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When Customer Service Creates Customer Validation

October 19, 2017

Many people think of customer service as a department. If you’ve been following me, you’ll know my belief is that customer service is a philosophy, not a department. It should be embraced by every employee, regardless of their job and how long they’ve been there. With that said, the focus on this topic is on what many consider to be the customer service and support department – the people who have contact and interaction with the customer.

Direct interaction can come in many forms. It can be the traditional customer service team who fields questions and complaints. It can come through a customer simply calling, for any reason, to connect with someone inside the company. The customer may reach out to the company via social channels, a website, a text message – really any interaction with the company.

So here is the big question to ponder: Does your company just answer questions and manage complaints, or do they validate the customer’s decision to do business with you?

In other words, when the interaction with the customer is over, does the customer think, “I love doing business with this company”?

Now, that makes common sense, but here is where some companies get it wrong. They focus on metrics – or should I say, the wrong metrics. Metrics are important, as they can tell a big part of the story. If one of your key metrics is about getting the customer off the phone as quickly as possible, however, you could be shortsighted.

The best customer support does several things. First, it answers the customer’s question. Second, it gives an opportunity for the service provider to make suggestions, answer future questions the customer may have (but, doesn’t know it yet), and more. This doesn’t happen if you’re trying to rush a customer off the call.

Customers will call for help and support – and even to complain. And, this is when the company gets to prove itself. Through an employee’s knowledge, communication skills, patience, willingness to help, and ability to build rapport, he or she can ensure the customer is not only happy but has also made the right choice. In other words, validate the reason a customer chose to do business with the company in the first place. But, that can’t happen if efficiency is how you measure success. Instead, the focus should be on the customer’s level of delight and willingness to want to do business with you the next time they need whatever it is that you sell.

Validation needs to be a part of the customer experience. It creates confidence, and that can lead to loyalty!

Credit: Hyken.com

Top 5 benefits of IT outsourcing

September 20, 2017

If you’re an administrator of a small or mid-size business, this is for to you. Why? Because it can assist you to make better decisions regarding your business and can also help you understand that IT outsourcing is the fresh breathing your company needs.

In the current age, there are just a few of companies that manage to survive without an IT department. Nothing comes to mind, although I’m sure they subsist. The fact is that almost every company in every work field has IT demands. The only difference may be the complexity of those needs.

So if your company also needs managed IT support or services, what are you going to do? Obviously, you will be hiring IT professionals and invest in resources and workmanship? Or choose the better solution?

1. Keep your financial estimates with you
If you are tight on budget or you are a startup and your concern with your company’s finances, you should know that this is the best option to accumulate your spending.
By choosing to outsource your IT demands you will be able to save money by paying just competitive price & one bill every month, instead of taking care of monthly employee payroll, equipment, licenses, employment costs and other expenses.

2. Focus on developing your business
Why waste your time and money by trying to be a bull of all trades?
Instead, use that time/money to improve your business with innovation, tasks and creative activities you know how to complete better than others and let others think how to do better than you.

3. Get a complete possession of the latest technology

Any business that keeps updated with the latest technology & trends, gets assure growth and success over time. We live in the age of technology, but that does not mean that adopting a technology is cheap when it comes to budget. In fact, the budget of a small or mid-size company might just be too small to manage the costs of adopting the latest technology. In that case, what’s the best option for your business? Guess? Yes, true, it’s outsourcing your headache to the company which has almost all the resources of your needs.

4. Take advantage of skills and better resources
Technology is expensive and so are the cost of hiring an IT professionals. You must need a mechanism through which you can screen the best professional for your tasks. Here comes the concept of professionalism. Professionalism comes with expertise and experience altogether. The best thing for you is to find a vendor that will provide that IT support or managed IT services your business might needs as they already have great professionals specialized on solving your specific problems.

5. Your are available for 24 hours & hence your resources
Let us understand this with a simple example. You have a website and you want to host it on your private server. Now, after successful deployment of your website, imagine there is a server crash happens. Your customers are striving & hitting their heads against the wall until you go online. In such a case, is not buying a server space from top-notch cloud hosting providers such as Amazon web services or so? All your headaches of maintenance just gone away with a simple thought? Your partner will monitor your system non-stop and will resolve fast and efficient whenever you experience malfunctions. Ideally, they will be the ones who set it up for you in the first place, so they will know exactly where to look and what to fix.

