Complaints can often be symptomatic that information provided by the organisation is either:
Inadequate;
Doesn’t meet its users’ needs;
Is not visible;
Is difficult to access;
Is not written in plain language ;
Is not in a readable format; or
The format in which information is presented ( e.g. does it look like junk mail )
There are a number of essential elements or guiding principles an organisation should consider to ensure that there is effective communication/information on an ongoing basis regardless of the type of organisation. These include:
VISIBILITY:
how easy is it for consumers to find the sources of information? Accessibility: how easy is it for consumers to access the information? For example, are there multiple means of access such as phone, email, websites etc?
USABILITY:
This means having information provided in such a way that it is more useable and useful to consumers. Consider:
Making documents as short as possible;
Leaving out extraneous material;
Highlighting critical information;
Organising information in a logical way e.g. cascading the story from the simple to the more detailed;
Providing clear navigation around the document;
Using plain and direct language; and using a range of communication tools, including simple graphical illustrations.
FEEDBACK:
This means setting on place systems to receive information on customer information needs and on visibility, accessibility and usability on an ongoing basis.
Of course complaints are one way to tap into consumer needs but it is not the sole means. A complaints handling system that conforms to Quality Management: Customer Satisfaction--Guidelines for Complaints Handling (AS ISO 10002) should be established. Data collection and analysis can pinpoint where consumers have been misled, misunderstood or confused about information. When these inadequacies have been identified, rectification action can be undertaken.
One way to obtain feedback on these essential elements on an ongoing basis is to establish feedback mechanisms within the organisation made up of people with the necessary communication skills.
Feedback relating to current information needs may be obtained from sources including:
Customer feedback arrangements
Discussions with consumer groups & external dispute resolution providers
Staff
Regular management checks/monitoring Audits,
Complaints
Research
Customer feedback arrangements: these could include customer focus groups, or customer satisfaction surveys.
Discussions with consumer groups & external dispute resolution providers: consumer groups and industry Ombudsman have valuable data on information needs, format and accessibility issues.
Staff: feedback from staff, particularly customer contact staff, can come through the regular use of focus groups with expert facilitation. Another method of getting staff feedback is through the use of internal survey questionnaires.
Regular management checks/monitoring: regular checking and monitoring, such as mystery shopping, can ensure that information is meeting the essential elements.
Audits: audits undertaken by independent auditors can evaluate the performance of the information process. The audit could be undertaken as the Quality Management System audit where these exist.
Research: Processes for continuous improvement of information requirements and processes need to be set in place.
Continuous improvement activities could come about by:
Keeping abreast of best practices in both related and other industries, locally and overseas.
Membership and involvement in the activities of organisations that promote communication excellence.
Having a research and development mechanism for discovering current consumer information needs, material preparation and delivery
Having the appropriate technology to assist in discovering current consumer information needs, material preparation and delivery
Employing people who have experience and commitment to the continuous improvement of customer information and its delivery.
Employing lateral and creative thinkers.
Having a system in place for identifying process inadequacies on an ongoing basis with a view to ongoing process improvement. Encouraging innovation in information development, procedures and processes.
Given the extent of an organisations customer base and the need to keep them informed an organisation may want to consider employing an information designer. Information designers create and manage the relationship between people and information so that the information is accessible and usable by people. Such a person could:
Not only design information but also be responsible for implementation and monitoring management of information over the long term.
Ensure accessibility of information. The term accessible in this context covers ‘findability’. Accessible has another implication, one of inviting people in, being welcoming, open and approachable.
Ensuring that the information is usable.
Providing evidence that the information is accessible and usable to an agreed high standard.
Showing posts with label complaints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complaints. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Complaints handling: The importance of staff selection in call centres
The tragedy of the death of 17-year-old schoolboy David Iredale, who died of thirst after becoming lost in the Blue Mountains on a bushwalk, hit home to me the importance of culture and staff selection in call centres. It seems that the failure of triple-0 to respond in any useful or compassionate way to his calls of distress was a major factor in his death.
The Ambulance call centre manager told an inquest into David’s death that apathetic, uncaring, dismissive attitudes were prevalent in the Redfern emergency call centre at the time, and this had been like a "disease" in the organisation.
For me the incident raises two important questions about call centres: what sort of selection process do call centres have to hire people with a helpful and caring attitude and what do call centre do to foster a caring and helpful culture?
