CONTACT CENTRES FOR CHARITIES – MAKING THEM WORK BETTER Listening to that caller Christine Knott of Beyond the Box insists that in a charity contact centre it is just as critical to listen as to speak. As an agent it is important to prevent yourself from being distracted by colleagues or external noises so that you can concentrate on what your caller is saying. Listen to the emotion in your caller’s voice – does it match or endorse the words they are using? It is always vital to ask questions to gain more information on points you need to clarify. Knott says you listen more effectively when you are not talking, so refrain from interrupting your caller. Let them finish what they are saying; interruptions may break their train of thought. Avoid pre-empting what your caller is going to say – chances are you will be wrong and miss some of the content of their conversation. Knott advises that you should summarise and reflect back to check you have heard the key facts and content of the caller’s conversation correctly. It also lets the caller know you have understood them. Use statements such as “What I’m hearing is...” and “Sounds like you are saying...” These are great ways to reflect back and summarise.  Charities and outsourcing call handling Glenn Jackson of Moneypenny points out that recent research shows that 62% of callers will not ring back if they hear an engaged tone, whilst 79% say they won’t call back if their call goes unanswered. Being put on hold is the third most likely cause of people becoming impatient and annoyed with organisations. Jackson says charities looking to outsource need to ensure that the provider is offering a dedicated receptionist who will take the time to learn about her assigned charity, answer calls in the charity’s name and act as if she is based in its offices. The well trained remote receptionist and her support team are often able to do a range of reception tasks such as: taking donations, fielding unwanted calls or noting messages for employees (which are in turn immediately forwarded via SMS or email). Jackson comments that forming a trusted partnership with a reputable telephone answering provider is best achieved by undertaking in-depth staff training and fostering good communications between the charity and outsourcer. In the best cases, outsourcing can even be used to maintain and amplify the ethos of the charity in every phone call.  Outsourcing charity contact centre functions Stuart Gray of 2Touch believes there are many great advantages to outsourcing donor management to a multichannel contact and fulfilment specialist. However, there are rules of engagement for charities looking to outsource key parts of their operation, such as inbound telephone donation processing, customer servicing, literature and mail order fulfilment. Gray says objectives should be set from the start, with a detailed description of what you are outsourcing, the budget you have available, the timescales for the project and your expectation as to what a successful campaign will look like. According to Gray, it is very important to ensure that the outsource specialist has a real understanding for your organisation and that the agents and other staff who will represent your charity are warm, empathetic and have the personality to handle what, on occasions, could be quite sensitive conversations.  Selecting an outsourced contact centre Colin Gray of DDC Outsourcing Solutions says charities may find that the usual processes of a call centre do not correspond directly with their needs. For donation collection to be successful, call handlers need to understand and empathise with the people they are speaking with.  Gray says the familiar script reading that business and consumer brands regularly rely on to sell their products won’t often cut it in a charity environment. Also a robotic response to queries will not endear a donor to that charity.  According to Gray, speech to text, interactive voice response and intelligent knowledgebase routing can encourage faster donation turnaround, but the most important part of the technology which charities should be concerned with is ease of understanding by the caller.  Focusing on keeping charity call centre staff happy Mark Walsh of Integration Training observes that call centres have a reputation as ghastly places to work, full of stress and misery. Luckily there is much that can be done by managers to support staff in managing their stress and time. Walsh says turning staff into measurable performance statistics is extremely stressful and ultimately bad for donations as employee engagement dwindles and stress related illness and staff churn can prove devastating to the work environment. According to Walsh, for charities in particular, if staff feel emotionally connected to the end result of their work, they will be less stressed and more motivated. Also good conflict resolution and communication training are essential for call centre staff to manage the stress of their job. Optimising your service response to caller demands Trevor Flack of Spark Response emphasises that effective dialogue with your supporters – whether by phone, in writing or in person – is the key to unlocking your charity’s full potential. Your contact centre provision is the heart of your operation and it is vital that you can meet the needs of your supporters at all times. Flack says that while your in-house call handling team may be well placed and versed in managing standard call traffic, working with an independent partner to deliver high profile events or campaigns or to manage seasonal peaks could support the growth of your charity and help set it apart from its counterparts. According to Flack, one of the greatest benefits of outsourcing is the flexibility it brings to your business model.  While a permanent contact centre partner may work for some charities, a provider which is engaged to supply overflow support is crucial for many others. The mark of a good call centre Rufus Grig of Azzurri Communications says the mark of a good call centre is that you feel it’s just one person having a conversation with you.  This is particularly important for a charity as it needs to convey a warm and friendly impression. Grig says you should filter out the jarring points of technology like multi-level IVR. If you care about your donors, don’t make them navigate difficult menus. According to Grig, think spatially. Chatter in the background when speaking with a potential donor is an issue. The key is making sure the technology works – but it should be invisible to the caller. Protecting credit card donations John Wood of C3 reports that all UK charities which collect, batch, store and process credit and debit card payments are now required to comply with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) or face being hit with significant fines. The main issue addressed by PCI compliance is data storage, making it an offence to store both the credit card numbers and three-digit security codes on your premises, which together could be used to make fraudulent transactions. Wood comments that becoming compliant will depend entirely whether your charity handles its calls and credit card processing in-house or chooses to