Avoiding the Pitfalls with Repeat Callers

Anna Rogers

Business Advisor

Co-operative Financial Services

Repeat Callers

Hello all

The dreaded topic of conversation no doubt but I'm interested in how many call centres out there use a measure for this. What that measure is and how effective they have been putting improvements in place.

This has been a topic banded about in my organisation for quite a while. The rumblings are getting a little closer and louder and I expect in the next month or so it will land on my desk to review.

I'm keen to avoid pitfalls that some of you may have encountered and gain some insight.

I'm aware of the difficulties in using the information provided direct to us from out telephony supplier in terms of customers having more than one number. However initial analysis shows the same numbers calling more than once in the day and a number of times over a month.

The nature of the business is that customers may have good reason to call in more than once a month.

The business unit in question has one main number (makes things easier) that splits into 3 queues, two linked to the mainframe and one unknown queue.

My initial thoughts are to focus on reducing the repeat callers on the same day from the same number. Accepting the fact this is not going to cover every repeat caller but it's a good place to start.

Please reply as I would genuinely like to hear experiences from all those using repeat callers as a measure, those who looked into it and decided against it and those who did use it and no longer measure it.

Thanks in advance and apologies for the long post, wanted to make sure I was clear......?

18 Feb 2007 22:33:32

Justin Dechaine

poolboy

Dechaine Consulting Inc

Reduce repeat callers for same situation

Hello Anna,

I worked for a very large mobile telephone company and they were very concerned with what they called "first call resolution". Afterall, it cost them more money to have that person call back, and it was thought to improve the caller experience. No one likes calling several times.

Most of the trouble we experienced was in how we implemented it. Our agents on the phone had to be very aware that this was important and had to confirm that a) the situation was resolved and b) that there were no more situations.

The problem was the caller would still call back...and for the most part it was very difficult for us to know exactly why that person was calling back. If a caller calls in for situation A and it's resolved, then the caller disconnects but realizes that they have situation B.

Do you give feedback to the agent saying that they should have resolved situation B? How do you know that second call was about situation A or B? (Notes in accounts are crucial but not always an option).

I'd take a step back and look at why you want to do this, and what your definition of a repeat caller is.

Once every 24 hours? Once a situation? Once a month? Why is it important to stop these people from calling back? Are you willing to accept a possible increase in AHT resulting from this? Will your agents be okay with changes to the callflow and possibly being measured on a new metric?

19 Feb 2007 16:21:03

James Tapp

Speech Analytics

I'd take a look at the offerings from call recording companies, many of which now offer "speech to text" based solutions that allow companies to "mine" the words spoken during the calls by the customers.

You could then look to categorise calls where words or phrases such as "I called last" or "told me".

Most of the companies provide reporting tools that can then provide insight to the root causes of the issues the contact centre is facing in handling these calls.

HTH

James

19 Feb 2007 16:48:49

Anna Rogers

Business Advisor

Co-operative Financial Services

Impact 360?

Thanks for the comments so far.

We currently use the witness system for call monitoring. After reading James's message I had to see if they offered speech analytics, which they do.

Does anyone have any experience of using this?

ta

20 Feb 2007 23:14:55

Cam Ross

Managing Director

Veritape Ltd

Telephone call audio mining with no commitment

Anna,

(Yes, this is a blatant plug, but seems very on-topic to me, and possibly even helpful!)

Veritape has recently released our Veriscope speech recognition module. Veriscope allows our customers to search for keywords and phrases during recorded telephone calls, just like James Tapp's "mining" analogy.

One key thing which differentiates Veritape software products (Veriscope included) from all other hardware-base products in the call recording industry is that we rent them by the month with no minimum term or minimum size. There is no upfront capital outlay.

This would allow you to test out whether speech recognition processes would help you in your specific case, trying to analyse your repeat calls problem, without committing to the £Large expenditure of a hardware-based speech recognition approach.

In addition, Veritape's Call Tagging feature would allow you to categorise calls based on telephone number and (crucially) the caller's NAME (or reference number, etc), for the purposes of reporting on multiple calls.

Do have a look at for more information, or email me directly: cam dot ross at veritape dot com.

Hope that helps,

Cam.

27 Feb 2007 15:14:21

Dave Appleby

WFM & Business Telephony Manager

Healthcare Insurance

Call recording / Data Mining.

Cam.

I'm going to let this stand as although it IS potentially
an advert, it is good information.

Regards

DaveA

27 Feb 2007 15:55:49

silv neno

We have a young non-...

We have a young non-verbal receptive caller. To put into perspective : 100 calls in 30days. He uses an online system to complete self assessment. His mother is not willing to cooperate. Safeguarding referral made. Awaiting for Dr to put plan in place. Has anyone been in the same situation? Mum's now unhappy when we call back ..Ta!

11 Feb 2021 21:39:02