CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AT KPN
“You simply need to know what your customers tell their friends about you.”
Thesis by Frank Reijn
Master Business Development
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CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AT KPN
“You simply need to know what your customers tell their friends about you.”
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I Preface
This report officially forms closure of my study Business Administration with a specialization in Business Development. It also represents the ending of my time at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. I have enjoyed my period here as a student; a period where I learned a lot and developed myself personally.
My internship at KPN was a fantastic experience. During my internship I have learned a lot about working together, making decisions and get an experience of real business. KPN was a great company to finalize my study. I would like to thank my colleagues at the division Customer Excellence for their enthusiasm and help during my research period. In particular my supervisor Henriëtte Setz-Bakker. Her support, help and talks were of great importance for this report.
I would like to thank my supervisor at the University of Groningen, Wim Biemans, for his time, guidance, flexibility and for reading and discussing my report. His visit to The Hague and his interests in the Net Promoter Score (NPS) motivated to keep me going. It was nice to see the NPS back in his new book and hopefully the NPS will also get attention during the course Service Innovation next year. I also would like to thank Heleen van Peet, my second supervisor, for her time.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents and brother for their support past years and especially their continued faith in me during the last year. This also applies to my friends who were very important during my time as a student.
Enjoy reading.
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II Management Summary
In this report the customer feedback at two different levels within KPN is analyzed. KPN introduced the Net Promoter Score (NPS) since halfway 2008 to generate increasing loyalty of their customers. An important aspect in increasing customer loyalty and NPS is customer feedback. The volume of information gathered by Touch Point and End-To-End measuring has increased and this feedback is not structurally being used to improve the organization’s performance and organizational learning. Therefore the objective of this research is to give answer at the following research question;
To what extent can KPN create a more effective learning loop by making use of feedback from ‘Touch Point’ and ‘End-To-End’ measuring?
Measuring at touch point level is carried out at the Business Service Desk (BSD). Touch Point measuring has the objective to trace customer experience. To trace this experience team leaders are responsible for calling back customer with Closed Loop Feedback (CLF). During these call backs the gathered information is generally about coaching their call agents to improve their service quality. Another aspect during call backs is gathering information about structural problems. These structural problems have the objective to change processes which is done by the Process Management Teams (PMT). The transitions of these problems go through the process desk and business teams to the PMT’s. Measuring at process level, called En-To-End, is outsourced to TNS Nipo and is done twice a year. It has the purpose to discover customer drivers. Based on these customer drivers PMT’s create initiatives.
Call backs done with CLF are the input for coaching call agents. Despite of the motivated employees at the BSD the amount of call backs has been reduced with 50%. Within this reduced amount of call backs even less are made toward critical customers. Another aspect is that the amount of coaching moments has decreased. Fixed scheduled CLF sessions are cancelled and coaching of call agents is unstructured. The transition of structural problems is not effective and efficient. Main cause is the non-transparency of the list of issues used by KPN Contact.
The analysis of measuring at touch point level supports the results at process level. The results show that almost three-quarters of the complaints are service related.
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III Table of Contents
I Preface ... 3
II Management Summary ... 4
III Table of Contents ... 5
1. Introduction ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.1 Introduction ... 7 1.2 Company profile ... 7 1.3 Problem statement ... 8 1.3.1 The objective ... 11 1.4 Research Structure ... 12 2. Theoretical framework ... 13 2.1 Introduction ... 13 2.2 Loyalty ... 13
2.3 Net Promoter and Net Promoter Score ... 14
2.3.2 Calculating with the Net Promoter Score ... 15
2.4 Feedback ... 16
2.4.1 Closed Loop Feedback ... 17
2.6 Learning Organization ... 18 2.7 Learning loops ... 19 2.8 Theoretical model ... 20 3. Methodology ... 21 3.1 Introduction ... 21 3.2 Research Method ... 21 3.3 Data gathering ... 22
3.4 Scope and limitations ... 24
4. Measuring at Touch Point level and Process level ... 25
4.1 Introduction ... 25
4.2 Measuring customer feedback at Touch Point level and Process level at KPN ... 25
4.3 Touch Point level - The Business Service Desk ... 26
4.3.1 Customer call backs ... 26
4.4 Coaching ... 27
4.4.1 Coaching of call agents ... 27
4.4.2 CLF group sessions ... 27
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4.5 The transition of structural problems ... 28
4.5.1 The process desk and issue list ... 28
4.5.2 Business Teams ... 28
4.5.3 Process Management Teams ... 28
4.6 Quantitative output of calls Business Service Desk - SME ... 29
4.7 Process Level - End-To-End measuring ... 31
5. Qualitative output of BSD SME ... 32
5.1 Introduction ... 32
5.2 Coaching ... 32
5.2.1 CLF customer interviews ... 32
5.2.2 Call back segmentation of CLF customer interviews ... 32
5.2.3 Coaching of call agents ... 33
5.2.4 CLF group sessions ... 34
5.2.5 Operational meeting / coaching team leaders ... 34
5.3 Transition of structural problems ... 35
5.3.1 CLF interviews ... 35
5.3.2 The process desk and issue list ... 35
5.3.3 Business Teams ... 36
5.3.4 Process Management Teams ... 36
5.4 End-To-End measuring ... 37
6. Analysis of results CLF and End-To-End measuring ... 38
6.1 Introduction ... 38
6.2 Analysis results of Touch Point measuring ... 38
6.2 Analysis results of End-To-End measuring ... 40
6.3 Merging results of Touch Point level and process level ... 41
7. Conclusion ... 42
8. Recommendations ... 45
8.1 Short term recommendations ... 45
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1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction
This research is the result of an internship carried out at Royal KPN at the department Business Markets Marketing Strategy & Innovation division Customer Excellence (BM MS&I CE). In this section, the company will be introduced, followed by the problem statement and research question.
1.2 Company profile
Royal KPN (KPN) provides high-quality telephone, Internet and television services and products. KPN is the leading telecommunications and ICT service in The Netherlands, with a big portfolio of quality products. Since the first public telegraphs lines in 1852, KPN used to be a government owned company, but in 1998 KPN demerged with PTT Post (nowadays TNT), the postal services. Changes in the market as the end of the monopoly over telecom services, the burst of the internet bubble and the collapsed stock market made sure the management style changed and customer service became a high priority (www.kpn.com).
