The influential American philosopher Elbert Hubbert once asserted, “one machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” In an age of virtual assistants and automated medical advice lines this is a philosophy us humans should perhaps cherish. Customer feedback solutions specialists, ServiceTick, concur with Hubbert. A survey conducted by the company pits contact centres against web-based customer management and finds the latter is still lacking. Their 150,000-strong survey discovered that customer satisfaction scores and NPS (Net Promoter Score) were consistently higher at the end of a personal conversation with an agent than with web-based scores. The difference was clear – customer satisfaction scores were 22 points higher and NPS 69% higher.
Thinking laterally, this is hardly surprising. After all, having someone listen to your query or problem and actively strive for a solution or enhance your experience with their product or service, is most consumers idea of excellent customer service. Choice, convenience, service standards and provision must be key when deciding on the communication channels your company offers. The customer service strategy you employ is dependent on the type of campaign you are running. Simple services with little need for interaction or risk of procedural error could be suited to web-based applications, but if the campaign is more information-driven or if there is more risk for the customer to become confused by a difficult process or service, a contact centre environment might be more appropriate. Expertly managed online systems are well demonstrated by Facebook and Google who, when not fighting over world domination, have constructed comprehensive troubleshooting systems that negate, though not replace, the need for “contact” customer service. Their businesses are such that the majority of the problems their users encounter can be solved through the kind of procedural IT troubleshooting that many of us are familiar with from work. We can see that in some contexts this approach is well suited, but if you are hoping to reap the rewards of upselling, cross-selling or simply injecting your brand with a bit of personality, contact centre services can’t be beaten.
Modern consumers create complex personas through their product choices and the way they select, negotiate, manage and communicate these choices. We allow ourselves to be constantly contactable, both by our peers and marketers alike, and expect the same availability from our service providers. Smart businesses understand that, in order to promote customer acquisition and retention, a more holistic approach to customer service is needed. While web-based processes are sometimes quicker or more convenient to access, the frustration that can develop from not being able to locate your answer within a FAQ matrix can be a far less preferable process to speaking to a responsive and laterally-minded person, interested in retaining your custom. Should a customer be thinking of shopping around for a different supplier, a chat with an advisor gives the opportunity to win the customer back over. Social media and forums mean that people are going to be talking about your products and services; good and bad. Both the bane and beauty of social media is that it is so hard to control and moderate, in fact nigh on impossible. By ensuring the quality standards of your service or product at source, you can be assured that you are doing all you can to prevent negative publicity as well as ensuring that you have a strategy in place if online chat turns negative.
Being able to fully integrate your contact centre and online systems should be the ultimate aim when optimising your customer service provision. It is not a contest between one or the other and, as with many of the facets of business, as long as you are considering the needs of your customer, every step of the way, you can’t go far wrong.
The UK Bribery Act which comes into effect on July 1st will be undoubtedly more strict than the US equivalent, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as it prohibits any form of facilitation payments. The act illustrates a considerable tightening in anti-corruption legislation in the UK.
The UK legislation differs from the FCPA in three fundamental aspects; bribery of private individuals and companies, corporate failure to prevent bribery and facilitation payments. Facilitation payments are bribes made with the intention of quickening the performance of a function or activity (to which the payer is legally entitled) of a public official in everyday governmental activity, such as the issuing of permits or licenses, and not to acquire or maintain business. While in some countries it may be common to provide small unofficial payments in certain situations, in most countries the practice is illegal.
These payments are a troublesome area for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) convention as it does not validate facilitation payments as an offence. The aim of the convention is to establish binding standards and measures to criminalise the bribery of public officials in international business transactions. In 2009, the OECD council published a recommendation to all member countries urging them to revise the method of how they tackle this issue and to encourage them to prevent their domestic companies to use facilitation payments.
In the UK facilitation payments abroad are criminalised whereas in the US such payments abroad are not prohibited and there is no upper limit for them. With the introduction of the Bribery Act, UK companies will have to be extremely vigilant in their business relations with countries where facilitation payments are more commonplace. The following link provides further information on the legal status of facilitation payments from country to country http://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/.
An example of a facilitation payment which could result in a section six offence (bribery of a foreign official) would be slipping an immigration official money in order to speed up the process of obtaining a visa. The person who makes this payment does not consider this to be overly corrupt or dishonest. This type of payment can also result in a section one offence (bribing another person) which could render the entire business accountable under section seven, which is failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery.
As with the old law, the Bribery Act does not provide any impunity for such payments. However, the Government does acknowledge the challenges that corporations come up against in certain parts of the world and within market sectors. The total removal of facilitation payments is recognised at both national and international level as a long-term goal, which will require social and economic progress as well as continued adherence to the law, especially in regions of the world where the problem is more widespread.
Co-operation between governments, international bodies and the anti-bribery lobby is essential in the fight against corruption. In addition, individual organisations will have an integral role to play in terms of how they tackle bribery prevention. Within the six principles of the Bribery Act, the second principle of top level commitment states that in large multi-national corporations the board should be responsible for setting bribery policies. They should assign management to draft, operate and control bribery prevention measures and keeping them under constant review. Good corporate governance policies, which if enforced appropriately, can help businesses combat the risk of facilitation payments.
