I just wanted to start by thanking all of you that were able to attend our inaugural SSF UK Customer Service Network Event – the turnout far exceeded what Paul (Quinti – Co-Chair) and myself could have imagined and the level of engagement from all of the attendees just goes to show that this was a forum type that our members had wanted to get involved in.
Without pre-empting what our members wanted we asked them what they were hoping to gain from our launch event (on Sli.do of course!) and straight away it reflected what SSF UK stands for – insights, collaboration, best practice, knowledge sharing, what good looks like. The majority of our attendees work in Shared Service operations that support both internal and external customers, so to them ‘good’ customer service is of a paramount importance to keep the wheels turning; having accountability and getting it right first time are what makes this happen. And it’s not as though all of our members have established customer service approaches as when asked it showed that there was a pretty even split between those just forming, those finding their feet, and those pretty well established (over 5 years) but still wanting to learn, grow, and adapt to the same changes as all of our Shared Service areas.
With sli.do as our guide, we asked the contributors to let us know what were their top 3 metrics used to measure customer service for their business – CSAT/Net promoter scores came out on top, but measurement against agreed SLAs also figured frequently, as well as the usual metrics you would find in a call centre environment. This was also reflect when asked around how much time as a team was spent focused on the customer experience with over 60% saying that this was either 50%+ or 75%+ of their efforts – although 80% of them also said that they should be spending more time on that same area, showing how highly our members value their customers and their journey.
As with all businesses we needed to ask our members about change and they didn’t disappoint – major topics like mindset, systems, culture, and team discipline came up in the conversation. They have a passion to be the best and many of our members are looking at RPA solutions and chatbots as well as updating their CRM systems, updating their channels of contact, and some moving away from SLA focused work to a more holistic relationship with their customers. We have all have to make some big changes over the last couple of years (and I’m not going to use the ‘c’ word!) and our members made us aware that they’re focusing on multi skilled teams, hybrid working, and leadership training to help improve and focus their services.
For most of our attending members it was agreed that now feels like a time of rapid change; forced forward through quick paced cultural changes for our customers, and this in itself has brought about it’s own productivity challenges. We are all experiencing issues around resourcing, either through the movement of staff around our industries (and out of them for some staff!), changes in how our staff want to be heard and treated, and through the change in wage structures and the cost to serve. These things are what make our forum a fantastic place to share those changes, and discuss what we are going to do or are doing about them – because we’ve all got our experiences to share and we can all gain from the knowledge that others can give us, either through their successes or their failures.
You can view and download the sli.do results HERE
You can view the session HERE
Looking forward to seeing you all for the next event which is taking place at Amey, Speke on Tuesday April 5th. Details on the agenda and timings to be shared soon.
