to drive down those interactions and get people to leverage those types of resources.

I always ask people to step back and say, ‘Look across your peer sets and understand how we look at that holistic customer journey because that’s the foundation to make impacts inside of your contact center.’

[00:03:55] Steve MacDonald: The self-service concept, driven largely by AI, is currently all the rage and trend. Many are rushing to adopt it because it seems everyone else is doing so. However, it’s crucial to be discerning before simply jumping on the bandwagon. Please share your approach to this and how you guide your team.

[00:04:18] Candace Wallace: When you think about what you’re trying to do in a self-service world, the buzzword is often personalization and not just a buzzword. It’s what people expect. The foundation of being able to personalize an experience for folks is really understanding it. 

People often make mistakes when they start to think about where they are going. They start building self-service pathways based on what they think they know about their customers. So, if I can leave you with some important information in this space, do you know a lot about your customers?

That’s the best place to start the investigation but it’s just the tipping point. When we think about self-service in a contact center, we often have a lot of data about why people call when you look at your case types. What types of items drive average handle time or lower customer satisfaction?

There are a lot of things that we need to look at. It’s also important to look at behavioral data. Sometimes, what our customers tell us and their actions are different. How can you understand how they’re engaging across your universe? You could never do too much market research when you think about understanding this information.

I often advise people to formulate their thoughts and conduct interviews to understand end users and their objectives. Following that, validating these insights through surveys and delving into how customers truly perceive things is essential. When we began our journey at Relias to explore these aspects, we scrutinized all our presumed knowledge. Then, we set out to verify this information’s accuracy. This approach lets the customers guide us and pinpoint unique customer segments and personas. Consequently, we gained a profound understanding of what they sought from us. This process served as the foundation for personalization, leveraging our knowledge and the insights we gleaned from engaging with the market.

[00:06:16] Steve MacDonald: You brought up data before, one of the biggest validations, and that data tells us so much. You have all kinds of things: in-app experiences and various data points informing us about how users interact with the bots. I want to discuss the expectations heading in the opposite direction. Why did you mention average handle time and CSAT? Also, first-time resolution, why should we discuss these metrics if they contradict what we typically report to the board? Why might they trend in the wrong direction, and what’s causing this?

[00:06:46] Candace Wallace: Sometimes, when you’ve gone through it, it feels a little common sense because there’s an expectation that you hold the same standards that you’ve always held.

We should always be getting better, but if you don’t have a really solid, structured self-service environment and are not heavily using things like bots, you have to step back and think about it. What type of traffic is this deflecting? One of the ways we looked at that within our own business was by saying, ‘Okay, what are our case issue types? ‘ We classified them across different tiers of case types and their levels of complexity.

Then we start looking at the trends at that issue type level. For example, if I have something that’s wildly complex, if you really dive down into the layers of that, you’re already going to find out that the types of things that you are likely to self-service are going to be the ones that have the highest satisfaction.

The easiest to resolve will be those with the highest first-time resolution rates and the lowest handle time. These are the areas ripe for improvement through self-service initiatives. When examining what remains, it’s crucial to understand the current satisfaction levels when customers address complex issues.

Within my universe, those complex items were the ones that had lower CSAT, had higher handle time, had a much lower first-time resolution, and the list of metrics goes on. So, we knew analyzing our data saying, ‘Okay, when we eliminate these items through our different self-service channels.’

We can expect the average to go down. Now, we’re not crazy. We still have targets for some of these things. It’s really important that when you’re out there, you’re also looking at industry benchmarks and your own data. You need to be above a level of good. That’s always a target. 

But as you start to look at some of these things, you’ll see that the other types of data that you’re now going to measure are customer satisfaction on self-service and the industry trends on that, which are lower than when you’re actually engaging with an agent.

So you have to set targets based on benchmarks and best practices and categorize them across a much broader universe of things.

[00:08:49] Steve MacDonald: Is there a component that pushes things in the opposite direction that we normally want to go in terms of the things that are harder to handle, the ones that require a live agent? Sometimes, we want to have the agent spend more time changing a negative into a positive—that’s what helps with loyalty. That’s what helps with net promoter scores. 

