Dec 02, 2010 How a Personality Test Designed to Pick Astronauts is Taking the Pain Out of Customer Support
“Making a call to customer support” is probably second only to “getting a root canal” on most people’s lists of “fun things I’d really rather not do today.” If you’ve seen NBC’s Outsourced, your opinion of call centers has likely plummeted still further. Despite the energy that companies invest in trying to improve call center operations, most seem to fail miserably at mastering this most basic human skill—communication.
Now eLoyalty, a company that builds tools and services for call centers, has created a system that compiles personality profiles of each individual caller and matches them with a customer service representative who works best with that personality type. The system is based on a methodology NASA used to weed out astronaut candidates and that Bill Clinton used to tailor his speeches. It’s already having a marked impact on reducing call frustration and improving customer satisfaction rates. (Full Story)