Business and Care

Can Customer Care Help You Weather Any Business Climate?

2008-09-30T22:57:00Z

This week has been full ups and downs as you monitor the down and dare to watch the late night talk shows disect those disecting each other in Washington. Despite all the hot air moving ideas, opinions and economic direction on Wall Street - there is one thing that is constant - and that is "the customer." And the function interacting most with these critical asset is your call center. Now more than ever you need to retain those customers as acquisition costs are about 40% higher than retention costs. Just a few thoughts to consider (as I'm sure you are being asked to whittle down expenditures) 1) can you be sending out proactive notifications to customers on things they care about (and reduce your inbound call volumne) 2) can you leverage call center analytics to improve call center performance (and even provide data to marketing org on their latest campaign?) 3) are you thinking ahead - and planning on how to leverage the mobile device to provide a differentiated care experience 4) are you aware of conversations happening about your care interactions in social media outlets.(one negative interaction can easily create millions of impressions)

During any change - if you always keep your customers as your "constant" you'll navigate thru tough times and fly thru the good ones.

Can Customer Care Drive Top Line Growth? Is it in your '09 Plan as a Biz Strategy?

2008-08-29T21:00:00Z

What role will customer experience - how your company interacts with customers - play in your company's strategy in 2009? Increasingly, companies are starting to see customer care/customer experience as a "critical" part of business strategy. In a report released last February, Forrester stated that of the 287 leaders surveyed, 91% said that customer experience would be either very important or critical to their 2008 efforts — a significant jump over results in a similar survey last year. I wonder how/if economy shifted that at all this year? Truth is - customer care is not just an operational expediture, but an opportunity to also drive profit and you should think of it that way - moving into the planning season.

Many companies don't think of their call center as a channel for growth. But with customer acquisition costs on the rise, leading companies are finding a hidden source of revenue already in their organization - existing customers. The call center is the hub of ongoing customer activity. It is central to creating customer lifetime value which drives increased growth and profit. The fact is that best-in-class call center service (Aberdeen 2009 Transforming Contact Center into Profit Center Report) can deliver up to 34% more revenue per customer and nearly half of today's companies include contact center goals in top-line performance goals.

Leverage outbound messaging (not annoying predictive dialing) to deliver courtesy reminders that also include a promotional message (can reduce inbound call center traffic while driving possible incremental revenue.)

Think about it. Put "profit" next to "efficiencies" in your '09 plan. Those of you already doing that, share your thoughts. Is it realistic? how are you doing it?

Read my mind, please

2008-04-25T14:01:00Z

I'm a big fan of Southwest Airlines in general, because they always seem to be so far ahead of the other airlines in pleasing their customers. When five of the six so-called major airlines announced they'd start charging for checking a second bag I grimaced. One of the more painful elements for a while, however, was their boarding process. To encourage people to show up early, they handed out your boarding number in a first come, first served. People would queue up for 2 hours before the flight to try and get a low number that they could use to ensure they got a good seat. Many complaints.

Southwest read their customers' minds (okay, probably did some focus groups and studies and the like) and changed it to have A, B, and C boarding. Still encouraged to get there early, but now you were just aiming to make a particular group. Still a problem -- now you had to wait in line for hours in the A, B, or C line so that you didn't get towards the back of your group and get crappy seats.

Southwest changed the model again, still determined to make open seating work. Now you have a group AND a number, but you don't have to wait in line in your group. More mind reading! But... they still have a problem. You can check in online and print your boarding pass, instead of going up to the counter. Which means... every time I talk to my dad before he flies out to visit, he becomes obsessed with getting on the computer precisely 24 hours before flight time so he can print out a boarding pass and get a good number. He has to be near a computer, or has to have someone he knows near a computer that can enter in the check-in info and print his pass so he doesn't get stuck in a bad seat with my mom. I used to think he was alone in this obsession... until I flew Southwest, printed my boarding pass an hour after I was eligible, and found myself in the middle of the "B" group, in 45th place. In fact, many other airlines have a similar 24 hour window which, although it doesn't dictate your seat choice, can frustrate people who may not be able to get to a computer. That's certainly my problem when I'm on the other side of a trip coming back... I don't always have easy access to a printer and an Internet connection.