These two questions are critical in the area of any call centre because, firstly, if complaints made by phone are not handled properly they can escalate and, secondly, a mere inquiry could morph into a complaint. An organisation’s reputation can rest on how well calls are handled and, in a competitive environment; it could mean the difference between winning over and maintaining customers.
Selection Process
As the above tragic incident starkly shows there is a need to have a selection process to hire staff who are empathetic. Some of the things worth thinking about when hiring staff include employing those with:
Besides selecting the right people they need to have the right skills. Consider the following, for example:
Culture
Talk to anyone about the thing they dislike most about call centres and the major response will be long connection times or failure to connect quickly to a “talking head”.
Many of the problems consumers have with call centres come about from what I call an “inside-out “approach by the organisation and not an “outside-in” approach. By that I mean that some organisations organise their call centre around their needs and not those of their customers. With a bit of lateral thinking they could meet both their needs and those of their customers.
One wonders how much analysis is done of calls to call centres to determine the information needs of customers and see how much this in turn could result in information being placed on the website and such information being visible, accessible and easy to follow. The term accessible in this context covers ‘find-ability’. 'Accessible' has another implication, one of inviting people in, being welcoming, open, and approachable. It’s all about engagement. So if customers have an attractive and responsive alternative there will be less need to ring call centres and perhaps shorter connection times.
Long connection times seem to suggest to me:
While these matters could be dealt with by better management and resources one should never underestimate employing experienced people who have an excellent knowledge of the organisation, and its product and services as a quick and efficient way of dealing with customers.
Another aspect about culture is what I call “tone at the top”. Operators take their cue from the leadership of the company. If the organisation is not caring or putting a value on empathetic dealing with calls this will be reflected in the way operators deal with customers.
The Ambulance call centre manager told an inquest into David’s death that apathetic, uncaring, dismissive attitudes were prevalent in the Redfern emergency call centre at the time, and this had been like a "disease" in the organisation.
For me the incident raises two important questions about call centres: what sort of selection process do call centres have to hire people with a helpful and caring attitude and what do call centre do to foster a caring and helpful culture?
These two questions are critical in the area of any call centre because, firstly, if complaints made by phone are not handled properly they can escalate and, secondly, a mere inquiry could morph into a complaint. An organisation’s reputation can rest on how well calls are handled and, in a competitive environment; it could mean the difference between winning over and maintaining customers.
Selection Process
As the above tragic incident starkly shows there is a need to have a selection process to hire staff who are empathetic. Some of the things worth thinking about when hiring staff include employing those with:
- Good interpersonal skills including the ability to empathize with complainants.
- Enthusiasm for, and commitment to, an efficient, effective and fair complaints–handling system.
- Good communication skills, including being a good listener.
- A thorough knowledge or the capacity to quickly acquire knowledge of the organization’s products and structure, and a sense of pride and commitment to the company’s mission and values.
- An ability to assess objectively all relevant factors about the inquiries/complaints from the view of the customer/complainant and the company.
- The ability to handle stress in a calm and polite manner, and to be able to diffuse a customer’s anger.
- A positive outlook on life.
Besides selecting the right people they need to have the right skills. Consider the following, for example:
- Greeting Skills: Offers to help during the call ( A simple “How can I help you?”)
- Does the operator sound interested in what the caller has to say and empathetic to the caller’s needs?
- Does the operator engage the caller?
- Is the operator a good listener?
- Was the operator able to deal with the issue or give a reasonable response?
Culture
Talk to anyone about the thing they dislike most about call centres and the major response will be long connection times or failure to connect quickly to a “talking head”.
Many of the problems consumers have with call centres come about from what I call an “inside-out “approach by the organisation and not an “outside-in” approach. By that I mean that some organisations organise their call centre around their needs and not those of their customers. With a bit of lateral thinking they could meet both their needs and those of their customers.
One wonders how much analysis is done of calls to call centres to determine the information needs of customers and see how much this in turn could result in information being placed on the website and such information being visible, accessible and easy to follow. The term accessible in this context covers ‘find-ability’. 'Accessible' has another implication, one of inviting people in, being welcoming, open, and approachable. It’s all about engagement. So if customers have an attractive and responsive alternative there will be less need to ring call centres and perhaps shorter connection times.
Long connection times seem to suggest to me:
- an understaffed centre
- an understaffed centre during peak periods
- longer times to deal with customers because of the nature of the goods and services on offer
- combination of some or all of the above.
While these matters could be dealt with by better management and resources one should never underestimate employing experienced people who have an excellent knowledge of the organisation, and its product and services as a quick and efficient way of dealing with customers.