In 2005 KPN introduced the ‘Back to Growth’ strategy. With this strategy; ‘KPN tries to remain a top performer among European telecom operators and will continue to be a front-runner in the sector in identifying the market challenges, and setting strategic benchmarks accordingly’ (www.kpn.com). A key component within this strategy is the strong customer focus. KPN changed its strategy and transformed from a product orientated organization to a customer and service orientated organization. KPN wants to create competitive advantage and customer value on the service offered to customers in all different markets by which the customer experience plays an important role.
The customer focus and the corresponding service orientated strategy is an initiative of KPN’s Business Market department. As shown in figure 1, KPN The Netherlands is divided in different divisions, including the Business Market (BM). Within BM there are several departments; one of these is Marketing Strategy & Innovation (MS&I). The objective of BM MS&I is; ‘KPN to be the number one player in ICT service, in The Netherlands’. Customer Excellence (CE) is a subdivision of MS&I. Based on the knowledge of customer experience, CE supports BM to become service leader in the market.
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1.3 Problem statement
‘How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?’ That’s the ultimate question invented by Fred Reichheld, who started with research to the role of loyalty in 1977. Since 2004, Reichheld challenged the conventional wisdom of customer satisfaction thinking and coined the terms of bad profits and good profits, a distinction between profits gained at the expense of customer loyalty and those that were not (Reichheld, 2006). For companies it marked the beginning to focus on customer loyalty instead of only on customer satisfaction. An important aspect in customer loyalty is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), creating a good Net Promoter program will give a consistent measurement of customer loyalty. NPS is a straightforward metric that holds companies and employees accountable for how they treat customers (Reichheld, 2006).
Customer satisfaction must not be a goal itself, but only a means to improve the company’s performance (Martensen et al, 2000). Nevertheless, satisfaction does not always lead to improved firm performance even when market shares increases. Hence, satisfaction may be necessary but not sufficient to ensure customer loyalty (Mitchell, 1998). It is generally accepted that satisfaction is a result from consumer experiences after consumption based on a psychological state. In addition, it focuses on the buyers’ preliminary expectations in relation to product attributes and the buyers’ perceptions of the product performance in relation to these expectations (Oliver, 1980). NPS is different than customer satisfaction; it is more extensive and has a stronger focus on long term loyalty.
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A shift in emphasis from satisfaction to loyalty appears to be a worthwhile change in strategy for most firms, because businesses understand the profit impact of having a loyal customer base (Oliver, 1999). Before the existence of Net Promoter programs, many customer satisfaction programs yielded management reports that lacked credibility. More important they did not deliver business results (Owen and Brooks, 2008). This implies that solely measuring customer satisfaction may well not be enough.
An important aspect in increasing customer loyalty and NPS is customer feedback. Companies always want information, feedback, about how they are performing, despite of the positive or negative nature. Based on this information, the businesses can determine how to respond and which steps to undertake and gives the employee the opportunity to take more responsibility. Feedback is one of the most powerful tools a manager has to influence firm performance (Forte, 2009).
Concerning the situation at KPN and as mentioned before, KPN changed its strategy to become a more customer and service orientated organization. An element of transforming KPN into a service organization is the introduction of NPS, halfway 2008, to play a central role in BM’s strategy initiatives. In line with the above reasoning, KPN’s customer programs did not create impact and decided to introduce a NPS program. To realize this back to growth strategy, KPN will need loyal customers. NPS is used as a loyalty metric, as loyalty is a predictor for growth.
KPN is interested in reasons why customers choose to do business with KPN. To discover these customer drivers, KPN is gathering feedback through measuring at three different levels, as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2, feedback levels used by KPN
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Brand level; KPN is facilitating a general benchmark survey about the products and services (telecom -fixed and mobile-, television or internet) to know their market and brand position. Measuring at brand level enables benchmarking KPN scores at their relative competitive position and attractiveness in the market.
Process level; End measuring takes place at the end of a process chain. As a result of End-To-End measuring, KPN is able to get insight about the drivers of the customers’ perception of the processes, i.e. billing, delivering or assurance. A month after the customer had contact with KPN, the customer is called back (Closed Loop Feedback) and is asked for feedback about the whole process. So, gathering feedback through End-To-End measuring identifies the drivers at process level of why customers do business with KPN.
Touch point level; Measuring NPS after each customer contact. Where End-To-End measuring is about the drivers of the process, measuring at customer level is about a single customer contact moment or touch point and is about the customer experience. Measuring at touch point level is divided in the NPS questionnaire, through an automatic voice response (VRS) and customer call backs where Closed Loop Feedback (CLF) is used.
In addition to CLF at process level, at touch point level KPN calls back customers in order to get an idea about customers’ experiences with the service that employees deliver. Data is directly collected by team leaders who call back customers. If KPN wants to become more of a learning organization, this feedback is vital. As team leaders return customer feedback to employees they are given the opportunity to grow and positively adjust their attitude and behavior.
In reality, the perception of the customer experience is not truly based on this single contact moment and probably founded more on the cumulative customer experience. Nevertheless, it is assumed that measuring at touch point level is actually based on one single contact moment.
Using NPS will give a consistent measure of customer loyalty. Nevertheless, it is important to discover underlying drivers of the given NPS score and how to improve this NPS score. Therefore the management question is;
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In order for KPN to increase the Net Promoter Score, the correlation between the three levels of feedback is important, especially between the feedback at touch point and process level. Because the difference in real time (single contact focus) versus hindsight (process focus) measurement. Next to this, a possible benefit is that the customer is aware of the fact that KPN is using their feedback, through external communication, and that the customer notices KPN is improving their services and processes based on the input the customer delivered, by becoming a learning organization. Nevertheless, it is hard to change customer information into actions that have impact for all the customers.
Before this research, KPN has little idea about this correlation between Touch Point and End-To-End measuring, as well as improving the gathered feedback at these levels is a problem. At the same time, the volume of information gathered by Touch Point and End-To-End measuring increased and this feedback is not structural being used to improve the organization’s performance. Therefore the research question is;
To what extent can KPN create a more effective learning loop by making use of feedback from ‘Touch Point’ and ‘End-To-End’ measuring?
In order to answer this research question, the following sub questions need to be answered; How is KPN organizing its feedback?
How is the feedback distribution of KPN at touch point and process level? How does KPN intent to learn from this customer feedback?