It looks like Continental is taking this to the next logical step, with a new app that they've deployed. As far as I'm concerned, they just read my mind! Continental apparently has a pretty good history of providing more innovative customer service via self-service and this is the latest example -- 24 hours before your departure you get a phone call that allows you to check in over the phone. No scramble to get to a computer and a printer -- you can have your boarding pass emailed, faxed, or available for quick pickup at the kiosk. I honestly can say that this makes me more likely to want to choose Continental, all things being equal, when I'm considering my next business or personal flight. And isn't that the whole reason for a company to provide better customer service than its competitors? There are lots of ways to drive people away from your airline business. This is one of the few that can bring people in.

Automation innovations that bring success... and failure.

2008-03-05T14:19:00Z

You may have seen "virtual assistant" demos before. I have never been impressed by them -- they are usually clumsy and childlike, and plagued by frequent "I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean" responses when you manage to say something they're not expecting.

Jenn at Alaska Airlines changed all that for me.

I was first turned on to Jenn by a colleague who noticed this excellent article in the New York Times highlighting Jenn. Disbelieving, I tried it out. "What are your hub cities?" "What's the best vacation spot?" "Do you connect to Boston?" "How can I fly from Boston to Las Vegas?" "What meals are served on your flights?" "How long has Alaska Air been in business?" "Who is Tim the Moose?" "Can I get miles credit with another airline?" For all of these, she either provided a direct answer, or guided me to a related page on the site... often with alternative choices in case she didn't quite get it right.

And my brain lit up on all sorts of levels. From a technical standpoint, there's so much to love. The way her window hangs out unobtrusively to the side, taking up minimal space. The way it takes you around the Alaska Air website automatically to answer your questions but also lets you choose links. Meanwhile, the responses are very pleasantly worded -- it almost sounds like synthesized speech but my guess is that a real person recorded all the responses. And the natural language technology is top notch! It is as helpful and pleasant as a human without trying too hard to impersonate one -- no Turing test candidate here, but who cares?

But forget the geek side of my brain... is it helpful? Does it add to the customer experience on the site? Or is it just a cool widget that serves no purpose. After my brief experience, I'd say there's no question of its value. I want a Jenn on every site! I want Jenn to take me to my portfolio on my online trading site without me wading through 10 tabs and 5 subtabs, 90% of which are irrelevant to me. I want Jenn on my health insurance site to show me what's covered and what's not, to let me look up old EOB's and claims, and to explain what I need to do to handle disputes. I need a general purpose Jenn that will let me find out the weather forecast, look up stocks, answer dumb questions, and parse information for me, so that I don't need to rely on Google, a carefully constructed search, and reviews of five different web pages to find the right information.

My second reaction was to realize that this feat is probably a lot more difficult to duplicate outside of the travel industry. I'm sure the folks at NextIT would disagree, but certainly limiting the domain of questions made for more accurate answers -- my guess is that she's got quite a knowledge base behind her that can relate each website page to her responses.

My final reaction, however, was that since 90% of most company's interactions come over the phone, this sort of investment is probably a mostly wasted piece of customer service. Certainly they've invested even more in their phone reservations service, right? I called their number and was so disappointed to find a typical boring, inefficient automated system. It had all the classic stereotypical annoyances: "To ensure quality service your call may be recorded." "Lower fares may be found online." Follow that with a confusing arrangement of options all squished into 5 touchtone options, plus another number to write down and call, and one last dirty trick: the final option was "press 0 to repeat this menu." I never did find a way to speak to an agent. An automation solution that forces people to your website and hides your customer service reps is simply not an acceptable answer in this day and age. I wonder how many people have clicked on Jenn... and how many have hung up in frustration trying to figure out how to navigate that phone menu maze. And I wonder how much the company has invested in their website innovations as opposed to cleaning up the basics of their phone interface!

Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in Age of Social Media

2008-03-04T23:23:00Z

Partnering with the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), we have launched a consumer study “Exploring the Link Between Customer Care & Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media,”

The study is being led by a team of SNCR Research Fellows working in conjunction with TWI Surveys, Inc. The Fellows will investigate how brand reputation and brand loyalty are affected by the quality of customer care at a time when customers can share their customer service experiences via social media and new communications platforms. This study will examine the links between customer satisfaction, brand reputation and consumer loyalty.

The research is getting discussed already - prior to results being distributed. Click here to Josh Bernoff's blog at Forrester http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2008/02/sncr-survey-and.html

The study will offer recommendations on best practices for maximizing the knowledge gained and relationships between the customer and the care professional, including how to break down silos within the organization to work most effectively in this new world of communications; how to avoid a customer care fiasco and ultimately how to improve the customer care and the brand experience overall. The final results will be highlighted in the Society’s Journal of New Communications Research and published in a full report later this year.