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Are organizations Serious About The “Effortless Experience”?

September 9, 2017

client management leaders are constantly introducing new buzz words, trends, and best practices.

But the question arises here, are they taking them seriously? Call Center Digital Week’s CCW Fall Executive Report answers that question.

The report features the debut of our “heat map” feature, in which we identify whether businesses value — and plan to focus on — “trends” like the effortless experience, social customer care, personalization, lost customer follow-ups, analytics and more.

You can access the heat map — and many other exclusive findings, analyses and case studies — in that CCW Fall Executive Report.

Heat Map: The Effortless Experience

The “effortless experience” is one of the trendiest topics in customer management.

Customer management leaders are taking it very seriously.

Only 1% of organizations believe it is “unimportant.” Only 1% plan to scale back their focus on customer effort.

Comprising over 97% of the business, the remaining organizations feel the “effortless experience” warrants meaningful attention.

Fifty-four percent of organizations are already investing in the effortless experience – and plan to either maintain or increase their investments. Twenty-five percent plan to begin focusing on reducing customer effort. The remaining 19% recognize its importance but do not have any major investments planned for the next year.

Heat Meter: The “effortless experience” is a pivotal focus for businesses. Nearly all recognize it as important, and about 75% are actively working to reduce customer effort.

It is nonetheless interesting to note that 20% of businesses value effortless experiences yet have no plans to offer them. Businesses are now competing on the customer experience; why are one-in-five willing to forfeit an element they deem important?

The hesitation is particularly surprising in this case; initiatives that reduce effort often coincide with efforts to boost operational efficiency. The “cost” inhibitor that prevents investment into new technology is, therefore, not necessarily a factor.

7 Keys To Success In A Changing Call Center World

July 26, 2017

We know “customer centricity” is being declared a way of life – a religion if you will – for today’s businesses.

What does that mean for call center strategy?

Everything from the evolution of customer demands to changes in call center technology to strategies for agent engagement to the omnichannel world was on the table, and the result was a broad-sweeping, in-depth look at how the call center must change in a perpetually changing business world.

1) Efficacy and Efficiency: Living In Perfect Harmony

In conjunction with the rise of customer centricity, call center thought leaders have studied “efficiency” metrics like average handle time.

It is necessary to put this critique into context.

While it is true that agents should not feel pressure to end calls too quickly, speed remains very important. Customers still expect service to be as efficient and effortless as possible; their demand for high-quality, personalized interactions is not tantamount to acceptance of slow, meandering ones.

Efficiency is not the enemy of customer centricity. Since customers demand efficient, effortless care, it is actually a sign that a business cares about its customers.

2) Objectives Define Technology, Not Vice Versa

Technology is a tool – it is not a driver. It should empower you to achieve your goals; it should not place limits on what you can accomplish.

When sourcing technology for your call center, ensure it adheres the needs and expectations of your customers, agents, and stakeholders.

3) Customer Experience Transformation: It’s A Commitment

You’re unfortunately not going to transform your customer experience – and instill a culture of customer centricity – by flipping a switch. Customer experience transformation is a long-term commitment.

To ensure your customer experience efforts are successful, it is important that all relevant players – and all relevant business units – understand this reality from the onset. All key stakeholders must understand and embrace the long-term nature of the customer experience resolution; they cannot withdraw support the second things get difficult.

4) Customer Experience: It’s Valuable

While the customer experience transformation process can be costly and difficult, it is worth it. The customer experience absolutely is a competitive differentiator; a good one absolutely is your ticket to a better, more lucrative business.

5) Happiness Is Not All About Smiling

You know “happy agents = happy customers.” Consequently, you know agent happiness is a key business objective.

Do not let that mislead you. Agent engagement strategy is not all about creating the most fun, loving environment possible: it is about creating one that empowers agents to succeed.

That means you must establish the right performance benchmarks. It means you must develop the most personalized training. It, sometimes, means you must have difficult conversations with underperforming agents.

6) The Voice Of The Customer: Your Performance Scoreboard

There are some overarching trends that are standard across most businesses: the demand for an effortless, personalized, predictive, proactive experience among them. Day-to-day performance, however, is a context- and business-specific concept.

Measure as much as possible – your workflow hinges on a true understanding of how every facet of your operation is functioning. Manage in accordance with the outcomes that matter most to customers, because those are the ones that dictate your success.

