How to Ensure You Get the Right Call Center Consultant

Bringing an external resource into your organization is a big decision and one that can have a significant impact on your operation’s direction and results.  If done right, the impact can be very positive; if done wrong, you can be left with additional headaches, not to mention the wasted time and resources. Because we’ve been in your shoes and understand the challenges you face, we developed this guide to assist you in determining your needs, identifying what to look for in a consulting partner, and understanding what to expect.

We all know that budgets are getting tighter; you want to be sure to get the most out of every dollar spent. This guide will ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Consultants enable organizations to obtain specific subject matter expertise to successfully address challenges without adding to the existing headcount or long-term organizational cost.   Outside of expertise, companies often work with consultants to provide an external prospective and act as the “change agent” on new initiatives and strategies.    Often, consultants are used to overcome short-term staffing challenges and help ensure strategic projects and programs remain on target.

If you engage the right consulting company, you will realize a return on investment in a very short time, and receive added value for years to come.  A good consultant can help your contact center to increase customer and agent retention, improve operational efficiencies, , improved sales conversions, establish and effectively manage more focused d performance metrics, along with many other improvements.  

Below are two examples of how slight improvements can have significant returns on a contact center’s cost and revenue.  

Example 1 – Utilization Here is an example of a mid-sized call center and an estimate of the cost to provide service meeting an 80/20 service level objective:

Let’s assume that a consultant with expertise in contact center operations is able to assist in implementing solutions that provide a 5 percent improvement in talk time (e.g. via enhanced scheduling, focused coaching, agent metrics applications, targeted evaluations, etc.), and provide solutions that result in a 10 percent improvement in after call work time (e.g., via more efficient processes, better back office resource utilization and system/workflow enhancements, etc.). The new cost while providing the same customer experience would be:

Keep in mind that the savings will continue for years to come and improve as the contact center grows.

Example 2 – Sales Improvements

More contact centers are taking on the challenge of becoming a revenue stream for the organization and using every contact as an opportunity to provide enhanced offerings to customers.  Unfortunately, this transition doesn’t happen overnight, and the existing agents aren’t always comfortable with their new role. This is where the right consulting experience can provide immediate value.  Here are two conservative examples of how small changes in daily sales improvements can have a significant impact on revenue.

How a 1% increase can add up to big dollars

How selling just 50 cents more to those that already buy impacts revenue

As with the Utilization example, the new revenue is added every year and will grow as the number of contacts grows.

The answer isn’t a simple one.  Just as you don’t run to a physician for every ache and pain, it is not necessary to employ the services of a call center consultant every time an objective is missed.   There are several signals that it might be time to consider looking outside your organization for assistance or advice.   Many times, your customers act as an early warning mechanism and begin to voice their concern regarding the organization’s accessibility or responsiveness.   In other cases, your own internal metrics can provide you with this warning as they begin to consistently fall below your established objectives.   Still many companies don’t wait until there is an actual problem; instead they contact consultants to provide a second opinion on change initiatives or to provide expert assistance in developing new service strategies. 

By focusing on outcomes, you can better gauge your desires.  Below is a list of needs that often require the services of a reputable consulting company:

• When you need something done now, but can’t free up internal resources to bring it to a timely completion.

• When you just don’t have anyone on staff with the required expertise.

• When you want to know if you should be doing it at all.

• When you want to know if you can do it.

• When you need a “pulse check” to make sure you is doing it right.

• When you want to be sure you’re positioned properly in relation to  the competition.  

• When you need to get buy-in from others in the organization.

• When you need an unbiased, objective opinion.

The first step is to create a clear understanding of your organization’s needs, and to demonstrate where and how a consultant will add value. The next step is to be sure you’re contracting with someone who can efficiently assist you in moving in the right direction without wasting anyone’s time or money.  Many times organizations hire consultants to fix things simply because this is the way they’ve always addressed new or complex situations.   While consultants can provide fresh and insightful advice, relying on a consulting company to take over all of the high-profile initiatives can limit an organization’s ability to grow its own capabilities, ultimately resulting in employee frustration and resentment.  

 Our advice is to look for consulting companies willing to not only partner with you in finding the solution, but also commit to developing your internal resources along the way.

If you hire the right consultant, you should be able to move quickly from A to Z and be left with a blue print to address similar challenges in the future.   A consultant can be a resource to help determine a company’s direction, fix immediate challenges and even help to fill transitional or temporary positions.  Given the complexity of running contact centers, leaders are often pulled in so many directions that value-added initiatives have to be pushed back or revisited later in the year.  With so many companies today focusing on a service differentiation strategy, timing is critical and a qualified call center consultant can help organizations ensure they’re keeping pace with the competition.   

Because contact centers exist in a unique real-time queuing environment, leaders are faced with challenges not typically addressed by traditional management text books or training.  With this in mind, it’s important to work with companies that have “real-world” experience providing solutions specific to the contact center environment.   Heavy consideration should be given to the questions below to ensure you’re getting a consulting organization that will be able to hit the ground running:

• Can I interview the actual consultant(s) that will be working with me on the project?

• What executive experience  do the assigned consultants have running mission-critical contact centers? 

• What major companies have directly employed the assigned consultants?

• What types of contact center-specific training is provided by the assigned consultants?

• What types of initiatives have the consultants led for other organizations?

• Has the assigned consultant authored respected articles and white papers on the industry?

• Can you provide references for similar types of initiatives led by the assigned consultant?

• Do you have agreements that allow you to recommend or sell a specific type of technology solution?  

• Can you provide a fix-priced agreement with all outcomes identified prior to the start of the initiative?

Most importantly, you should contract with a consultancy that has a history of delivering contact center-specific solutions for a variety of industries.  You should also look for a company with the resources and partnerships to successfully support your organization’s own internal call center leadership development.  There are many different consulting organizations in the business world today operating under a number of different models.  Some are successful at providing their customers with valuable recommendations and insight, while others are not.  Make sure the company you choose focuses on education and the "transfer" of skills, knowledge and abilities.  You need to be guaranteed that you’re getting the right recommendations, but also be left with the in-house know-how necessary to maximize your investment, not to mention the ability to continue to achieve your vision long after the initial project is completed.  The optimal result is to get real action plans that can be put into place shortly after the consultants leave, and that have staying power.