SNCR Research Fellows, who have developed this study. The team includes Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, John Cass, Susan Getgood, Paul Gillin, Francois Gossieaux and Brian Solis.

Please participate in this important survey. A brief questionnaire is available at http://www.twisurveys.com/SNCR2008/. It takes less than five minutes to complete.

To thank you for your participation, you will receive a copy of the executive summary of the study’s findings and a special discount to attend the Society’s annual conference, New Communications Forum, where the findings will be shared in a special presentation.

Whooooooo are you? Who-ooo? Who-ooo?

2008-02-29T04:42:00Z

Catchy song. But before we start wondering what unlikely crime will be solved in an unlikely way by the unlikely forensic bods in unlikely CSI, let us turn to the less glamorous and all too real world of petty fraud and pernicious identity theft. This has already become a burning consumer issue: according to this blog, 45% of consumers will switch banks in search of better identity protection.

Are banks worried? In a word: youbetcha. They're worried because of the risk of consumers abandoning them, the financial risk, the brand risk...all caused by the alarming alacrity with which fraudsters seem to be able scoop up the personal data that's used in conventional security techniques (mother's maiden name, date of birth, last four digits of the social security number, etc).

A lot has been spent on increasing security in online banking. But for users to cope with truly secure passwords, a lot of education is needed. And all this online focus might distract us from that other heavily used customer service channel: the phone. There are literally billions of phone calls each year from consumers to their banks for all sorts of tasks. Some of them are low risk(What's my balance?) and others rather more meaningful (Transfer $1000 from account X to account Y).

When you add to the mix the new regulations hitting both Europe and the US, securing phone calls has become a high priority for all sorts of organizations, but especially FI's. This has led many to look once again at the merits of speaker verification, a technology that tests callers' voice patterns against previously captured voice prints and decides whether they're a good match or not. It works in a similar way - but not quite the same - to how fingerprints are matched against a database of candidate fingerprints. Well-designed caller authentication systems using the right technology are very secure indeed, and they're garnering a lot of interest

A group of companies and solutions providers are getting together to discuss all this fun stuff in New York in May. This will be the third of the excellent conferences organized by Dan Miller and his team at Opus Research, after successful events in Washington, D.C and London. We always have fun there, and it's a great place to keep up to speed on what financial institutions are doing and what's going on in the space. And with this kind of thing happening, it's not surprising industries outside of financial services are beginning to come along too.

Bring me your poor, your tired... your axes and hammers

2008-02-28T14:54:00Z

Businessweek has an excellently written article about consumer vigilantes that lends validation to our warnings about the Care 2.0 world -- it's worth a quick read, if for no other reason then to laugh at the opening anecdotes. The upshot is that more and more consumers are taking to Teh Intertubes to complain about incidents of crappy customer service that they receive.

What scares me is that they're rewarded with their efforts. The guy who destroys his malfunctioning Macbook with an ax? Gets a free replacement from Apple after 340,000 people watch his YouTube video. The guy whose speakers were blown out by his cell phone and wrote a song about it? Gets $100 speaker replacement from an AT&T VP "in the spirit of goodwill." The lady who smashed up a Comcast office with a hammer? Media sensation. In fact, the article points out that people who posted their rants on ComcastMustDie.com and included their account numbers ended up getting calls from Comcast shortly thereafter with help. People who make it past the barriers of a customer service organization to an executive immediately find themselves helped. If you reward people for being angry, aren't you just encouraging more customers to throw tantrums to get what they want? How is that going to help anyone?

When you call a customer service line, do you find yourself rehearsing your lines while waiting on hold? "I'd like to talk to your supervisor." "This is unacceptable." "If you can't help me, then get me someone who can." All tools we learn to use to get past the seemingly artificial barriers in place to keep customer service costs down and prevent us from getting the help we need. Well, if companies want to avoid becoming the next YouTube complaint, their only good option is to make for a rewarding customer service experience. Well-designed automated systems are great for some tasks. Live agents are necessary for others. And poorly designed automated systems that trap you in a maze of options, or off-shore agents whose heavily accented "how's the weather today, sir" comments do nothing to solve your problem, are only going to make things worse!

If a tree falls in the forest... how can you see that it fell?

