We were delighted to attend the Global ABS conference in London last month with our sister company Rockstead. It was great to hold face to face conversations with our clients and potential new clients. There was a hot topic of debate; what percentage of customer calls do customer operations centres monitor?
We had interesting discussions; the percentages varied (wildly in some cases). Some firms saw 5% as a reasonable benchmark while others routinely monitored 25% of all calls. Other firms measured a set number of monitored calls per staff member per month, regardless of what percentage that turned out to be. The difference was largely driven by firms trying to balance costs, time and resources. However, the common theme that really resonated was that no one we spoke with thought that they were doing enough, and no one we spoke with thought that regulators requirements were reducing. What was clear was that there was no industry consensus, even given the narrow market focus of the attendees, as to what constituted ‘reasonable steps’ or what constituted ‘best practice’ in the eyes of regulators.
More worrying than the lack of clarity on measurement standards, there was also a more laissez-faire attitude of ‘if it isn’t broken don’t fix it’. But, let’s be honest, it is broken. You only need to scan some of the decision notices issued by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to see that a lack of call handler oversight has led to serious customer detriment, and substantial fines for delinquent firms. No wonder the FCA focus is shifting from the woolly ‘treating customers fairly’ statement to a more robust ‘customer duty’ requirement.
In a way, the debate is unnecessary as emerging technologies, such as Yabber Global, allow firms to monitor 100% of all calls. We can do this efficiently and cost effectively; even without factoring in the cost of fines and lost reputations in the current ‘broken’ way of working. Our system is proven to help firms improve compliance, reduce costs, and increase revenue. To learn more, arrange a demo of the system or simply have a chat, give us a call to find out how we can help.