Telenor Hungary manages 3.6 customer interactions on average per year on the phone, in writing and online, while its customer service points across the country are visited by nearly 3 million people. With online channels becoming mainstream, the number of phone calls is declining, but customers continue to demand fast, accurate and high-quality call center services. A call center operator at Telenor manages 70 to 90 calls per day on average which means about 1,250 to 1,350 calls per month.
At the awards event of the Client First competition, Telenor achieved top ranks in 3 categories and won 5 awards. The company ranked first in the personal customer service category, achieved a shared first place in the electronic customer service category and won a third place among the call centers. In addition, Telenor was granted two special awards for the “Best Client Experience Provider” in the electronic category and for the “Best Team” in the retail category.
The “Client First” award programme was launched 10 years ago to improve Hungarian customer service culture, and develop and maintain a national customer service benchmark. The Client First awards are granted to companies based on customer feedback and compliance with advanced customer service standards. The programme measuring customer service quality using objective methods recognizes and rewards the best performers.
Customers appreciate personal service
High-quality customer service is a competitive edge in the market that can be maintained in the long run only with engaged colleagues. Telenor serves its customers with 700 salespeople in 136 shops across the country. Staff feel that high-quality personal service is a key customer requirement. The operator has been making targeted and focused efforts for years to improve its employees’ customer management skills and professional competence, and enhance customer service quality.
This year, Telenor ranked first in the personal client service category of large enterprises. “Our sales staff’s engagement is reflected by the fact that Telenor has a much lower churn than retail networks in general. The first place achieved this year confirms that we are on the right track. These excellent results, however, need to be maintained in the long run and during everyday business to be able to stand out from the crowd. We strongly believe that we can only do so with satisfied colleagues. We trust that the ‘Best Team’ special award is a proof that we can keep our employees satisfied”, said Gábor Oláh, Telenor’s B2C Commercial Director.
Changed customer needs, new expectations: digital yet personalized
A stable team is a key pillar of outstanding customer experience. It is a major challenge for operators that their customers demand not only 21st century digital communication but also personal customer service. As part of ongoing development efforts, operators need to come up with alternative methods, learn from customer feedback and compare their performance to that of their competitors.
This year, Telenor’s electronic customer service and call center both achieved top ranks. The electronic customer service won a shared first place, while the call center ranked third among large enterprises. Besides announcing category winners, the Client First programme also distributes special awards. In the electronic category, the award for the “Best Client Experience Provider” went to Telenor. The award reflecting the opinion of the company’s own customers is always granted to the firm with the highest customer experience score.
“Our quality management systems align our performance with internal standards in the first place, but such competitions enable us to measure ourselves against real-life customer needs. These results provide us with valuable feedback. They help us improve our operations and set internal expectations and goals in line with market requirements. In a few years’ time, we managed to drive employee churn at the customer service below the industry average. As a result, our call center in Szeged now has five times more job applicants than vacant positions”, said Krisztina Borjána Kis, Telenor’s Customer Service Director.
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About the Client First programme
The “Client First” award programme was launched in 2009 to improve Hungarian customer service culture, and develop and maintain a national customer service benchmark. Applicants need to meet a variety of criteria to win a Client First award. The results used for ranking are based on specific measurements. The results of a candidate are 60% determined by the customer service satisfaction of its customers, while compliance with overall customer service standards accounts for the remaining 40%. In 2018, 1,500 shops and customer service points were tested and 6,500 customers were interviewed. The criteria evaluated during the survey included employees’ customer management skills, their professional competence and quality of customer care, and these results were compared to those of competitors. The survey used tools such as the customer satisfaction index and mystery shopping.