2008-02-15T17:04:00Z

Earlier this week Dan and I had a generally awful travel experience on a major airline. One of those "everything that can go wrong will" type of affairs, where you know it from the moment the first delay is posted that this flight is doomed. A 5:45 departure became 6:15, 6:40, then 7:00, before the slow boarding and general mayhem got us off the ground around 7:15. Even worse, the plane itself had tiny overhead baggage compartments, such that even without anything resembling a full flight, about 20 people had to check their carry-ons with the flight attendants. I sat in an unreclinable seat with a shortened seat belt that barely fit around my waist. When we landed, we discovered that our bags didn't make it, and would be on the next flight, and would we wait in this line with everyone else to talk to the baggage department to report our lost luggage and make arrangements to have it delivered to us. And none of any of this was reported by the notification system that I signed up for that week to tell me about these things when they happened.

Part of me says, hey, what can you do, these things happen, and there are worse ways to be crapped on by the airline industry. The part of me that is still angry had to stop and think.... who to be angry with? The gate agents tried their best to update the departure delays as they knew. The flight attendants dutifully reported that overhead space was running out, then helpfully checked our bags, even bringing back the baggage tickets to us in our seats. The baggage handlers couldn't get all the bags on in time for our departure so they did the next best thing by getting the bags on the next plane. The pilot made up some of the time in the air. The baggage claim people knew exactly where our bags were when we gave them the ticket and provided a tracking number for us. And my (slightly soggy) bag was sitting on my side porch the next morning. Everyone did their job, right?

Except... the flight attendants KNEW from the start that there wouldn't be enough space on the plane... one of them mentioned to me that this was a model that hadn't had its overhead compartments refurbished yet. The baggage guy who took our bags must have suspected that he wasn't going to have time to get all those on the plane. The baggage claim people were practically expecting us when we walked into the office... they knew some bags didn't make it. And I bet someone, somewhere had a pretty good idea that the flight wasn't going to be only 20 minutes late. In other words, there was a lot of pretty strong knowledge and evidence lurking in the spaces between roles... stuff that, if communicated, could have either made the experience better for the customers, or possibly resulted in process changes that would address these problems for the next set of customers.

How can a customer service organization see these trees falling in the forest?

I can imagine that there are on-time reports, lost baggage statistics, and other metrics that airlines can use to monitor performance. None of those would suggest how to correct these specific problems. These metrics are TOO big a picture... they're the entire forest, and you can't see how the trees inside are falling.

An organization truly devoted to customer service would find a way to ferret out these problems and fix them. To provide a more accurate forecasting time for when a plane will actually arrive. To recognize that this model of airplane is inevitably going to have to check carry-ons and should allow some time to do that. To proactively notify passengers that they shouldn't wait around 20 minutes to learn that their bags didn't make it. To verify that automated notification systems are working properly. In other words, looking like you know what you're doing, and never leaving a customer guessing as to what's gone wrong now.

This is not just a question of customer service... it affects the bottom line as well. I can't imagine that waiting 10 more minutes to get the bags loaded was less expensive than personal delivery of those bags to 20 different homes in the Boston area.

By now you see the obvious parallels with a contact center, and the importance of tuning and analyzing a customer care experience to identify any problems. The 800 number in the agent's script that's been disconnected. The touchtone option that accidentally disconnects the caller. The discrepancy between the website's FAQ and the canned answer given by the agent. The escalations that don't actually escalate. No doubt there are contact center agents who know that such-and-such doesn't work, and complain about it to other agents or even their supervisor, but how do these get fixed? In our flight case, many individuals along the way knew that there would be a problem. But they had no way to communicate it to anyone in charge of the whole process. You need someone in charge of the customer experience, who is armed with the people and tools responsible for analyzing the entire customer experience. Then you can find out not just what the problems are but to suggest how to fix them.

Sometimes it's not enough to look at individual trees, nor is it helpful to step back and see the whole forest from afar. Sometimes you have to actually walk through the forest yourself, so you can see exactly where and how those service interruption trees fall.

The R-Word

2008-02-12T23:10:00Z

It’s official: there’s an (ahem) economic change coming and it might already be here. The sub-prime market, low consumer confidence, all the wrong indices trending down, employment rates, etc. And my left knee swelled up, which is a sure sign.

So what does that mean for the customer care segment? Here’s a discussion that won’t be too far away from what’s going on in lots of companies at the moment.

