That was the 10th Call Center Convention

On 11th October 2007, the industry highlight for company directors, decision-makers and managers of the customer and call center world took place for what was already the 10th time: the Call Center Convention in Vienna.

 

International experts, compact insider-information and know-how transfer from Europe’s best - all packed into half a day: more than 200 guests from the whole of Europe profited from the international know-how of the 6 keynote speakers within the framework of the Call Center Convention 2007. Current trends and developments in customer care and the call center business in the new Europe were the focus of the incentive speakers. What united the guests and speakers of the 10th Call Center Convention was a common language: the transnational language of the love of customers and the pleasure in the professionalization of the industry.

 

The call center success story
In his celebratory opening speech, Dr. Hans Jörg Schelling, vice president of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, highlighted the relevance of the call center industry as an economic factor. The entire communications strategy could not be imagined without the call center. Dr. Schelling emphasized the quality and service orientation of the call center service provider as especially pleasing. In this connection, he cited the industry’s economic operating figures: thus, in Austria there are currently 500 call centers, which employ 35 – 40,000 employees in 25,000 workstations. The young industry features an average age of 30 years. 75% of the call center employees are women, who find ideal conditions for work and family at the call center employer on account of the high flexibility.

 

United by one language
The CCC expansions manageress Carita Vallinkoski, who was presented with the award of the “Best Contact Center Leader in the World” last year in Las Vegas, welcomed the guests and speakers to the 10th Call Center Convention in 10 languages. In the name of the host CCC, Carita Vallinkoski invited the participants of the 10th Call Center Convention to participate in a lively exchange of thoughts and networking, and announced the excellent speakers of international standard. For Carita, the reason behind the development of the Call Center Convention from an Austrian industry event into a leading event for the “DACH” region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), and ultimately into an international event, lies in a common language, which unites all participants of the 10th Call Center Convention: the love of customer care, of customers, of competence and of quality.

 

International industry experts at the 10th Call Center Convention
The presenter and keynote speaker, Ann-Marie Stagg, gave the guests an overview of the call center trends in the UK. The call center expert manages the insurance services of the financial services co-operative and is chairwoman of the Call Center Management Association in the UK, as well as vice president of the European Confederation of Contact Centre Organisations (ECCO), whose mission is the professionalization of the call center industry. Last year, Ann-Marie was presented with the award of “European Call Centre Industry Champion”.
In the past 10 years, the call center market in the UK has been characterized by a significant growth. 3.1% of British workers are employed in call centers. In contrast: in the USA, every 10th working person is already a call center employee. Between 1995 and 2010, the UK’s call center industry will register a growth of 114%. On account of the public and political pressure on the industry, the outbound volume of the entire call center volume is sinking to 29.1%. The British are up against similar challenges to those of continental Europeans. Ann-Marie placed particular emphasis on the image work. The industry’s role models are being increasingly called to the stage on account of numerous industry awards. The public perception of the industry as the heart of every organization and as a mouthpiece to customers deserves to be better appreciated and recognized for the valuable tasks that are fulfilled by the call center agents on a daily basis.

 

Emotions on the telephone
Dr. Hüseyin Güngör presented the research results on the subject of the “Emotional Satisfaction of Customer Contacts”. In this study, Hüseyin succeeded in demonstrating that frontline employees are able to actively perceive, characterize and document the customer satisfaction within a service discussion. The innovator tools have thus been developed for the evaluation of information – these serve to reveal the service deficiencies, the increasing of sales productivity, as well as the further development of organizational learning methods for more satisfaction and loyalty from the side of the customers. His core message is that there is room for optimization in every call center, whereby objective cognition is subject to the emotional opinion of the customers in each case. Service, convenience and positive emotions are mainly responsible for customer loyalty. For the identification of customer loyalty, Hüseyin calls for a change to be made in the valuation habits, and to offer the employees more opportunities to get involved.  Call center employees are in direct contact with customers, and only they are able to characterize the customers’ emotional states and interests. This 2-dimensional approach has already been tested empirically and put into use in the Netherlands and the UK.

 

Walk the Talk
In honor of the 800th birthday of the Turkish scholar Mevlana, the Call Center Manager of the Year 2005, Ozge Tekalp, demonstrated that she was not only able to talk about the subject of change, but that she could transform the call center service into a dynamic “power house”. “Walk the Talk” is one of her leadership inspirations. In her fascinating Finansbank case study, Ozge focused on the question of how much it costs to neglect a customer.  During her lively presentation, she described how she transformed a service oriented call center into a sales oriented team. This cultural change process not only applied to the in-house call center, but also to both of the outsourcing partners. Ozge emphasized the relevance of a common language, a common culture and common, coordinated goals, in addition to a well-functioning and regular feedback loop. With a great deal of creativity, innovation, agent empowerment and flexibility, Ozge has reached this goal with her team.

 

New challenges for the call center industry
“It is increasingly about the individual adjustment to the demands of the individual countries,” said Andreas Kroniger, director of EU customer support at eBay, explaining the challenges facing the Internet auction house. With more than 241 million registered members worldwide and activities in 38 international markets, the adjustment to customer needs on a country level is increasingly the priority at eBay. Although the European customer support for the new countries is centralized at the German location of Dreilingen, the international subsidiaries are based within the respective markets. The service design of the companies is influenced both by the customer value, as well as by the different market and competition situations within the individual countries. Whilst the German e-commerce market is characterized by its maturity, Internet trade in Spain, Italy or Poland is still in the growth period, according to Andreas. Through the differentiation of the markets in the customer service area, the needs of the individual countries can be met much more quickly, among other things.

 

Leadership inspiration
“One must lead with a vision, and that on a daily basis,“ said Robert (Bob) Murray, vice president of customer operations at Vodafone Romania, describing his understanding of leadership. As a manager, one has to have visions every day; the question as to the “why” and the company goal should be put in front of the financial aims, according to Bob. Managers must concentrate on their visions and must not lose sight of the positive aspects of their goals. In his presentation, Bob focused upon two especially inspiring events. Thus, it was not just the climbing of Kilimanjaro, but also an encounter with the rock singer Billy Idol that made him clear about the meaning of managers and their visions. In both cases, outsiders showed him which values should be given priority in order to successfully attain the set goals.

 

Global flexibility
The increasing importance of the global flexibility of a service-provider was raised by Sebastian Fisar, global contact center manager at Nokia. The Nokia contact centers are 100 percent outsourced, explained Fisar. The reduction of sites and therewith of costs should be reached accordingly. Globally, Nokia brings two new products onto the market every week; in this connection, contact centers also have an important role to play. “It is important that customer feedback is passed on immediately,” said, Fisar. By software departments finding out about challenges, for example, they are able to eliminate them more quickly.

 

At the same time, cultural differences in the different markets nevertheless represent one of the biggest challenges for the international mobile phone manufacturer, said Fisar. “There are big differences from country to country and from continent to continent,” continued Fisar, describing the challenges in comparison to the increased satisfaction values. However, with the aid of a “target chart”, which details in which themes the values in the individual countries should lie, evaluations could also be made possible without the transnational comparison.

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