What drives the industry is that contact centers are cost centers. Let’s reduce the cost. This is an overhead. This is one of the biggest overhead expenses in our organization. So obviously, it’s an area where we want to reduce costs so everybody loves self-service as a result of that but the contact center in how we handle front-line customers. Discuss how focusing on improving front-line customer handling directly benefits more challenging issues that are harder to resolve. How does investing time in these areas produce positive outcomes for complex cases?

[00:09:43] Candace Wallace: Those revenue benefits typically appear as lagging numbers, including net retention rate, gross retention rate, renewal rates, and net promoter score, which can lag. 

When considering trends, we initiated a process to understand what information we require about our customers to enhance our self-service experience. Additionally, we determined which channels to leverage, considering various technologies.

We acknowledge the room for improvement when considering our customer segments, particularly with certain lagging indicators. By creating a highly valuable digital experience for these customers, we could drive down costs through self-service and observe long-term positive results. I’m thrilled to share that implementing a robust self-service solution led to favorable trends, which are the ones your boards care about. 

Driving improvements in net retention rate and very specific customer segments that you’re targeting the net promoter score always leaves a bit ahead of that net retention rate, but still pretty lagging similar feedback. I really see that drive up meaningfully; the only way you can measure and tie those results back is if you get your data pretty granular. I no longer care about performance across my business. Still, I care about it at specific customer segment levels and market segments, and I can slice and dice so that when I do a digital experience, I can measure the results in real time.

There are those things that are leading which is how they’re adopting and engaging with some of those items which are real-time measurements. Volume reductions happen on the contact center side, which you can measure in real time. 

You can also see those other lagging items follow that trend in that journey. You have to watch across all layers to ensure you can pivot if needed. We’ve certainly had to do that at different times throughout our experience but they all tie together. 

[00:11:37] Steve MacDonald: Everything you said made great sense there, but one of the things is that we tend to report up not on the granular; we tend to report up and then drive decision-making based on the overall. What’s our overall CSAT score? What’s our overall net promoter score?

What are the overall average handled times, and how are we handling that? If you don’t break it down into these individual segments you’re talking about, not every segment of customers is equal to every other segment in terms of impact on the business.

That could be your background in archaeology, a love of data, coming into play here because information and knowledge can be acted upon inside the data. You’re articulating a much deeper dive into visibility into the leading indicators that should drive the business.

That’s a big takeaway for everybody here. This also focuses on the need to balance self-service in live agents. What is your perspective on whether we are going to need live agents in the future?

[00:12:39] Candace Wallace: The realities will always be needed. There are a few places where I’ve had some personal experience in our own company where we experiment with technology and even AI in some places.

The reality is that you always need a person to help validate, guide, engage, and coach, even with the world’s best large language model. There’s so much more value in lived experience and how someone can engage and drive one of these things. So, I don’t see it going away.

It’s highly impactful because we’re removing low-complexity elements from our universe with tools like this, where what’s left for us is things that are more complex than maybe any model wouldn’t have enough insights on. The other thing is that you’re also leveraging AI and technology to help you simplify the complex as you work directly with a customer. You can leverage it in a handful of different ways, but there’s always the importance of needing someone to be there to engage because we’re humans. We like engaging with other humans but we also demand technology.

So, as you evolve and your universe evolves as a contact center, the reality is that across all of our digital self-service channels, whether that’s an app, a community, e-mail campaigns, or bots, there are people across our teams whose jobs are now to manage, massage, manipulate, and help these tools be effective, which means you’re watching data in real time.

You’re adjusting in real time, introducing new skill sets for your staff and team members. Another factor to consider is that while overall volume and costs may decrease, the average spend per agent could increase. This is because when you shift low-complexity tasks away, you’re left dealing with highly complex ones, requiring more advanced skill sets and competencies than previously needed.

So, while you may experience a directional reduction in some operating costs, it’s not a one-to-one correlation because you’re transitioning to a more complex environment requiring specialized skills. This distinction is crucial for everyone to understand. Often, I hear assumptions like, “AI will lead to a 25 percent reduction in volume, therefore saving 25 percent of operating costs.” However, it’s not that straightforward. There are other trade-offs involved. While you can still reduce costs, it won’t be a one-for-one exchange. It’s essential to bear this in mind.