How can KPN create customer impact by using customer feedback?
1.3.1 The objective
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1.4 Research Structure
The thesis will start with an introduction that introduces the reader to the subject of my study and describes my research question.
In the second chapter, the literature review will follow; theoretical background about previous research is discussed and variables and aspects being used in the problem statement are described. These variables and aspects are: loyalty, net promoter score, feedback, closed loop feedback, learning organizations and learning loops. Finally a theoretical framework is given.
In the third chapter, the methodology is explained, consisting of the research method, the data gathering, and the scope and limitations.
In the next section, chapter four, the situation at KPN is outlined. The processes of Touch Point measuring and End-To-End measuring are described. Firstly, the focus lies on providing feedback to the employees at KPN Contact, the coaching aspect. Secondly the distribution of structural problems is described. Next to this, the quantitative output of the Business Service Desk is explained, as well as End-To-End measuring.
The following chapter, chapter five, will discuss the qualitative output for Touch Point measuring and End-To-End measuring. In addition, in chapter six, the results of measuring at both levels will be compared; to what degree do results of Touch Point measuring correspond to the results of End-To-End measuring.
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2. Theoretical framework
2.1 Introduction
In order to answer the research question, firstly the different variables of the management and research question will be described. The literature framework is divided in two parts. The first part will focus on loyalty and Net Promoter Score. This explanation is necessary because the role of loyalty and the Net Promoter Score within KPN, but also because of the added value of loyalty in relation to satisfaction. In addition the first part will focus on feedback and closed loop feedback, which is a central theme within the Net Promoter Score. To learn from the customer feedback and return this into the organization, the variables learning organization and learning loops will be discussed in the second part.
2.2 Loyalty
As mentioned in the first chapter there is a difference between customer satisfaction and the customer loyalty. It is important for companies to attract people who are profitable for the long term and not for the short term. Finding loyal customers requires taking a hard look at what kind of customers a company can deliver superior value to (Reichheld, 1993).
Two variables are necessary for loyalty. The first one is (re)purchase. Conventionally, loyalty has been a behavioral measure. This measure includes proportion of purchase (Cunningham, 1966), purchase sequence (Kahn et al, 1986) and probability of purchase (Massey et al, 1970). So, repurchase is about loyal customers who want to patronize the companies’ business because of their previous experience. Customer loyalty is defined by Oliver (1997) as ‘a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior’. But according to Dick and Basu (1994) and Baldinger and Rubinson (1996), these definitions make no attempt to become aware of the behavioral factors underlying these repeatedly purchases.
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2.3 Net Promoter and Net Promoter Score
To attract loyal people and to get more insight in (re)purchase and attitude loyalty programs have been developed. Loyalty programs have two main goals; higher level of customer retention (Verhoef, 2003) and increase of sales revenues. In addition, customer loyalty programs create the opportunity to get more customers’ insights. As argued by Treacy and Wiersema (1993), it creates a better understanding of the customers’ behavior at individual level. Reichheld started in 1977 with the focus on loyalty programs, resulting in the Net Promoter in 2004. The Net Promoter can achieve more than that the two goals mentioned above and is more extensive and has a stronger focus on long term loyalty.
For many companies the Net Promoter is the standard for measuring and improving customer loyalty and is based on six elements; customer centric DNA, enterprise roadmap, trustworthy data, root cause analysis, action and accountability and innovation and transformation (figure 3).
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a straightforward metric that holds companies and employees accountable for how they treat customers (Reichheld, 2006). It also has change management aspects. But NPS is not the ‘single measure for business success’ as argued by NPS criticasters. As mentioned by Anstead (2008), there are other factors like segment by region, branches and profitability, which are related to the company success as well. It is not just the NPS score which determined the companies’ success. As argued by Arussy (2007), Net Promoter Score tells the company nothing about what you need to do to perform better. If you want to be honest with your customers, ask questions that will improve your relationship. Just asking the NPS score is not enough. So, look beyond the number and look for improvement possibilities and know that NPS is not leading but supporting. The score is less important than the changes NPS may create in a business over time.
Figure 3, the Net Promoter operating model
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Different success stories about companies which introduced loyalty programs are well known; for example Continental Airlines (CA) and Wachovia. Based on customer feedback CA rallied the whole organization to enhance customer-facing touch points and even refreshed aircraft interiors. Wachovia, fourth largest bank holding company in America, began a program of multiple initiatives to empower employees and increase employee satisfaction. Resulting in an increasing impact on NPS and a faster growth compared with the industry.
Remarkable is the long term effect. After three till five years the effect of using a loyalty program has become visible and valuable by increasing profits. This long term focus is in line with the focus on long term profits, good profits. Short term (bad) profits are the result of quick fixes that positively affect the bottom line in the short term but drain opportunities for long-term growth by burning out employees and disenchanting customers (Reichheld, 2006; Shively, 2007). Bad profits are temporary profits and cost friendly, but customer and profit unfriendly in the long term. While good profits have long-term focus and have the objective to create loyalty.
2.3.2 Calculating with the Net Promoter Score
NPS is based on the fundamental perspective that every company's customers can be divided into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors. By asking one simple question, ‘How likely is it that you would you recommend ‘company x’ to a friend or colleague?’ A company can track these groups and get a clear measure of the company's performance through its customers' eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are categorized as follows;
Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts and refer to others.
Neutrals (score 7-8) are satisfied customers but are open to competitive offerings.
Criticasters (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can have a negative word-of-mouth.
To calculate the company's NPS, take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are criticasters (Reichheld, 2006, www.netpromoter.com). As mentioned by Reichheld (2006), Net Promoter programs are not traditional customer satisfaction programs, and simply measuring your NPS does not lead automatically to success.
Figure 4, measuring the Net Promoter Score
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2.4 Feedback
As mentioned in the first chapter feedback is one of the most powerful tools managers have to influence performance (Forte, 2009). Within this research the focus is on customer feedback with the objective to learn from their experience and to become more customer orientated as organization.
Feedback ist he process where the output of the process is looped back with the input, as shown in figure 5. Most of the time feedback is gathered during customer contact moments; this is the moment of interaction between the customer and the organization (Bitner et all, 1990).
