Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service initiative?
The Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service initiative is a benchmarking exercise, in partnership with GfK NOP, one of the UK’s leading independent market research organisations. Its goal is to help call centres find out from the general public what makes a good calling experience, based on 20,000 mystery shopping calls. We will be providing our members with feedback on the callers’ experiences and the level of customer service they provided to both their existing and potential customers, making this the largest independent research of this kind ever conducted in the UK.
2. Who is behind this initiative?
Call Centre Focus, the UK’s leading magazine for call centre managers and customer service directors, owned by CMPi, the B2B communications division of United Business Media plc.
3. What is the aim of the initiative?
This initiative aims to recognise industry best practice and inspire other contact centres to attain the levels of customer service provided by the Top 50 members, thereby improving standards across the call centre industry, which will ultimately improve all customers’ experiences when contacting a call centre.
4. How did you select the Top 50? How do you know these are really the top 50?
Call Centre Focus invited the Top 50 Call Centres based on their proven commitment to, and attainment of, the highest standards for customer service. A multi-disciplinary approach was taken when approaching companies, taking into account a variety of sources including:
- The winners and commended organisations from the European Call Centre of the Year Awards
- The winners and commended organisations from the National Customer Service Awards
- The call centres that have performed well in the research conducted and published monthly by CCF. This had looked at the performance of the market by sector and by attributes (welcome, close, find out, etc).
- Feedback from industry organisations and industry experts such as the Institute of Customer Service, SOCAP, CCA, Editor of CCF Magazine, Editor of Customer Strategy, Judges of the European Call Centre of the Year Awards & National Customer Service Awards, etc
- Those call centres who made it to The Sunday Times – 100 Best Companies To Work For were also considered
5. Is the Top 50 truly representative of the industry?
Yes. The call centres come from all parts of the UK and from a wide variety of industries. Sectors include: local and central government, retail, travel & leisure, finance, insurance, telecommunications, utilities, health and mobile providers.
6. Does the initiative exclude smaller call centres? Is there a minimum entry requirement?
No, the initiative does not exclude smaller call centres. The call centres were all invited to participate due to the high level of service they deliver, making that the only requirement. Membership is open to call centres of all sizes who deal directly with the public, and have a real customer service ethos.
7. Is this an independent benchmarking exercise?
Yes. In fact, the benchmarking exercise is the largest industry-wide initiative of its type ever undertaken in the UK. It will be conducted by GfK NOP, the fourth largest independent market research organisation worldwide. Considerable care was taken to find out what customers really want from call centre customer service by setting up a series of focus groups across the UK. The benchmarking exercise will measure call centre customer service, based upon criteria identified by these focus groups. They include: timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalisation. The calls reflect different enquiry types from simple requests to more complex enquiries, truly reflecting the range of calls the call centre receives. They take place at different times of day, during peak and non-peak periods, as well as weekends. The findings are to be published in the Top 50 magazine in The Times on 15th November 2008.
8. What are the Top 50 call centres committed to?
The Top 50 call centres are committed to further improving their customer service levels and achieving excellence in the field. They have pledged to find out what consumers really want from a call centre, by listening to customers and testing themselves against all the criteria that are part of the mystery shopping exercise.
9. Is there a common mission statement for the initiative?
This initiative is all about recognising and celebrating the excellent service that call centres provide. It allows these leading call centres, which are considered to be the best in the industry to be benchmarked against each other, raising the bar even higher for the service they provide. In short, it shines a spotlight on those call centres providing excellent service and will inspire the rest of the call centre industry to try to improve the level of customer service they deliver.