[00:15:00] Steve MacDonald: Maintaining and managing costs is crucial, but the primary focus should always be whether these efforts enhance the overall customer experience. If they’re not, we’re heading in the wrong direction regardless of cost implications. Regarding the evolving role of live agents and their increasing complexity, there’s a growing demand for agents to handle a wider range of tasks regularly. How do factors like company culture or the experience of the agents themselves come into play in this scenario?

What do you think about that in terms of their satisfaction level? We spend a lot of time thinking about customer satisfaction, but how do we think of the agent experience and their satisfaction level? How does that rise in importance, and what do you think about it?

[00:15:51] Candace Wallace: It’s equally important. Imagine having the worst day in the world and your entire job is talking to people. How bad would it be? How would that come across in a phone call? For everyone who’s human, it’s hard to separate those two things.

Therefore, the employee culture piece is crucial. Within our business, we put just as much equal weight. Even when we think about our company, OKR objectives, and key results, we focus on elements related to culture. So, we’re measuring things like employee net promoter score. We’re measuring things related to your employee engagement index.

Do our employees feel engaged and perceive opportunities for professional development and growth within the business? Additionally, we assess factors like the manager empowerment index, which consists of various questions aimed at ensuring our managers effectively support the development of our frontline team members.

You must strike a balance because if your team members aren’t content and don’t feel they’re growing, it’ll be challenging for them to deliver an exceptional customer experience and evolve with the organization as needed. Therefore, both employee satisfaction and professional development must be given equal weight.

[00:16:58] Steve MacDonald: You just dropped another major reframing point of view because everybody will talk at the board level about customer satisfaction but nobody talks at the board level about agent satisfaction and experience. You said these are two important things, and you explained exactly why they make perfect sense. I lightly touched on the conversation about the company culture and how that impacts the agent and the customer. I wouldn’t say that, over the dawn of time, company culture has been something the chief customer officer or chief experience officer would have focused on. Still, that’s an expanded area of real importance that you’re focusing on today.

[00:17:41] Candace Wallace: I would say that. Whatever CXO you are, I think that if employee culture is not part of what you consider to be a key responsibility, you want to drive and engage the workforce.

That comes with transparency, communication, and room for opportunity and growth. No one goes into a job not wanting to learn more and grow their career with you. One of the great benefits of having a great self-service focus is that it adds career pathing, growth, and development for the folks within your contact center as well.

We are constantly thinking and evolving about, ‘Okay. As your universe changes, how do we look at our competency matrix and the skills we require? Where do we need more role differentiation because of what’s left and what folks are doing?’ You have to be constantly watching, evolving, and ensuring that while you’re evolving the needs of the customer, you’re evolving the universe of your employees along with that.

Inside our support team here at Relias, we’re very proud that most of our turnover is promoted to other roles across the business. That is something that we really do; it’s just built into how we operate. We know we need trainers regularly to help us bring folks on, onboard them, and help them be effective because we’re going to grow them into something that others in the business want.

You have to understand where people are going and what you can do. You just have to own it to help them be successful and it will also help you succeed.

[00:19:09] Steve MacDonald: I was actually talking to a CRO and CMO, and they attributed 50 percent of the company’s success to the culture inside of their company. The CRO has sales underneath them. They attributed 50% of their success to the culture. So, I love what you’re saying there. You also talked about reducing agent turnover, giving them career paths, and things like that.

Agent turnover is one of those problems I’d classify as a high-level problem that we learned to live with. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of the agent in handling the meatier and more complex cases. On a scale of one to ten, how important is agent turnover to the business’s overall success, vitality, and growth?

One, it’s not important at all. ten, it’s vital to the overall growth and success of the business. How would you rate that on that scale?

[00:20:06] Candace Wallace: I’d be up in that 8 to 10 range. I think it’s not just agents but everyone in your business, and the reality is we have a constantly evolving workforce. Across any company out there, the folks who join your business day-to-day are your people. Your people are your culture.

Sometimes the word culture can be a loaded term because, how are you trying to define people? Are you only looking for certain types of people? The reality is that I want people who work hard, who communicate well, and who have a passion for what they do. But the culture that we create, it’s created by our teams.