The main goal is that customers providing valuable feedback and giving the organization insights for new ideas and improvements. Therefore, a growing number of organizations are using customer feedback systems to help with customer relationships and higher customer satisfaction scores and savings. To realize this, taking action and communicating with the customer is essential. Without taking action and communication, companies had not asked feedback in the first place (James, 2002) By asking feedback, customers realize they are becoming involved by the companies’ process, which is a positive consequence of customer contact moments.
According to Bernstein (2009) front office managers need to know the impact of their actions and decisions on the customer experience. Employees have serious impact on the business results and the NPS score of the company, which make the employee management extra important. In addition, clear rules and agreements between front and back office are required to create the right balance between the uncertainty of the front office and the control focus of the back office.
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2.4.1 Closed Loop Feedback
According to this research customer feedback is measured at two levels. First at touch point level, an advantage of measuring at this level is that it asks the customer to provide feedback at that moment the customer makes contact with the company. This feedback is mentioned to have an idea about the customers’ opinion and experience of KPN’s service delivery.
End-To-End measuring is focused on the whole chain and is measured at process level. The objective is to determine structural improvements opportunities. Determining structural problems to trace of improvement opportunities takes place by the CLF process as well.
Continuous measuring at contact level is used in the business market and is a nonstop process of gathering customer feedback and using the feedback to improve. Closed Loop Feedback can be used at both touch point and process level. As the four colors in figure 6 indicate, the Closed Loop Feedback process consists of four steps.
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Interaction between the customer and the organization; the customer calls the organization for questions and advice.2.
The call agents ask the customer if they willco-operate to take the NPS questionnaire. This starts automatically after the conversation with the call agent by means of an automatic voice response (VRS). During this VRS, the customer is asked to give a NPS score and to make a distinction the NPS score is based on; accessibility, knowledge and behavior and the final result. Finally, the customer is asked if he or she would like to be called back. These first to steps are Touch Point measuring.
3. The team leader is selecting five customers, who are willing to recommend, and is calling back these customers a week after the VRS.
4. The team leader is gathering and analyzing reactions and takes action by coaching call agents and putting through structural improvement options. These last two steps are CLF (CLF trainings document KPN, 2009).
Figure 6, Closed Loop Feedback process
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2.6 Learning Organization
Much has been written about learning organizations. Definitions are given by many scholars. In example; ’an organization which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself’ by Pedler, Boydell and Burgoyne (1991) or a very extensive one from Peter Senge (1990), ‘Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together’. Nevertheless, according to the manager of customer excellence for this research, knowledge and attitude and behavior are the two most important aspects for a learning organization. In consequence, I will use the following definition for the learning organization; ‘an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights’ (Garvin, 1993).
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2.7 Learning loops
A continuous process of learning is necessary. As mentioned by Murray and Chapman (2003), the cycle of learning increases as firms learn new behaviors that challenges and improves the old routines. The development of a learning facility is a must to succeed for a learning organization, as argued by George et al. (1999). There are different systematic levels of learning.
Single loop learning is achieved when errors are detected and corrected, but when the strategies and objectives remain the same (Argyris and Schön, 1978). The organizational knowledge will change, but there will be no shifting in policies and objectives. Single loop learning is also associated with activities and problem solving managed by individuals and most of the time it is routine and repetitive through interpreting the environment. In addition, it is an individual’s intuitive capacity and social or interactive skills (Murray and Moses, 2005).
Double loop learning occurs when, again, the errors are detected and corrected, but this time also has influence at the modification of an organization's strategy; fundamental norms, policies and objectives (Argyris and Schön, 1978). In addition, it creates new knowledge and competencies for the organization. Double loop learning is usually the result of team learning; individuals try to solve problems with team members, and are the basis for organizational learning. Team learning is transforming conversational and collective thinking skills so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual member talents (Senge, 1994). Implementing double loop learning is much more difficult than single loop learning; it is less routine, more complex and psychosocial.
Triple loop learning, is a combination of single and double loop learning. In this type of learning, an organization learns how to learn and, in contradiction with the other two types of learning, is more about the focus on culture, processes and structure. Next to this focus, it is more complex and associated with the organizational level. It manifests itself as a collective and social mindfulness by solving problems collectively and adjusting infrastructure by linking local units in an overall learning infrastructure and by using external resources (Flood and Romm, 1996).
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2.8 Theoretical model
In this chapter the Net Promoter Score and organizational learning has been defined and the key aspects of these two variables have been identified. The theoretical model has been developed to give a better understanding of the liaison between the theoretical variables and aspects which are part of this research (figure 7). Because of the fact not all variables are measurable; no hypotheses will be used. The model gives just a better understanding of the relation between the theories described in the theoretical framework.
2.8.1 Concepts and Relationships
The relations as shown in the theoretical model;
Key aspects of organizational learning are single loop, double loop and triple loop learning; Measuring feedback at two levels, touch point en process level, is called Touch Points and End-To-End measuring.
CLF is calling back the customer and is an important part of Touch Points and End-To-End measuring.
The objective of measuring feedback is doing structural improvements; at touch point level and at process level.
Structural improvements are possible at both levels; touch point en process level.
Structural improvements are likely to have positive influence at the loyalty and NPS score. Increasing loyalty and NPS score will have, on the long term, positive influences at the customer value and profits, assumed by Bain & Company, McKinsey and KPN.
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3. Methodology
3.1 Introduction
In the previous chapters, the problem statement, research question and the theory related to variables of the research question have been discussed. This chapter will discuss the methodology used in this research to analyze the performance of using customer feedback by KPN. First, the type of research and data gathering will be discussed, followed by the scope and limitations.
3.2 Research Method
In this thesis the exploratory case study has been applied. The research can be characterized as a case study. The case study research is appropriate when the research is based on how and why research questions (Yin, 2003) which aims to explore or explain contemporary real-life situations (Myers, 2009). Because the division MS&I Customer Excellence is in need of getting more insight in the relation between the Touch Point measuring and End-To-End measuring and the role of Closed Loop Feedback in this. This contemporary problem can be seen as a case of customer feedback in line with the strategy of the division MS&I Customer Excellence. The purpose of case study research is to use empirical evidence from real people in real organizations to make an original contribution to knowledge (Myers, 2009). Within this research, the focus is on the contemporary problem and not on a theoretical contribution. As mentioned, the case of customer feedback is central in this research.
