Sales and Call targets or is it Customer first?

My travels this week took me to the hot-bed of the UK contact centre industry, the North-east, to visit a 100+ seat all singing all dancing contact centre.

After a presentation on the company and a tour of the site, I quizzed the management about call and sales target for their contact centre agents; the company explained that the operation had changed over the past year from ‘100 calls per day’ to ‘putting the customer at the heart of the operation’ and as such no sales or call targets are set quiet simply working on the basis that if the customer has a positive experience they would consider favourably the company’s products and, perhaps more importantly, the company brand.

My response was to reply how refreshing it was that the company have taken this almost ‘radical’ policy taking into account that nearly every other contact centre that I have ever visited has set call targets.

Speaking to other invited and like-minded guests after the visit we collectively came to the same conclusion that perhaps the contact centre industry has finally woke up and smelt the coffee that the most important person in a contact centre, apart from the agents, are indeed the customers.

Perhaps this ‘best practice’ trend which will be implemented in other similar contact centres?

Have a good week ahead!