Another aspect about culture is what I call “tone at the top”. Operators take their cue from the leadership of the company. If the organisation is not caring or putting a value on empathetic dealing with calls this will be reflected in the way operators deal with customers.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
How to make your compliance program sustainable
“Sustainability” is one of the buzz words of our age, one which even has some relevance to regulatory compliance. There are a number of indicia that a compliance program needs to have before it can be said to be sustainable. I would maintain that without these following features a compliance program will struggle and cease to be effective.
From the outset every organisation needs to have a compliance management system which, at least, contains the features discussed below.
First there has to be genuine top management support. This largely manifests itself in ensuring the compliance function is adequately resourced to meet the organisations regulatory requirements and that there is accountability.
In the course of his reasons for decision in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Australian Safeway Stores and George Weston Foods in relation to penalty Federal Court judge Mr Justice Goldberg referred to the duties of the board of directors and senior executives:
‘It is very important in this area that responsibility be assumed and discharged by the board of directors and senior executives and management for compliance by the corporation with its obligations under the Act. It is the board of directors which supervises and ultimately controls the executive and operational aspects of a corporation’s commercial activities.’
The Board’s involvement in compliance translates into receiving regular and timely reports on high regulatory and common law risks for the organisation, compliance controls developed to manage these risks, how the controls are being maintained (reviews, audits, and incidents and their rectification).
Equally as important is the fact that the compliance function itself needs to have sufficient stature in the organisation and have “clout”.
.
Although compliance is everyone’s responsibility there needs to be someone overseeing the system as a “ringmaster” i.e. a Compliance Manager. As suggested above, that person needs to have sufficient status and authority (“presence” and “gravitas”) within the organisation to ensure that they are taken notice of. I would go further and argue that the Compliance Manager, however so called, should be part of the leadership/decision making team so that compliance issues can be identified from the word “go” and compliance built in early so that it seamlessly becomes part of the goods and services offered by an organisation. This is important because it casts the role of the Compliance Manager as an “in-house” consultant/adviser rather than someone who comes in late in the process and causes resentment by asking others to go back to the drawing boards and changing the design of goods and services therefore adding to the cost.
Skills in leading others are another feature of sustainability in compliance. There are two aspects to this. The first is what I call “tone at the top”, an expression which has become a compliance mantra for industry and regulators in recognition of organisational leaders’ significant influence on employee attitudes, and as a consequence, organisational behaviour. Those at the top are the ones who are noticed and from whom employees take their cue. The tone must be such that top management makes it clear that it wants compliance embedded seamlessly into the organisation’s activities. The second is the attributes of the Compliance Manager. He or she needs to be able to manage relationships, not subordinate, practice collegiality and be a competent advocate for compliance.
Building in compliance from inception is what I call “Compliance Design” and is an integral part of sustainability in compliance.
Every organisation needs to assess its regulatory obligations on an ongoing basis and the risk that lack of controls would pose for the organisation. This requires advocacy on the need for controls and collegiality in developing them. You also need to put the finger on who is responsible for operating those controls, whether they have the competencies to carry them out and ,if not, what training is required.
Compliance is not only about having processes but also ensuring that there is compliant behaviour. In this respect the right tone at the top is critical. Compliant behaviour is more likely to occur when staff are “sold” the reasons for compliance and are part of the system design, and then processes designed are empathetic to their particular day-to-day operations. Needless to say non conformance may require additional training, mentoring or coaching and, in the case of indifference, or intentional or reckless non conformance, some form of serious consequence.
Appropriate compliance behaviour can come about by regular formal training on relevant laws which “at risk” staff must conform to. Many companies do this training annually. However, that training needs to be reinforced between annual training sessions by keeping relevant regulatory issues “front of mind” throughout the year. In the trade practices area one device I recommend is being on the ACCC’s Web Alerts. A point on communications:
Limit them to your “real world” risks
Relate them to the real world your organisation operates in on a day-to-day basis;
Keep the message simple and understandable (no lawspeak).
Try “roadtesting” the material.
Understanding the message is the end game.
One potential weak link in any compliance program is to failing to ensure that newly recruited staff are reminded of their compliance obligations from day one. I am reminded of a Federal Court decision based on a breach of the competition law provisions of the Trade Practices Act where a new recruit had joined the company just after the annual trade practices training so was unaware of his responsibilities and so breached the TPA out of ignorance.
