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CALL CENTRES IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY
- An engine for growth
by Okay Victor Oguike
11th OCT 2006
Many companies can turn their call centres into powerful engines for growth.
A few years ago it was almost impossible to reach your bank either because they had limited phone services or that the few they had were always busy or the phones were out of order or maybe you didn’t have the numbers available to reach them. Another reason could be the Avers / Auto attendants that most banks use that toss people from one prompt to another until the person eventually hangs up (frustrating if caller doesn’t understand English). My advice to those investing huge sums in Auto attendants in Nigeria is to stop! It is a cultural thing; Nigerians don’t like listening or talking to a machine.
However, these days with the advancement in technology (with deregulation of the telecom industry) there are several phone services and banks keep adding and changing telephone lines at will, rendering the most current directory service inadequate.
Add the above to consolidation that has resulted in most banks merging, adding and dropping some branches, and hence contact telephone numbers. All these have resulted in an identity loss/crisis and left clients and the public in general even more confused.
The solution lies in a room full of live-multilingual polite operators (agents) who are ready to pick up every call from any part of the country, speaking any of the major languages with head set on their heads. This arrangement of people taking processing and routing calls is a typical call centre.
The concept of call centres though new in the Nigerian context has the potential to be the next big thing in terms of service delivery and Banks are encouraged to adopt same in line with global practices.
What is a Call Centre?
A call centre is a well-structured facility set up to manage telephone calls in an orderly and cost efficient manner from customers and public. They are run by skilled professionals and act (primarily but not limited to) as a bridge between the customer and the organisations.
The competitive nature of most service oriented businesses and the premium attached to customer services and satisfaction has made managing contacts through call centres an all important and significant aspect of any business. The way and manner that contacts are managed by organisations is very important as every call to an organisation should be considered as a challenge and a potential revenue earner.
There are various call centre types with services ranging from basic call answering to more complicated tasks as customer service, relationship management, surveys, tele- marketing, help desks operations, market intelligence etc.
However, whatever type they must be seen as key contributors to any business and must consider each call to an organisation as the beginning of a ‘process’ which if managed properly will be a significant contributor to organisations vision.
There are different types of Call Centres(CC): Phone call centre , telemarketing CC, customer service CC, inbound/ outbound etc and all have their impending benefits all in a bid satisfying clients and callers with the ultimate goal of shoring up revenues for such organistaions.
Most companies hadn't even considered the revenue potential of inbound customer service call centers. But today, in most Banks of the Advanced Economies(and why not Nigeria) call centers generate up to 25 percent of total new revenues, for instance, some credit card companies and up to 60 percent for some telcos. The top priority of agents in these call centers is resolving service issues. But they are also encouraged to initiate conversations to uncover the needs of customers, and this component of the job can lead to sales of new products or upgrades of current ones.
Partly for fear that a sales pitch will put off customers seeking service, other sectors, such as retail banking, have been slow to turn service calls into sales calls. Yet our research indicates that when agents meet the service needs of customers and then ask them about their broad needs in a sincere way, customers are receptive to buying new products.
We also find that companies have failed to tap the full revenue potential of their call centers because they just don't understand the extent of the opportunity. In retail banking, for example, we estimate that every five inbound service agents could generate as much new retail business as one mature branch. Since call centers can handle more than 30 percent of all customer interactions for top banks in America and Europe, efforts to cross-sell during inbound service calls could increase annual sales of new products by an amount equivalent to 10 percent of the retail sales generated by a bank's entire branch network such results should be attainable here in Nigeria.
To transform call centers, banks—and other companies in the early stages of efforts to turn service calls into sales—must first provide consistent, high-quality customer service. Then executives must ensure that all employees, from the top leadership to frontline agents, have the proper mind-set, motivation, and skills.
Untapped call center potential for banks
Banks have been slow to embrace a service-to-sales program, mostly because their products are inherently more complicated than, say, telecommunications products (call-waiting, for example). Researchers have shown in a survey of TOP banks in America that the service-to-sales performance of those retail banks that attach a high premium to their Call centre agents by motivating, training and monitoring effectively is much higher than those that don’t.
A typical scenario in a Nigerian context most calls to banks fall to a very busy bank executive who barely has time to answer the call let a lone cross sell other products and services. The call centre arrangement will free your core staff to take care of the core banking operations while routine call answering that most times may be routine requests for information can be dealt with by Agents who in turn will be able to deliver other services on that one call.
Banks have the potential to improve their average performance by employing call centres for better customer services, relationship management, helpdesk operations, telemarketing, information gathering etc which all in-turn increase revenues significantly.
A couple of American Banks have used the inbound customer service call centre as a powerful engines for growth as some of these banks sell up to four core products† for every 100 calls their service agents handle and as many as five additional relationship-building products (for example, direct deposit and online banking and bill-payment services, tax/rates payments, etc). We estimate similar results in the Nigerian Situation and can even go further to state that every five inbound service agents can generate new-product sales equivalent to the sales of one mature bank branch.
Align service-to-sales goals across the organization
Resistance to service-to-sales conversions among executives who work outside call centers is largely political. Many of these executives firmly believe that a branch "owns" each customer and that call centers are trying to grab sales (and related commissions and hence glory or maybe promotions) that rightly belong to the branch staff. To minimize such channel conflict, banks can adopt the method of a system that shares the benefits of any sale made through a call center between its agents and bankers in branches and that encourages them to work together.
Under this system, call center agents can book appointments with those bankers for customers, who receive a seamless service experience as a result.
Within the call centers themselves, managers and team leaders must believe that eliciting the needs of customers and recommending products are aspects of providing great service.
Customer feedback about which specific circumstances of sales attempts may have annoyed them can also be a useful tool.
One of the best ways for call center managers to set ambitious but attainable sales goals is to hold a pace-setting event, which involves working with a few teams of agents to introduce updated training, job aids, coaching, metrics, and incentives simultaneously. Success depends on the immediate measurement of results. Other needs include a constant feedback loop from the teams to the leadership about what could help them make sales and an effort to monitor both the customer experience and the agents' morale.
Finally, the economies of several Asian countries such as India have been buoyed owing to revenues accrued from Outsourcing Call Centres from Europe and America. Many American and European organisations have found it more profitable for have their call centres abroad and the technology has made it possible to for you to call a Company in America while you are answered several miles away in Asia without even knowing it. The Asian Governments have identified the potential from the volume of business and have provided the infrastructure and legislation that encourage private sector investment in Call Centres and it has paid off with billions streaming in from Abroad as well as employment for its citizens.
The Question is; Is Nigeria not of age to tap into this market since labour is cheap and the skilled force is available? It is a question for another day.
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