In addition, an exploratory research has the primary motivation to discover and explore new phenomena (Myers, 2009). Next to determining the facts, an exploratory research is interested in the differences and relative contexts between these facts and is usually initialized by gathering theoretical information. In relation to this research, the theoretical information, described in chapter two, is used in the subsequent case study.
Moreover, this thesis applies both quantitative and qualitative analyses. In this research the quantitative data has been described in chapter 4 and shows general trends of measuring customer feedback at touch point and process level. And consist of all call data from the BSD SME.
Qualitative analysis tries to explore motivations (social and cultural) and provides depth of information. It is orientated at the discovery of qualities of things (Van Aken et al., 2007) and has been described in chapter 5 where quantitative research provides hard data to study general trends with a focus on numbers (Myers, 2009).
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3.3 Data gathering
The data required for this study has been obtained from KPN and has been gathered in different ways. According to Yin (2003) there are multiple ways of collecting data, namely; archival records, direct observations, documentation, interviews, participant observations and physical artifacts. The sources used in this report have been the following.
Archival records. Archival records like articles and books have been used in this research. These articles have been collected by scientific journal databases. The books used for this research, The Ultimate Question and Answering the Ultimate Question, are about NPS. These archival records have been used for the theoretical framework.
Direct observations. Direct observations have been used to get a better idea of the employees who are working with NPS. At the Business Service Desk (BSD) employees who are asking the customer to contribute to the NPS questionnaire and team leaders who were conducting a CLF measuring have been observed directly. Next to this, Business Teams meetings were observed to get insight in the process of structural problems. Furthermore, direct observations have been used for the qualitative research to the distribution process of feedback. Watching call center employees using closed loop feedback has always yielded obvious, but still tremendously valuable, basic information (Leonard and Rayport, 1997).
During the observation of call agents, in three blocks of two hours per block, 12 call agents were observed. The increased motivation of call agents came forward to ask customer to participate in the NPS questionnaire, as well as the amount of customers who are positive to participate. In addition, call agents were positive about using NPS.
Six team leaders have been observed with a total of 10 call backs. During these call backs, the time team leaders focused on feedback in accordance to discovering structural problems was remarkable. As well as the amount of call backs with customers who were neutralizers or promoter of KPN. This has shown a trend of calling back less criticasters, as shown in chapter 5.2.1.1.
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Documentation. Different PowerPoint presentations and dashboards have been a source of information. Presentation sheets from deployment offices, a closed loop feedback handbook, End-To-End measuring have been used for the qualitative research of the CLF and End-End-To-End measuring. Using documentation has the advantage that it may provide information that has been organization members have forgotten and is a more reliable source of information (Van Aken et al., 2007). This documentation has mostly been used in the descriptive part of chapter 4.
Furthermore, the total amount of CLF call backs data was used for the quantitative research and to analyze the call back trends and the output of CLF, elaborated in chapter 4.4 and chapter 6. The respondents used for mapping the segmentation trends and feedback output, are all the customers who contacted the Business Service Desk in Rotterdam for Small and Medium Enterprises in the months January 2009 till July 2009.
Interviews. For the qualitative research, information has been gathered by 26 interviews. Interviews with NPS program manager, NPS/CLF experts, customer excellence strategists, three (master) black belts (A black belt is specialized in Six Sigma, a quality management approach to improve the operational performance of the organization). Two quality managers, two liaison managers, a process desk manager, three service managers, two operational manager, six team leaders and four call agents. The interviews were conducted with a semi structured approach, specific questions were asked with sufficient room for additional information (Van Aken et al., 2007).
The NPS program manager, NPS/CLF experts, service manager, operational managers, team leaders and the call agents interviews were all focused on measuring at touch point level and about the use of CLF. The information gathered from these interviews will be used in chapter 4.2.
The (master) black belts, liaison managers and the process desk manager interviews were focused on the prioritizing and communication of structural problems between KPN and KPN Contact. The information gathered from these interviews will be described in chapter 4.3.
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3.4 Scope and limitations
The research will be conducted at the division Customer Excellence of the Marketing Strategy & Innovation department (MS&I) which is part of the Business Market division of KPN, as shown in the organization chart in the first chapter, figure 1.
Due to the large scope of the problem statement, a few boundary conditions are defined. As mentioned before, MS&I is part of the Business Market (BM), so this research will focus on the business to business market, in which NPS was introduced in 2008. Next to this, to link KPN and their customers, call centers are more important. Therefore, the research will focus on the Business Service Desk (BSD) in Rotterdam for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). The BSD SME is responsible for 35,000 calls a week about complaints, assurance and billing questions and advising customers. The advice and questions are about different products KPN offered.
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4. Measuring at Touch Point level and Process level
4.1 Introduction
After the theoretical background and methodology in the previous chapters, in this chapter measuring at touch point and process level will be described as well as the quantitative output of measuring at touch point level. First, measuring at touch point level at the Business Service Desk (BSD) will be described and is called Touch Point measuring. This section is divided into a) coaching and b) the transition of structural problems. Subsequent the quantitative output of the BSD SME is given. Next to measuring at touch point level, measuring at process level will be described, in chapter 4.6; End-To-End measuring.
4.2 Measuring customer feedback at Touch Point level and Process level at KPN
During the customer experience process, KPN is trying to gather feedback of the customer. On the one hand, KPN is interested in the experience of the customer during all possible contact moments and within all three phases of Vandermerwe’s Customer Activity Cycle (CAC); pre purchase, purchase and post purchase. On the other hand, KPN is paying attention to drivers of the customer satisfaction in the post purchase phase of the CAC. To gather this feedback, KPN is measuring the experience and drivers at two different levels. The results of End-To-End measuring should be supported by the results of the Touch Point measuring. The call backs for both Touch Point and End-To-End measurement are done with Closed Loop Feedback (CLF) as well.
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4.3 Touch Point level - The Business Service Desk
KPN Contact (4,600 employees) is the internal contact centre for a lot of services of KPN. In the different settlements of KPN Contact, telephone and e-mail has been processed by call agents, who sell, advice and deliver services to KPN customers (www.agora.kpn.com).
Touch Point measuring and CLF call backs are carried out at the Business Service Desk - Small Medium Enterprises (BSD - SME) since halfway 2008. Every week there are approximately 35,000 calls for advice, assurance or billing questions. To prevent unnecessary contacts by provision of a high quality service, BSD SME is trying to minimize the amount of customer contacts by problem solving in the first call. Problem solving in once, should generate the desirable results; increasing NPS score, employee satisfaction, more efficiency and operational excellence (www.agora.kpn.com).
