Press Release

Why Benchmarking the Service Center Matters

(Boonton, NJ, May 7, 2009) — Many customer service operations feel that they can get along just fine without external benchmarking.

They have their internal performance metrics in place and do a regular customer satisfaction survey. What more is necessary?

Well, there are a number of things that may be wrong with that scenario, says Alton Martin in the May issue of Customer Service Newsletter.

Martin, the CEO of COPC Inc., a contact center benchmarking firm notes, "If you are always looking backwards — asking, 'How did we do before and let's just do better' — you are likely to be comparing yourself against bad results, particularly if you are in a low-performing industry."

"Companies in the computer hardware and software space, for instance, will tell us that first-call resolution at 68 percent is good — but that wouldn't cut it in industries like airlines, financial services, hotel reservations, and many others."

Customers are experiencing different levels of service across industries, and "they get educated pretty quickly about what's good," Martin says. "And one of the ways that we suggest people use benchmarking is to go out and find out how good they can get," Martin tells Customer Service Newsletter.

About the Customer Service Group

For more than 20 years, the Customer Service Group has helped customer service, call center and help desk managers increase productivity, improve service quality and boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. The Customer Service Group publishes Customer Service Newsletter and The Customer Communicator.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com