7) Culture vs. Comfort

When considering delegate strategy, you’ll need to address an essential question: do you care about culture or convenience?

What’s important is to care about the demography, customer types and their needs.

5 Important Metrics for Call Center Success

July 14, 2017

Today, as more and more brands are chosen based on whether the overall customer experience matches their expectations, metrics are essential to help make sure call center protocol is in line with these expectations. However, at the same time, not every metric can be solely customer-centric as there are operational costs and other business needs that must be factored in. With that in mind, here are five critical metrics for call center success today:

1) First-Call Resolution

Perhaps no KPI has a bigger influence on the customer experience than what is known as first-call resolution (FCR). FCR calculates the percentage of incoming customer calls that are completely “resolved” on the first attempt. The challenge is accurately tracking whether a particular customer has actually received a resolution they are satisfied with, and will not need to call back. Nevertheless, FCR is a key metric to measure and understand since a high FCR greatly improves customer satisfaction. In fact, customer contact research shows that for every 1% improvement in FCR, you get a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction. In addition, reducing the costs of callbacks, especially in high-volume contact centers, can do wonders for your bottom line.

2) Call Quality

Call quality is a crucial customer-centric performance metric that can be utilized in all contact centers and helps to measure how successful an agent is in dealing with the customers. It is typically evaluated through the recording and monitoring of agent interactions with customers and utilizes a scoring system based on a list of criteria that a call center feels indicates a quality experience from the customer’s perspective. This may include, for example, FCR, courtesy, and professionalism, providing the right information, capturing the right customer data, etc. Usually the criteria are added up to a total percentage score, however, each criteria can be analyzed separately in order to improve call quality in specific areas of need.

3) Service Level/Response Time

Service level and response time are fundamental metrics for the effective management of the contact center and the customer experience. Service level is the percentage of calls answered within a predetermined number of seconds. It generally indicates how accessible the center is to customers, and thus is the clearest indication of what customers experience as they attempt to reach your contact center. While the faster an agent answers a customer call, the higher the service levels. Businesses also need to take into account that answering calls too quickly can actually be unprofitable because of the staffing costs necessary to meet such high service levels. At the same time, if response time is poor than repeat contacts, escalations and complaints will eventually drive service level down even further so finding the happy medium is the key.

4) Forecasting Accuracy

One common solution for finding the right service level is a metric known as forecasting accuracy. Since staffing operational costs generally account for 70 to 80% of call center budgets, using accurate algorithms is crucial for making sure you are properly estimating anticipated call volume and thereby determining the right number of agents required to meet those service levels. In fact, one of the greatest threats to a call center’s profit margin is labor costs which come from mistaken forecasting. While overestimating demand can lead to overstaffing and wasted resources, underestimating can be just as problematic as it leads to understaffing, which then leads to long wait times in queues. The result of this is frustrated customers and burned-out agents who now have to dedicate a portion of the call to caller complaints about hold times.

5) Customer Satisfaction

While there is no standard method for calculating customer satisfaction, there are certain common practices that allow call centers to not only effectively monitor customer satisfaction, but also to make improvements before customers go elsewhere. The most common strategy is a post-call IVR survey or a follow-up email survey which can be sent out immediately after a call or chat and customers are asked to rate each question on a scale (often 1 to 5) for a quick and easy customer satisfaction calculation.

Jacada Visual IVR is a support based mobile engagement solution that guides inbound callers to a web-based support experience – personalizing the support journey for customers already on their way to the queue. The solution makes it easy for organizations to collect the metrics listed above, among others. Emphasizing these metrics in a balanced manner will ensure that your company keeps customer satisfaction high while enabling your call center to be an efficient and profitable service center.

Source: Jacada

Call Waiting & the Customer Experience

June 15, 2017

Today, customer service trends are driven by the need to meet consumer expectations. However, the evolution of technological innovation together with the emergence of the Millennial consumer has led to quickly changing expectations.

No matter the channel, just having a presence isn’t enough. Consumers expect quick service and a timely resolution to their problem. In other words, they do not like delays, and most of all, customers hate being put on hold. At the front line for handling many types of customer inquiries is the call center, and it significantly contributes to a company’s success by increasing customer loyalty and enforcing its brand. At the same time, one of the easiest ways to create a poor impression of your company and lose customers is through a negative call center experience. In fact, according to YouGov, 76% of consumers said that just one unpleasant contact center experience was likely to make them take their business elsewhere. Therefore, the first step to improving customer satisfaction and loyalty means reducing time spent on hold and providing alternative solutions to deliver the best possible customer experience.