Within the BSD, 660 call agents divided in 55 teams are answering phone calls to help and serve the customers. These call agents are managed by a team leader who is under supervision of an operational manager. The operational managers report to an establishment manager. Different activities occur; coaching of call agents and team leaders and discussing improvement initiatives through team leaders and operational managers. All these activities have the focus to increase the NPS mindset and the call agents’ quality by coaching (feedback for employee). While the Process Desk, Business Team and Process Management Teams are focused at the transition of structural problems.
4.3.1 Customer call backs
Call agents convince more and more customers to provide the NPS questionnaire after their contact with the call agent. An increasing amount of customers are participating in the questionnaire and the response rate targets for the call agents are met. Due to the positive experience of feedback, call agents are extra motivated to ask customers to participate. Team leaders are positive as well about the possibilities to coach their call agents based on input achieved by these customer call backs. During these calls back calls, team leaders fill in the feedback in three different boxes (figure 9).
Figure 9, register form for CLF call backs
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Feedback for employee; Feedback in this box is meant for individual coaching and for group sessions. The team manager should use the results for the CLF group sessions to improve the call agents’ quality and NPS mindset. It is useful that the employee will be aware of having impact at NPS to create more empathy.
Service recovery; The second task, as can be seen in the second box, is monitoring if the problem is solved by redirecting the problem to the operational meetings.
Structural problems; is about structural problems mentioned by the customers. This is under responsibility of the process desks and for business team meetings as discussed previously.
4.4 Coaching
Coaching of employees is the most important objective of using Closed Loop Feedback by team leaders. Within BSD SME, coaching takes place at three processes;
1. Coaching of call agents 2. CLF group sessions
3. Operational meetings / coaching team leaders.
First the call backs by team leaders will be described, during these call backs input for the of coaching employees is gathered.
4.4.1 Coaching of call agents
The first process is coaching of the call agents. Gathered information by CLF is useful for coaching call agents, with the result call agents are learning and changing their behavior. During these coaching moments, the call agents must become aware of the role of the customer and service orientated. During this meetings, the central themes are way of working and empathy.
4.4.2 CLF group sessions
In Group sessions, the goal is, next to increasing the agents’ quality, to do suggestions for process improvement and to explain recently introduced changes. Remarkable problems and suggested improvements should be discussed during these sessions, as well as announcements about new products, scripts and other changes for the call agents. CLF sessions are scheduled twice a month, scheduled by the operational manager.
4.4.3 Operational meeting / coaching team leaders
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4.5 The transition of structural problems
As indicated, the previous sessions are mainly focused at improving the agents’ service quality. Nevertheless, during CLF call backs of the team leaders, team leaders discover structural problems as well. All problems filled in the third box are first send through to the process desk. In this section the receiving and transition part of structural problems will be discussed.
4.5.1 The process desk and issue list
The purpose of the process desk is to gather and prioritize all structural problems put through by team leaders and organizational managers. On average about 150 issues are put through every week. Around 60% is mentioned for operations and are improvement ideas. The remaining 40% are mainly about ‘first call right’. Failure calls; wherein the company did not solve the customer’s problem the first time. Almost no new ideas about CLF improvements are send through.
Next to this, the task is to give feedback about the status of the ideas. The prioritized problems are discussed in the business teams; with the result process management teams can make initiatives to solve these structural problems.
4.5.2 Business Teams
During business team meetings, prioritized issues sent by the process desk are discussed. Within these meetings the operational manager, a team manager, a process developer, a planner and a service manager are present. Problems which cannot be solved at KPN Contact internally are forwarded to the Process Management Teams (PMT’s), discussed in section 4.3.2.3.
4.5.3 Process Management Teams
Four different PMT’s can be separated based on the different processes; assurance, billing, complaints and delivery. The PMT’s are responsible for the control of End-To-End processes based on customer focused key performance indicators, for process improvements, process enhancement and for process redesign.
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4.6 Quantitative output of calls Business Service Desk - SME
In the previous sections, measuring at Touch point level have been described. The processes which are part of coaching at BSD SME are illustrated. Besides, transition of structural problems has been explained; the issue list, process desk, business teams and Process Management Teams. In this section the quantitative output of the BSD SME is described.
As mentioned, 35,000 calls are handled every week. According to the data of these calls, the tendency is that customers are becoming more interested in taking part in the automatic voice response, than the first months (6%). The response rate target call agents get is 10% and is outnumbered in May and June 2009 to 11%. This response rate target means that 10% of the total number of people who are calling the BSD SME are willing to take part in the NPS questionnaire. Through this questionnaire, KPN can calculate the NPS score. The calculated NPS score is given in a dashboard for each month. As shown in figure 10, the NPS score is increasing from -8% in January to 0% in August.
From all customers who make contact with the BSD SME, 11% is taking part in the NPS questionnaire, the response rate. Because KPN is interested in additional information about the customers, the NPS questionnaire is more than just the ‘ultimate question’. The final question asks the customer if he/she would like to be called back. 35% percent of the customers who are taking part in the voice response are willing to be called back by a team manager, as shown in figure 11.
Team leaders have the target, given by their operational manager, to call back five customers every week. Knowing that there are 55 team leaders, 1100 customers should be called back successfully each month. According to the data, the amount of call back done by team leaders increased the first months with a peak in May to 752 call backs. But after May, the amount of call backs decreased rapidly to 353 successful call backs in August 2009, which is not even two call backs per team leader.
Figure 10, dashboard with given the NPS score for each month
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Despite of the 35% of the customers who would like to be called back, just 10% of them will actually be called back, while the other 90% are waiting and expecting a call from KPN. In addition, based on last two months, July and August, this call back rate is less than 7%. This expectation is created through the question; ‘Based on your answers, is it possible if the need arise to call you back?’ and can have negative effects on the reliability of KPN.
In addition, the information of the other 65% is limited to the amount people who base their NPS score at accessibility, knowledge and behavior and the final result of their contact with the BSD -SME. The total amount of feedback KPN Contact is asking directly for all the incoming calls is about 0,4% and is the underlying driver of the customer experience.
