Call Representatives' Preferred Conflict-Handling Styles Affect Customer Satisfaction

Call Representatives' Preferred Conflict-Handling Styles Affect Customer Satisfaction

CASE STUDY AT A GLANCE

STUDY OVERVIEW:

Study focuses on one call center in the Pacific

Northwest, one of 10 inbound U.S. call centers

operated by a major telecommunications provider.

The company agreed to participate in a study

undertaken as part of a doctoral dissertation to

investigate the relationship between customer

satisfaction and preferred conflict-handling styles.

CHALLENGE:

Call center managers face many challenges, two

of which are addressed by this study: meeting

customer satisfaction targets and getting the most

from training programs for call center reps. The

company's average customer satisfaction rate was

80 percent across all its other call centers, but

this unit was achieving only 77 percent. Previous

research by Goetzmann and Moumtzidis, 2006." *

revealed that an increase in customer satisfaction

through effective problem solving could result in a

3 to 6 percent increase in annual revenue.

SOLUTION:

Used the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instru-

ment to assess conflict mode preferences for 97

inbound call center reps working in the unit and

correlated those data with Customer Perception

and Satisfaction (CPS) data for each representative.

This correlation was used to determine whether

there was a relationship between the reps' pre-

ferred conflict-handling mode and higher CPS

ratings.

RESULTS:

Correlating the call center reps' TKI results with

their CPS ratings, the study found a strong

association between higher customer satisfaction

ratings and the paired conflict-handling styles of

accommodating and collaborating. This finding

suggested that providing training on effective

conflict management, including how to choose the

most effective conflict-handling styles using the

TKI assessment, for newly hired and established

call center reps could result in higher customer

satisfaction rates.

Ask managers of inbound call centers what their

key success measure is, and most will say customer

satisfaction. In fact, customer satisfaction plays a vital

role not just in keeping customers but also in attracting

new customers through positive word-of-mouth referrals.

For call centers, keeping customers satisfied means not

only fielding orders, billing inquiries, and new account

applications, but also resolving issues and complaints

quickly and efficiently. Nearly three-quarters of customers

say they will return if complaints are resolved quickly,

according to a study by Stone, 1999*.

Call centers spend millions of dollars on technical and soft

skills training annually. They also face challenges in recruiting

and retaining high-quality call center representatives in

this highly competitive field. Over the past few years,

the call center industry has grown dramatically. For many

consumer-oriented businesses, it has become one of the

primary channels for customer service activities. As a result,

call center managers are always looking for new ways

to increase rep effectiveness in order to meet customer

satisfaction performance targets, while keeping reps satisfied

in their job.

Randall Wade, business technology chair at Rogue

Community College in Grants Pass, Oregon, recently

examined the relationship between customer satis-