WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

During recent years there has been a considerable evolution with call centres becoming contact centres to reflect the increasing use of other channels of communication. Customer contact centres involve additional forms of interaction than solely using the telephone eg, mail, but the main area of growth is in e-mail communication.

Written communication requires complementary skills to those used in verbal communication. Accurate spelling, suitable use of vocabulary and correct grammar are necessary to present the organization in the best light. ‘As more call centres evolve into contact centres, literacy will be a key labour skill’. This development could be an increasing problem because a large number of trainees have limited basic skills, especially spelling.

Below are two case studies that illustrate how an organization has recognized the increasing importance of written communication and the necessity of matching the language used in correspondence with corporate brand.

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THE WRITE WAY – 1

Mandy Scott-Hopkins, O2

Background

With a large customer service function (circa 8,000 FTE) within a contact centre environment, O2 strives to differentiate itself from competitors through brand and reputation. We develop most learning solutions as a result of business change and need to react very quickly, so the challenge is to develop dynamic learning solutions that support this, underpinned by a quality development programme for core skills. The historical focus for communication skills has been on the spoken voice as this has been the main channel of customer contact. With the increased use of written channels it has become necessary to focus on the impact of written communication on our brand.

Challenge

The challenge was to identify, design and deliver a standard of writing within Customer Services in line with O2 brand values, reflecting the personality of the organization and delivering a high standard of modern grammar. The in-house Learning and Development (L&D) team provided generalist development solutions and did not have the expert knowledge to develop the content.

Solution

An external company that specialized in this area was sourced to support the design and implementation of the solution. A steering group was created including representatives from operations, L&D and the external company, with a senior level operations manager as the sponsor. The key success factors were:

1. Identify and define the brand and written voice for CS correspondence.
2. Identify the standard and understand current issues with correspondence.
3. Develop a basic correspondence library and writers’ handbook to support advisers with templates for letters and e-mails.
4. Design and handover a correspondence workshop for advisers.
5. Deliver an exit strategy to ensure the business owns the material and is self-sufficient at maintaining the programme through developing the capability of trainers, coaches and team managers.
6. Identify talent in the business and grow it by delivering an ‘expert’ workshop to key people in the business to ensure that the programme is sustainable.
7. Measure performance improvement to include improved grammar, tone, punctuation and spelling in addition to reducing escalations/repeat correspondence.

Outcomes

The success factors were achieved and O2 owns a bespoke two-day comprehensive writing workshop that delivers results. The continuing challenge is that the development and guardianship of this subject is dependent on external resource at a substantial financial cost. As the trained ‘experts’ move on and develop careers, the number of those competent at this level reduces, therefore the ability to maintain the integrity and benefits from the programme diminishes over time. The challenge is to ensure the ongoing development of new experts is cost-effective. There are clear cost benefits in developing our internal teams with the skills to design, deliver and coach modules to support this area.