outsource. Both have pros and cons, and affect the amount of each donation which actually goes to helping those whom a charity has been set up to help. However expensive the costs of an in-house solution, Wood says charities need to take the bigger picture into account and look at the amount charged for call handling and credit card clearing for both in-house and outsourced models. Increasing response in a cost constrained environment Patrick Nash of Connect Assist points out that multichannel technology can provide a solution whereby charities are able to improve service delivery and drive down costs without compromising the quality of the work that is done. Getting the cost per service interaction down to a really low level also tells a genuine great story to donors and funders. Nash observes that outsourcing works with charities when they lack the capacity to deliver a particular service or if an existing service exists in-house, but needs to be delivered at a lower cost. In practice, handover from in-house call handling to a contact centre is relatively straightforward and generally takes place over a six to ten week period. According to Nash, typically an e-service software platform is configured and tested, a phone line is ordered or transferred and staff training takes place. Publicity to promote the new service is then prepared and a switchover date agreed with the telephony provider. A better tone of voice for call centre agents Steve Hemsley of Hendrix The Dog Productions warns that if a charity gets its contact centre tone of voice wrong the impact on existing and potential supporters can be devastating. In fact, the way someone representing a charity says something is more important than what they say these days. Hemsley observes that with this in mind it is worrying that so few charities invest in improving the tone of voice of their telephone workers, whether staff or volunteers.  This seems remarkable when you consider that the only tool a person has on the phone is their voice. According to Hemsley, the harsh reality is that people will make judgments about charities based on the phone conversations they have. Call centre staff can learn so much from actors when it comes to making a script sound natural. The crucial role of contact centres Richard Blausten, editor of Charities Management, stresses the importance of charities getting it right in relation to how they deal with callers when they ring in – whether the call is answered by them directly through their own in-house contact centre or an outsourced contact centre where the caller still thinks they are talking to the charity. An enthusiastic donor can quickly be turned into a disaffected caller, so there is absolutely no room for any form of poor contact centre activity. Blausten says charities should be treating the issue of contact centre performance as a vitally integral part of their fundraising and that the best techniques of donor management should be embraced by contact centres – whether in-house or outsourced. Also, charity managements and their contact centre teams should be totally at one in what they expect the contact centre to achieve and how this should be monitored. Indeed, says Blausten, contact centre performance monitoring has to be undertaken on an agreed and effective basis, particularly where there is an outsourced arrangement in place. Charities must have ongoing confidence in how their outsourced contact centres are performing for them. If things aren’t as they should be there should be an agreed mechanism for immediately remedying this. Call centres for DRTV campaigns Peter Muffett of DTV observes that time and time again we hear that third sector direct response television campaigns are not converting into donors or memberships. Calls are being generated but conversions are not being made. Time and time again we find the reasons are all about the inefficient and ineffective use of time when the call comes in. Muffett points out that 80% of DRTV calls happen within 15 minutes of broadcast; timestamp data should be recorded to the second and not to 15 minute bands; the first 30 seconds of the handled call can win or lose a donor. Abandoned calls in under 5 seconds is a problem; in 15+ seconds is a real disaster. The length of the call could be the reason for the success or failure of a campaign. Muffett says the creative could be asking more questions than providing answers, and this could affect the time taken to convert a donor. Time taken at the start of the call to engage the prospective donor could be time well spent. The creative time length could be affecting call centre conversion rates. Preparing to fulfil a charity DRTV campaign Peter Slee of Spark Response says direct response television campaigns can yield impressive results for charities and have a proven record in attracting donations, fundraising and volunteer support alike. However, whether the contact centre ready to deal with responses is in-house or outsourced, there are important fulfilment issues to be considered. Slee insists the key requirement is for there to be a proper fulfilment facility in the first place. This needs to be dedicated to servicing the campaign response. If the charity’s in-house contact centre or outsourced contact centre is unable to provide adequate fulfilment, the necessary fulfilment resource should be provided via an outside arrangement. According to Slee, efficient fulfilment has to be the ultimate objective and forecasting the response to a DRTV campaign remains the most crucial element of the response process for the contact centre team. It is the contact centre’s responsibility to assess the forecasts supplied by the charity – and challenge their accuracy if necessary. Failure to question and evaluate at this stage could have a serious impact upon the success of the campaign for the charity and damaging consequences for everyone’s reputation. www.sparkresponse.com Optimising the outsourced call centre relationship Derek Bishop of Abeo Consulting argues that one of the most important factors contributing to a successful outsourcing partnership in the charity sector is understanding the mutual expectations of both parties and the ability to leverage the full potential value from working together. From a charity perspective, it is important to get to grips with the financial dynamics of how the outsourcer’s business operates – where cost exposure exists, where the margin is made. For example, says Abeo, if margin for the outsourcer is loaded more in activity type A than activity type B but then the charity reduces the type A volumes, this will hit the outsource provider’s business which ultimately means they will need to revisit commercial arrangements with the charity. It is much better to have this insight before the change in activity volume takes place. Equally, says Abeo, where the deal has been done on a value basis, and is not just of a transactional nature, it is critical to understand the key assumptions which have been made in agreeing commercials as any adverse variation from these will cause strain. For both parties to benefit from the relationship long term, expectations must be clear and shared to encourage a working together approach.