What exactly is customer focus? It’s certainly one of the contact center “buzzwords” in recent years and as a veteran call center gal I constantly ask, “How do I turn the words ‘customer centric’ into actionable call center performance standards to drive results using traditional KPIs in my call center?” I’m assuming many of you reading this article have struggled with the same transformation challenge in recent years, especially if you’ve historically worked with finance teams or workforce management groups that only care about average drive time and budget.

While there are many definitions for customer centric approach, we have found that it is very important to define customer centric approach as simply as possible. In its simplest form, customer centricity means that everything we do in our contact center is built around the customer experience and emotional needs of the customer at the time they call us. By focusing on the client’s question, identifying their emotional needs, and providing solutions, we have developed an actionable model that drives results directly across all of our centers. Yes, I know this sounds difficult in theory, but the good news is that we have developed a very basic concept and formulated a very simple approach based on the fact that every human being has needs, desires and emotions. That’s the simplicity of the common bond between your customers and your frontline agents.

This means that today’s responder in an inbound call center has at least three process steps to follow every time they answer the phone and greet the customer, it’s all about listening to determine if the customer has a problem they’re trying to resolve and offering action. The third step, after the client’s basic questions have been acknowledged, takes us to the deeper emotional level of the process journey directly related to the moments that matter. The agent has to transition from transactional Q&A processing and start focusing on the “life experience” the customer is going through right now because it really matters if you’re trying to deliver on a customer-centric initiative. He reads on to find out more.

I want to share an example to demonstrate this three-pronged approach. We were working with a wireless telecommunications provider on a routine call about their bill on their family cell phone plan due to text message overages. The associate quickly resolved the issue by increasing the size of their plan, but in the second phase, the associate gleaned insightful and valuable details during the conversation, the customer sharing that his eldest son had just received his first cell phone and expressed some fear that his son would start driving. All of this emotional detail came to light as they chatted while the plan and rates were being updated. In years past, this was a quick, transaction-based, open/close call, very black and white, and easily documented in a knowledge management system as a “how to” update a plan. In today’s competitive marketplace, frontline agents must learn specific skills that build that agility to move to the next level and use the consumer intelligence available at their fingertips to process new information about what’s happening in their customers’ lives, as this creates significant customer value, loyalty, and increased sales. In this scenario, it makes sense for the agent to review the account and use suggestive phrases that support the real-life emotional moments that matter that were identified during the call. Focusing on the customer became actionable when the agent recognized the emotional need and vulnerability of customers. The associate phrased his next statement as follows: “Wow, I just noticed your teen’s new cell phone doesn’t have insurance, would you like me to go ahead and add that to your plan so you have peace of mind knowing you can always be reached if there is an emergency?” Identifying customers’ emotional needs and important moments translates into revenue-generating opportunities for those companies that can take action on customer-centric initiatives.

At another client, one of our insurance companies, the incoming customer call was opened with a simple transactional question: “Does my plan cover the hospital and delivery of my next newborn?” The agent offered action and interacted with the client as the group policy benefits loaded on her screen, as she looked up the benefit plans, rewarded the young father about the upcoming birth of his new baby and they talked about the due date, he shared with her that this would be their first child, he was almost giddy with joy and also shared a feeling of nervousness because he didn’t really know everything he needed to do. She quickly and efficiently put him at ease and thoroughly reviewed her coverage and then, quite naturally, took action at the important moments when she had answered the call. As we transform our agents to identify milestones, they begin to think ahead for the client, she instinctively knew that if she was expecting her first newborn, she should consider additional life insurance, think about college funding, etc. Translating the customer’s emotional needs during important moments revolutionizes the experience and provides a “warm and fuzzy” feeling to anticipate the customer’s needs. This strategy not only increases loyalty, but increases the bottom line of the business through increased sales while also meeting the emotional needs of the customer during those important moments. When this client hung up, she felt great because she knew that she had taken practical steps to create a great start for her new son. She was less stressed and could focus solely on the birth of her new arrival!