Another important aspect of sustainability is to have a proper maintenance/auditing program to make sure that the systems/controls you have developed are (a) being applied and (b) effectively so. It’s the equivalent of “kicking the tires” occasionally.
Having an independent review every so often gives the system a reality check to see that it is delivering effectively.
From the outset every organisation needs to have a compliance management system which, at least, contains the features discussed below.
First there has to be genuine top management support. This largely manifests itself in ensuring the compliance function is adequately resourced to meet the organisations regulatory requirements and that there is accountability.
In the course of his reasons for decision in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Australian Safeway Stores and George Weston Foods in relation to penalty Federal Court judge Mr Justice Goldberg referred to the duties of the board of directors and senior executives:
‘It is very important in this area that responsibility be assumed and discharged by the board of directors and senior executives and management for compliance by the corporation with its obligations under the Act. It is the board of directors which supervises and ultimately controls the executive and operational aspects of a corporation’s commercial activities.’
The Board’s involvement in compliance translates into receiving regular and timely reports on high regulatory and common law risks for the organisation, compliance controls developed to manage these risks, how the controls are being maintained (reviews, audits, and incidents and their rectification).
Equally as important is the fact that the compliance function itself needs to have sufficient stature in the organisation and have “clout”.
.
Although compliance is everyone’s responsibility there needs to be someone overseeing the system as a “ringmaster” i.e. a Compliance Manager. As suggested above, that person needs to have sufficient status and authority (“presence” and “gravitas”) within the organisation to ensure that they are taken notice of. I would go further and argue that the Compliance Manager, however so called, should be part of the leadership/decision making team so that compliance issues can be identified from the word “go” and compliance built in early so that it seamlessly becomes part of the goods and services offered by an organisation. This is important because it casts the role of the Compliance Manager as an “in-house” consultant/adviser rather than someone who comes in late in the process and causes resentment by asking others to go back to the drawing boards and changing the design of goods and services therefore adding to the cost.
Skills in leading others are another feature of sustainability in compliance. There are two aspects to this. The first is what I call “tone at the top”, an expression which has become a compliance mantra for industry and regulators in recognition of organisational leaders’ significant influence on employee attitudes, and as a consequence, organisational behaviour. Those at the top are the ones who are noticed and from whom employees take their cue. The tone must be such that top management makes it clear that it wants compliance embedded seamlessly into the organisation’s activities. The second is the attributes of the Compliance Manager. He or she needs to be able to manage relationships, not subordinate, practice collegiality and be a competent advocate for compliance.
Building in compliance from inception is what I call “Compliance Design” and is an integral part of sustainability in compliance.
Every organisation needs to assess its regulatory obligations on an ongoing basis and the risk that lack of controls would pose for the organisation. This requires advocacy on the need for controls and collegiality in developing them. You also need to put the finger on who is responsible for operating those controls, whether they have the competencies to carry them out and ,if not, what training is required.
Compliance is not only about having processes but also ensuring that there is compliant behaviour. In this respect the right tone at the top is critical. Compliant behaviour is more likely to occur when staff are “sold” the reasons for compliance and are part of the system design, and then processes designed are empathetic to their particular day-to-day operations. Needless to say non conformance may require additional training, mentoring or coaching and, in the case of indifference, or intentional or reckless non conformance, some form of serious consequence.
Appropriate compliance behaviour can come about by regular formal training on relevant laws which “at risk” staff must conform to. Many companies do this training annually. However, that training needs to be reinforced between annual training sessions by keeping relevant regulatory issues “front of mind” throughout the year. In the trade practices area one device I recommend is being on the ACCC’s Web Alerts. A point on communications:
Limit them to your “real world” risks
Relate them to the real world your organisation operates in on a day-to-day basis;
Keep the message simple and understandable (no lawspeak).
Try “roadtesting” the material.
Understanding the message is the end game.
One potential weak link in any compliance program is to failing to ensure that newly recruited staff are reminded of their compliance obligations from day one. I am reminded of a Federal Court decision based on a breach of the competition law provisions of the Trade Practices Act where a new recruit had joined the company just after the annual trade practices training so was unaware of his responsibilities and so breached the TPA out of ignorance.
Another important aspect of sustainability is to have a proper maintenance/auditing program to make sure that the systems/controls you have developed are (a) being applied and (b) effectively so. It’s the equivalent of “kicking the tires” occasionally.
Having an independent review every so often gives the system a reality check to see that it is delivering effectively.
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