Section 4.3 till 4.5 dealt with the whole process of measuring at touch point level, including the quantitative output of feedback at this level. Next to measuring at touch point level, KPN is measuring at process level, called End-To-End measuring, described in the following section (4.6).
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4.7 Process Level - End-To-End measuring
As mentioned before, End-To-End measuring takes place at the end of the chain in the post purchase phase and is done by TNS Nipo. Where measuring at touch point level focuses on customer experience, measuring at process level focuses on customer drivers.
Approximately one month after the last contact the customer had with KPN, the customer is called back. Measuring at process level starts with the same question; ‘How likely is it that you would recommend KPN to a friend or colleague?’ Again customers are asked to respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale. End-To-End measuring gives KPN insight in the customers’ perception of the whole process, like billing, assurance and delivery, and not single about the customer service orientation of the call agent. After the ‘ultimate question’, the questionnaire contains more detailed questions with the purpose to discover drivers about their service experience of the whole customer activity cycle. The CLF process is used here as well. In the chapter 5 the results will be discussed.
Twice a year, TNS Nipo is calling back customers who passed through the whole process during a period of three months. During these months, the target is to reach one hundred customers for each process and/or for each product. The questionnaire, executed by TNS Nipo, is made by the division Customer Satisfaction (CS). CS is responsible for coordinating, analyzing and advising of the NPS and customer satisfaction measuring. Furthermore, CS is in charge for providing a customer database. This database is used by TNS Nipo to select customers at random.
PMT’s can do recommendations to Customer Satisfaction about subjects of the questionnaire as well. By analyzing dashboards, PMT’s have insight in the general trends of products. If PMT’s and responsible Product Performance Teams (PPT) have no idea about the causes of the negative score, then it is possible, as suggested by PMT’s and PPT’s, for extra measuring through adding questions to the questionnaire.
An example is the product “Software Online” (SWOL). According to the dashboards analysis, SWOL had a notable negative score and concerning the amount of calls addressed to SWOL the impact at the NPS score was enormous. Nevertheless, SWOL was not a subject on the questionnaire in first place, but at the request of the PMT, SWOL is added to the questionnaire.
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5. Qualitative output of BSD SME
5.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter, the process of measuring at touch point level and measuring at process level has been described. Also, the quantitative output of the Business Service Desk is explained. This chapter will look at the qualitative output of the BSD SME and of End-To-End measuring. First, coaching will be discussed followed by the transition of structural problems.
5.2 Coaching
As shown in the previous chapter, the BSD SME has important moments of providing feedback to their employees. But feedback has to be gathered by team leaders through CLF customer interviews first and is the input for coaching call agents. The objective by coaching call agents is improving the call agents’ quality as well as becoming more NPS minded, with the result improving the service quality and more satisfied customers.
5.2.1 CLF customer interviews
According to the 35,000 calls a week; the tendency is that customers are more interested in taking part to the NPS questionnaire than the first months. Call agents are better instructed and more motivated to convince the customer to participate the NPS questionnaire.
While more customers are willing to be called back, team leaders call back fewer customers. The target of calling back five customers a week has not been achieved by many team leaders. Time seems to be the biggest problem. It should take two till four hours to make five successful customer calls plus preparation time, which consist of gathering context information about the customer situation. Furthermore, not every customer picks up the phone or has time to answer the CLF questions, as argued by team leaders.
5.2.2 Call back segmentation of CLF customer interviews
Next to time pressure, it is important to call back the right customer. To get a wide scope of the service delivered by the call agents and become familiar with structural issues, team leaders should base their feedback on promoters, neutrals and criticasters. Team leaders do agree with the positive output these call backs deliver and see it as a useful input for coaching call agents.
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Nowadays, based on May and June 2009, team leaders are calling back meanly for 30% criticasters, for 43% neutrals and for 27% promoters. These percentages are not in line with the amount of criticasters (28%), neutrals (47%) and promoters (25%). But as shown in figure x as the black line, there is a declining trend of calling back criticasters.
Despite of the declining trend of calling back criticasters, in the same period the NPS is increasing with 8% from -8% to 0%. Nevertheless, it is not provable if the increasing NPS is the result of improvements within KPN Contact through a more customer orientated method of working. Or, would the NPS increase more if there had been called more criticasters. And so, more information is gathered to use for improvements.
Nonetheless, it is to be expected that criticaster complain more than promoters and in this way, it is assumable contemporary issues are mostly reported by criticasters. Despite of this team leaders and operational managers do not agree;
’Every time we are calling back criticasters, we hear the same as other call backs of criticasters’ or ‘we do already know what we do wrong and what our errors are’.
The cause is twofold, on the one hand, about hearing the same answers, perhaps team leaders are not asking the rights questions, with the result no new arguments or suggestions which could be useful for KPN or for coaching their call agents are given. On the other hand, when the problems are familiar, the time a solution is given and the process to send through these problems takes too long.
5.2.3 Coaching of call agents
The information from call backs should be the basis of coaching the individual call agent. Using this information stimulates the call agents to learn from feedback based on own experience. Call agents are positive about the feedback. Call agents will learn from their mistakes, change their behavior
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and correct colleagues at their performance. Also, team leaders are positive about coaching call agents and many team leaders are planning time for these contact moment with their call agents. Despite of this positive idea of coaching, again time is a problem, as argued by team leaders. It takes too much time to prepare input about CLF scores and performance reports. Less preparation time has negative influence at the quality of these coaching moments. In addition, there is no fixed amount of time the team leaders are coaching their agents. The time problem is denied by the service manager and explains the cause in mindset and limited encouragement of higher management.
At last, team leaders using their own way and frequency of coaching agents. Cause of directly responded feedback after a team leaders’ call back, feedback moments are short and less prepared.
5.2.4 CLF group sessions
The current situation is clear. Closed Loop Feedback sessions do not occur anymore. During the first months, every two weeks, CLF sessions were scheduled by order of the operational manager. By not scheduling these sessions, the possibility for team learning disappears.
According the team leaders, underlying problems of stop scheduling CLF sessions are well-known; time. Nevertheless, according the service manager, time is not the problem, but the mindset. It is not assumable team leaders are too busy with mailings and processes. In addition, the service manager made week schedules for team leaders, with the result; plenty of time for CLF sessions. Due to the limited coaching given by the operational manager, the NPS knowledge shrinks away for team leaders. No extra training has been given to catch up NPS knowledge, which should be supported by the operational managers. Besides, the contact between KPN and KPN Contact is feeble; there is less communication and new and practical information is given lately. For example, a new initiative implemented by KPN is not communicated in time, whereby script changes for call agents are not appropriate yet and the call agents inform customers incorrectly. The self efficacy of call agents is confined, with the result the service quality deteriorates.