Your culture is constantly evolving and changing with every level of turnover and growth with new roles. You have control over your workplace environment and how you want it to operate, but you also control the culture of your business and your people, and you bring in new people every day.

That’s why it’s really important to regularly survey, skip levels, and engage across the business. You’re always going to be off the mark. You’ll take feedback and constantly adjust how you operate. 

Your workforce changes year over year, sometimes quarter over quarter, so it’s your job as a leader to listen to your people and consistently find ways to improve because it’s changing. It’s always evolving. So you’ll never be 100 percent on point and that’s okay. Your job is to get as close to it as you can through constant evolution.

That’s important for folks to recognize because of motivation styles and how people like to work the schedules they’re looking for. It changes constantly. If I were to try to run our teams based on what people wanted or how they operated from even three years ago, it would be wrong because that’s not what folks want nowadays. Sometimes you must stop pushing people to where you need them to be and start understanding where the workforce is going and how you can evolve with it. 

[00:21:57] Steve MacDonald: I’m glad you mentioned that it’s everybody in the company, but at the same time, the agents. They’re your front line, the interface with the customer, and that’s why you put customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and agent satisfaction at an equal level. The turnover is not something that we want.

Everything you’re doing and working on that experience that they have and that the career paths and everything can take over and help that. You’re also upgrading, changing, or evolving the kind of agent. How is that going to address or impact agent turnover? Are you going to be looking for a different profile?

[00:22:36] Candace Wallace: We are responsible for both levels of this. If I adjust competencies based on business needs, I have a responsibility to upskill my staff. Then, I also have to consider how I can evaluate and bring in folks with those different skills when I’m hiring.

Whenever you enhance your staff’s skills and competencies, it’s essential to consider salary ranges and industry benchmarks. As these aspects evolve, other elements associated with them also undergo changes. Certain skills may become more crucial, leading to a need for different types of expertise. While foundational skills remain essential, there’s a growing demand for technical skills and expertise as teams evolve and transform.

It’s really important to stay close to that data. Once again, there it is, but looking at all of the information about what customers need from you tells you about what you need from your teams. Then, it’s your job to be able to sit down and come up with development plans and other programs to help folks evolve as that takes place and to really think about whether you’re going to work with this type of customer on this type of technology.

What skills and competencies are uniquely required of you in this environment? Elements of specialization become essential. I think a lot of contact centers do great jobs with skills-based routing and evaluating certain types of folks to work on certain types of cases, but that’s going to shift over time as well. You just have to constantly watch and change along the way. 

[00:24:12] Steve MacDonald: The whole goal here is why? Why are we advocating for downward CSAT scores? Why are we advocating for things taking metrics in the wrong direction? What has typically been the wrong direction?

What is the single most important takeaway that you want people to have from everything we’ve talked about here? 

[00:24:28] Candace Wallace: The reality is that you’re meeting your customer base where they want you to be, and that’s important in a highly digital world. People want the right information in the smallest bite-size amount so that they can get it at the right time.

When that’s not enough, they want a direct pathway and escalation to a human being who can help them solve that complexity. The most important thing you can remember is that you’re doing these things because your customers are looking for them.

If that’s what your customers want and they’re happy with the experience, it will drive the larger company metrics that matter. It’s going to help you with your growth, retention, and profit margins. All of these things matter in the big picture, but it all starts with what your customers actually want from you, which is the most important job: understanding your customers.

[00:25:21] Steve MacDonald: It makes sense. It’s so basic. We all tend to have that focus, but it’s how we get there—how we look at the trends, how we use AI and technologies to get there, and how we adapt new ways to serve the customer, that’s the bottom line that I’m taking away from everything you’ve been saying.

If others had additional follow-up questions and wanted to get ahold of you, would it be appropriate if we gave out a link to your LinkedIn profile? 

[00:25:52] Candace Wallace: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:25:54] Steve MacDonald: Candace, thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this with us.

This is how everyone can share valuable insights. If the community shares amongst itself, the rising tide lifts all boats. We just really appreciate what you’re doing here for us today. 

[00:26:03] Candace Wallace: Absolutely. Thank you for the conversation, Steve.