Please Hold, Someone Will Be with You Shortly

While hold time is consistently at the top of the list of things that can ruin the call center experience for customers, the reality is an average of 57% of all calls today are being put on hold, so it begs the question, how long is too long? A recent survey by live chat provider Velaro indicated that 60% of people would hang up after waiting on hold for only one minute and 34% of those callers will not call back. That’s a huge problem because the average time a customer spends on hold is closer to 90 seconds, and for some industries, it’s a lot longer. According to the same study, one-third of customers believe that customer service departments should be answering immediately, with no hold time whatsoever. Unfortunately, this makes it tough for companies to meet customer expectations as customers are often frustrated before they have had the chance to speak with someone, including the psychological factor where the perceived negative experience makes customers even overestimate how long they have been on hold. At the same time, it immediately puts the call agent in damage control mode instead of solving the customer’s original issue. This same trend is occurring within the B2B sector, and no matter how short the hold period is, customer satisfaction suffers from the very beginning. So, what’s the solution?

Solutions: The Power of Choice

While many businesses may feel that they just don’t have the resources or the knowledge of how to rescue their customers from log wait times, companies that are looking to improve their customer experience management strategies need to start by finding solutions. The common-sense approach would be ensuring an appropriately-sized staff to manage to manage the amount of call volume, while, at the same time, implementing proper call routing software that delivers the call to the correct agent, department, etc., efficiently.

However, while hiring more customer service staff is one way to address the problem, it’s not the most cost-effective one since there are always down times when having additional call agents available who sit idly is unnecessary. Therefore, instead of focusing on preventing inevitable wait times, some companies are deploying more alternative solutions that help customers tolerate the wait. For example, music combined with constant hold time updates that tell the consumer how long they have left to sit on hold. This gives the customer the information they need to make their choice whether to remain on hold or call back again at another time. Also, did you know that customers left on-hold without any background music felt that a 30-second on-hold call lasted 90 seconds, while customers thought a 30-second on-hold call that used music-on-hold lasted only 15 seconds?

One of the most practical, and cost-effective potential solutions is the callback. Instead of staying on hold, a customer leaves their contact information and receives a call from a customer service representative as soon as one becomes available, (assuming they call back). Not surprisingly, this is an option that appeals to many customers as 63% of people would prefer a callback to waiting on hold, and 28% would prefer a callback to spending just one minute on hold. Once again, the callback is an effective solution because it gives the customer the freedom to go about their business while they wait, and avoids altogether the extra frustration caused by the hold experience.

Many organizations are implementing an alternative option to waiting on hold. Visual IVR is a support platform that guides inbound callers to a web-based support experience – personalizing the support journey for customers already on their way to the queue. By pivoting an inbound call to a digital interaction, Jacada Visual IVR allows you to surface all of your digital assets, in a single location, to your voice callers. The pivot to digital self-service often eliminates the need for the customer to connect with a live person, saving time and money for both the caller and the company.

In the end, the foundation of any positive customer experience today is the impression that you value their time. If you are up to the challenge, the results will speak for themselves.

Source: Jacada

Call Centre Frustrations May Cause Consumers to Buy Elsewhere

June 6, 2017

I recently came across an article in Contact Centre World, entitled “Call Centre Frustrations May Cause Consumers to Shop Elsewhere”. That may seem like a statement of the obvious but it’s one which is all to often overlooked.

The first line was an eye opener – 68% of customers hang up if they have trouble hearing a call centre agent. This includes a bad connection, poor voice quality, faulty speech recognition software, an agent mumbling or having an accent that is difficult to understand.

The report was based on a survey of 3,925 consumers in the United States, U.K, Germany, and France, and makes a good point about the level of investment a call centre requires to really deliver.

Call centres are implemented to serve people and are generally the focal point of contact a customer has with a business. Companies often don’t invest sufficiently in the right technology and people to deliver the service that would satisfy their customers, let alone please them.

Customers contact call centres for assistance, so they key is to not leave them dissatisfied when they make may be their only call. An inbound call centre is an opportunity for a business to really impress its customer base and deliver exceptional customer service, which is what is required to ensure repeat business.

Source: Contact Center World

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Category: Support Services