5.2.5 Operational meeting / coaching team leaders
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5.3 Transition of structural problems
Next to quality of coaching, the output of the transition has been analyzed. The results will be discussed in this section.
5.3.1 CLF interviews
It is fully known that call backs frequently have an internal focus; increasing the call agents quality by coaching to provide high service quality. Team leaders see the use of CLF mostly as method to coach and train call agents instead of finding process improvements. The structural problems in box three of the CLF forms, are sending through directly to the process desk. But the team leaders do not have the idea that their input has the intended effect, this because of the limited feedback team leaders receive by the process desk. Explanation for this is that proposed problems putting through are many times the same. Hereby it is difficult to provide all team leaders feedback. Just feedback by a general newsletter is provided. Next to this, the issue list is not visible for the team leaders. Team leaders do not see if their suggestions are listed before.
5.3.2 The process desk and issue list
As mentioned, all the issues filled in in box three ‘structural problems’ are automatically sent through to the issue list which is under responsibility of the process desk. Although, prioritizing is based on the impact on customer satisfaction, separated into first call right/NPS and costs issues, the process desk is returning input from team leaders. It is important the process desk is keeping strictly to the formula used, as argued by a client liaison manager. The formula gives restrictions, in example about the time products are delivered or customers are moved. Making use of the formula gives an unambiguous picture to the service desk. In addition, the process desk blanks out the customer focus. Next to this, according to the process desk, it is hard to response at all incoming problems; because problems are not structured and many times familiar problems are sending through. Finally and again, the issue list is not visible for everyone.
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5.3.3 Business Teams
During business teams meetings the prioritizing of issues should be discussed. Nevertheless, most of the time is spend at small internal problems for service recovery and less time is released for structural problems. Only the five high prioritized structural problems and initiatives are discussed during the last remaining minutes by the process desk employee. The service manager is responsible to forward these issues and is putting through only issues presented by the process desk.
Twice a month business meetings are scheduled. The team leader is calling back a week after the customer made contact with KPN and the process desk is prioritizing the structural issues a week after. It takes at least four week, after the customer made contact with KPN, structural issues are being discussed. Not even think about it when the customer would recognize a solution.
5.3.4 Process Management Teams
Despite of this intention to pick up structural issues by the PMT, in reality it is not working. The service manager is responsible for the contact between the Business Teams en the PMT’s and is present in the Business Teams meetings. Nevertheless not all PMT’s have contact with the service manager about the issue list and structural problems. With the results issues do not arrive by the PMT’s. In addition, again some PMT’s are not familiar with the existence of an issue list or there is no transparency in the contemporary structural problems, as mentioned by a KPN master black belt.
Besides, an overall view of the interventions which should solve the structural issues is missing. Without this overall view, no one has any idea for how long an issue is listed or since when an intervention is introduced. The PMT Assurance is the only one who has good contact with the BSD. In addition, PMT Assurance implements new ideas and initiatives to improve the relation with the service desk and to gather more insight in the structural problems. The use of spotfire is good example.
The result of the less contact between PMT’s and Business Teams is that PMT’s pass over the process desk and business teams and asking team leaders directly for input. In addition, PMT’s do process improvements and initiatives based on results of the End-To-End measuring.
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5.4 End-To-End measuring
Previously the output of measuring at touch point level has been discussed. In this chapter the output of measuring at process level will be discussed.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the target is to reach hundred customers for each process and/or for each product. This target is hard to achieve, especially without calling customers twice or more, as argued by quality manager Customer Satisfaction. Reason for this, in example, is the limited amount of companies who are moving in one month for ‘Moving Without Worries’. To realize more customers and to become more reliable, TNS Nipo is calling back customers over three months.
Besides, at this moment all touch points are rolling out Closed Looped Feedback. Due to the lack of coordination and communication it could happen that the customer is requested multiple times for participate the NPS questionnaire. The customer could be annoyed by being requested five times during, in example, the move process within three weeks. A month later the customer is called back again by TNS Nipo, with the results that customers fill in surveys selectively and customers will give bad scores, mentioned by analysts McKinsey. So, due to lack of coordination, serious risks of over surveying customers on touch points come into existence.
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6. Analysis of results CLF and End-To-End measuring
6.1 Introduction
After looking at the quantitative and qualitative output of measuring at touch point level and process level, this chapter will analyze and compare the results of both methods. This section describes the results of Touch Point measuring and concludes with the results of CLF.
6.2 Analysis results of Touch Point measuring
As mentioned before, during the NPS questionnaire, customers are asked to choose between three variables on which their NPS score is based on; accessibility, knowledge and behavior, and the final result. During the call backs, done by team leaders, the goal is to discover the underlying thoughts and reason of the customers about the given NPS score.
Analyzing these call backs over a period of nine months, quarter four of the year 2008 and quarter one and two of the year 2009, brings forward a total number of 2636 call backs. Of these call backs, 864 customers are criticasters, they give a NPS score between 0 and 6. Of these 864 customer call backs, 428 customers have given successful feedback during these call backs. In figure 13 the dispersion of criticasters in accessibility, knowledge and behavior and the final result is shown.
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It is important to discover the underlying thoughts and reasoning of the choice between accessibility, knowledge and behavior and the final result. By using Closed Loop Feedback during the call backs, team leaders try to discover these thoughts.
According to these call backs, customers have many reasons for their given score. A few examples from the accessibility part are;
‘too many times putting through’ / ‘out of contact’ / ‘waiting time’
For knowledge and behavior;
‘following agreements’ / ‘rude call agents’ / ‘accessibility’ / ‘One CRM related issues’
For the final results;
‘expertise call agents’ / ‘waiting time’ / ‘no call back’
Clustering of the results of the 428 Closed Loop Feedback - call backs gives the following pie chart of underlying thoughts and reasoning of customers (figure 14).
Remarkable is that most part of these arguments is service related, except results and waiting time, which are typically process related. Again, this service problem emphasizes the role of feedback given by team leaders to their call agents.
