The latest report from the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) is out. Each month, mystery shoppers representing ACXPA make calls to a variety of call centres in Australia. During September, mystery shoppers contacted 35 contact centres representing 5 industry sectors. The compiled data and results enable contact centres to enact call centre improvements and improve the overall customer experience.
Accessibility Score
The Accessibility Score illustrates how easy it is to make contact with a representative at a call centre. It’s based on factors that take place before interacting with a live call centre agent, such as search, design, ease, audio and timing. Some elements adjudicated upon include queue wait times, audio quality and technical glitches.
Now that we know what the Accessibility Score is, let’s highlight some key data and statistics gleaned from the report.
- Compared to August results, it was easier to connect with a live contact centre agent during September. Figures show an improvement from 60.3% in August to 69.1% during September across all sectors. Councils and banks were the biggest improvers.
- Pre and post-Interactive Voice Response (IVR) messaging took an average of 00:30 minutes. Internet Providers were the shortest at an average of 00:07 minutes while Energy Providers took the longest, averaging 00:54 minutes.
- September saw an improvement in time stuck in an IVR (Press 1, Press 2 etc.). August saw an average of 00:43 minutes, while in September the average was 00:35 minutes. Energy Providers were once against the tardiest with an average of 00:53 minutes. Internet providers came in the quickest at 00:20 minutes.
- Good news on average wait time. It dropped by 28% in September. August averaged 02:57 minutes while September averaged 02.06 minutes.
Quality Score Rankings
The Quality Score Rankings or Quality Insights Score (QIS) measures the overall customer experience (CX) when interacting with an agent from a contact centre. This includes sales calls and customer service calls. Five core competencies are used in the scoring.
- Engage: This competency covers four different behaviours – Welcome, Intent, Name, Bridge.
- Discover: Discover is the measurement of three different behaviours – Converse, Listen, Confirm.
- Educate: This competency measures these four behaviours – Inform, Checks, Seek, Confidence.
- Close: Close measures three behaviours – Check, Gratitude, Farewell.
- Energy: Energy measures these four behaviours – Vibrancy, Empathy, Control, Delivery.
Let’s now highlight some key findings on QIS from the ACXPA September report.
- September saw a somewhat modest improvement on August with regards to quality across the industry, with a 6.2% improvement. Overall, the industry continued to perform at a subpar level. The final rating was ‘Below Standard’ at 59.4%.
- In September, the worst performing competency was ‘Engage’. This competency also came in lowest in August. In fact, it’s the only competency to receive a ‘Poor’ rating at just 39.6%. This data demonstrated that front-line employees are likely not well-versed in building strong first impressions with customers.
Improving your call centre scores
At Premier Contact Point, we offer a range of practical solutions that will help you improve your call centre scores to further enhance the customer experience.
Omnichannel Agent Desktop
An omnichannel platform incorporates different methods of customer interaction and contact points, such as calls, email, web chat and SMS interactions. The Omnichannel Agent Desktop is the only platform you’ll need to handle all your customer interactions.
Agents can process multiple calls, SMS, web chat and email all at the same time and from just one screen. This provides a consistent CX across all enabled channels and also reduces the number of applications agents need to use.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Remove common contact centre pain points with an intelligent IVR solution. Here are just some of the key features.
Visual IVR provides an app-like experience on a smartphone. Customers are able to provide information to agents regarding their call. The platform also offers an intuitive self-service experience where customers can find answers to questions via personalised menus and screens.
Staff are able to deliver a personalised CX, reduce handling times, waiting queues and inbound contact volumes with inbuilt contact management. Rapidly display important customer information (interaction history, customer details, contact notes) and route contacts to the most suitable agent.
Speech-enabled IVR means customers can navigate to what they need fast. Natural language understanding ensures high accuracy.
CX apps
Customer experience apps allow customers to view the queue wait time and also offer personal queuing to save the customer valuable time.
All these features also ensure happier agents who are less stressed and ultimately more able to deliver a positive CX.
Request a demo
Take the next step in improving your contact centre’s quality score by requesting a demo of Premier Contact Point’s innovative and intuitive platform. With our one-on-one demo, you’ll discover our impressive range of features and see how you can improve your contact centre and customer experience. We can even tailor your demo to your requirements and interests.
Get in touch today if you have any questions by calling one of our friendly staff on 1300 85 11 11.