Headcount is Everything

What is CX, or customer experience? CX is everything a business does to put customers first, managing their journey to serve the customer needs and expectations. Boy, does that sound a lot like the definition of "Brand". If true, then marketing and operations are focusing on the same thing, and we can consider Brand and CX to be synonymous.

With some foundation for understanding CX, then the question business is faced with is how best to accomplish achieving customer desires and expectations.

This brings me to a recent encounter when I called the 800 number and this organization's team member apologized for the long wait time because of being understaffed. Imagine the impact on customers learning you can't meet their needs due to staffing! This causes many more questions, and your customer may now question the competency of leadership as one of those thoughts. Another thought customers may have is when calling with issues, concerns or very real problems with the product or service the team member cannot resolve the issue? Wow.

What value does a company apply to these customer concerns? There is an actual organization called the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals who provide insights into these types of business concerns. One professional, Penny Reynolds, published an article in the Summer 2021 newsletter and illuminates the dilemma business faces on the Impact on Callers:

"The most obvious set of people impacted by improper staffing is the customer base. Customers making calls to the center are directly impacted by the number of frontline staff in place. If there are more staff than actually required, that can actually have a positive impact on callers, as their calls will get answered faster with shorter delays. However, if customers call during overstaffed times and experience shorter than normal delays, it might set an unrealistic expectation of service for future calls.

Understaffing has a much more negative impact for callers. Fewer frontline staff means longer delays for callers. Also, as queues get longer and frontline staff feel the pressure of many calls waiting, the quality of service may also be affected. If delays become too long, callers may give up and abandon the queue."

My point in this discussion is to illuminate the value decision business leaders make all the time regarding headcount and metrics on customer facing functions.

One thing is abundantly clear - if you understaff to save money or your representatives are not trained well, it has a negative impact on CX. Conversely, if you overstaff and have a well-trained team CX is positively impacted. There you have it, the pluses and minuses of the customer service function. Easy isn't it.

Trouble is the Help Desk or Call Center functions are typically at the bottom rung of the pay scale, and this produces significant turn over, and consistently causing shortages and training issues, negatively impacting your CX. These are typically entry level roles paying $20/hour. Pay, training and HR policies weigh heavily on your ability to retain this particular staff member.

Maybe it is just me, but my first business venture included a call center function and everyone in the business was customer facing. Each call in or walk in was a CX touchpoint. I developed a business plan to achieve sales in all product categories on a daily basis and managed to a 30-day look back to review and adjust based upon performance. Along with these metrics I overstaffed 20%. I had a three-ring phone policy, and I personally sat with my CSRs at night to assist in their review and training process. The point of this example is that I measured sales count to drive head count to ensure I always had enough staff to provide superior customer service. My customer retention rates were above industry averages by the way!

I am a customer of many products and services just like you, and I have high expectations just like you that the application works, or the person can resolve my issue. I know from my own personal experiences that a negative experience can result in firing that business or lead to the same with multiple bad experiences. I assume that is also true for you too, depending on your frustration threshold.

Final thought. Have you left a company or "fired" them for customer service? If so, feel free to comment and provide feedback.