Transaction Handle Time
Last month we looked at measuring our First Contact Resolution rate. This month we will be reviewing the handle time of customer transactions and its effect on the customer experience. Normally as customers we like to take the time to fully express our needs or wants at every service point and would become irritated when rushed by the attending customer service rep (CSR). This feeling of being rushed is often looked on as rudeness from the CSR.
Human resource management is usually inclined to quantify the amount of work done by CSR’s by the number of customer interactions they may have handled for the review period. A huge percentage of their performance review is normally based on this factor.
While this may seem a logical measurement we must be careful not to put our customer relationships at risk with this evaluation criterion. If our major focus as an organisation is to ensure customer satisfaction then we must allow our CSR’s ample time to deal with these transactions otherwise we will be putting our customer relationships at risk. It becomes a contradiction of sorts if we request our CSR’s to minimise the amount of time spent on each customer interaction, (thereby increasing the number of transactions) and also ensure all customers needs are met and even exceeded.
Human instincts would normally drive the average person to apply a speedy courteous approach to the customer interaction to the detriment of the customer experience. This is so because no one wants to be identified as “not having met his/her targets”. And the consequence of unmet targets would normally reflect on the employee’s pay cheque.
So what do you think and what is currently implemented in your environment? Are you measuring the quality of the interactions and maintaining your customer relationships or are you measuring the quantity/ number of transactions handled by your CSR’s?
Tags: handle time