Customer Care: It’s all about retention. We will make sure our service levels are better than the rest. Our customers will find no reason to leave.
Marketing: Wow those contact centers are expensive. Hey Customer Service, we need you to improve retention and start making us some money.
Customer Care: No problem! Actually we have some great ideas for that, like…
Finance: Hey Customer Service, we need you to spend 30% less this year.
Customer Care: Come again?
Finance: Yup – 30% baby. Times are looking tough. Might be 40% before the end of the week
Customer Care: Ouch. OK…um, Marketing? We may not be able to do that retention and revenue thing. Which do you prefer?
Marketing: Both
Customer Care: Well we can’t do both – my budget’s been cut
Marketing: Customer Service, Customer Service. We’re in a recession. Don’t you realize how important it is that we keep our customers happy and extract as much revenue from them as possible? Aren’t you a team player, Customer Service? Do you want us to fail Customer Service? Is that what you want?

We’ve been talking for a while about the new Care 2.0 environment we’re all a part of, and if a downturn is really on the way, then our commentary about the consumer’s rising power is more relevant than ever. If, as a consumer, I’m going to be spending less and less then I’d better be getting the best possible value from everyone. If you treat me badly then bye-bye, because there are plenty of companies out there that are going to need my business more keenly than they have needed it in the past and are lining up to show me love.

In the last recession in the early 2000’s, companies that maintained or increased investments in marketing and advertising weathered the storm far better than those who made cuts. This time round, a similar story will apply, but those companies that continue to invest in customer service are going to maintain and potentially enhance their competitive edge even further. So what’s changed since the last time round? In the past 5 years or so, Customer Service has become a key competitive differentiator – the face of the company to the public. Woe betide the company that treats its customers too off-handedly, too tersely, too inconsistently, at inconvenient times, too unreliably, in an unintelligible accent, too rushed, too slowly, too perkily, too dourly, too insecurely, too unexpectedly, or too lots-of-other-thingsly.

So what do we do?

Continue to reduce costs where it makes sense: what’s the latest in automation?
Think about automated proactive communications – calling people to address customer issues is quicker and cheaper than waiting for them to call you, and it makes them happier (see Super Chooseday)
Understand what’s really going in your contact center – measure what’s happening, and try to gain actionable insights into where your investment dollar should best be spent
There are some pretty impressive targeted cross-sell and up-sell applications out there – start identifying where you can gain some revenue from your contact center interactions, rather than just trying to save money. But be careful – the offers have to be relevant and easy to opt out of, or they will turn your customers off.

If things don’t go as badly as predictions suggest, all these steps are going to help keep your customers happy and loyal, and maybe you’ll see your budgets increase a bit more quickly. If the economy does take a downturn – and my knee says it will – then you might be able to win and keep more than your fair share of the market.

Super Chooseday

2008-02-07T01:24:00Z

Well I can't vote and nor can my wife - neither of us are US citizens. But we are legal, so I think that means we're not topical. However, none of that stopped Hillary Clinton from calling us more than twice to let us know that she was counting on our votes in the primaries (sorry to disappoint Mrs C, but rules are rules).

The first call was mildly annoying...didn't they realize we weren't registered voters?
Second time round was really tedious...after we'd hung up after 5 seconds of the first message did they really need to call us again? (Hey...they hung up!! Must have dropped the phone. Let's call 'em back!)
Third time definitely wasn't the charm from either a personal or constitutional perspective.

And I don't remember opting in to inviting pre-recorded political blurbs into my house. Hey...and we're on the do-not-call list! Still, I guess it's pretty easy to hang up. And our local primaries are all over, so we're safe til The Big One begins.

So why am I still irritated when I think of that experience? Well some say I'm just an irritable person, but my wife is calm and patient and when I repeatedly bait her about the whole thing she seems irritated too. You can't argue with that kind of scientific rigor.

So here's the question: we get calls all the time these days from some organization or another. Why do I descend into furor at the off-shored dinner-time call urging me to accept some literature for credit card travel insurance that I can try for 30 days for free (free!) and simply cancel within 17 days by calling between the hours of 11:00 and 11:15 Central European time Monday to Tuesday?

And why do I love the call from the same credit card company to confirm that I really did just purchase that new mp3 player online?

Well, in the first case, I didn't ask for the credit card travel insurance. I'm not traveling on vacation soon anyway. I'm having something I don't want forced on me by someone I don't know. It's intrusive. It's a hassle to get out of. The caller is pushy. In other words, it's a stressful, unsolicited experience from someone to whom I'm paying good money. It makes me want to take my business somewhere else.

In the second case...my credit card company (bless 'em) is looking out for me. They contacted me to let me know that someone might be abusing my credit. I didn't have to wait to find out that someone else might be living it up on my dime (as it happens they weren't). The call was automated but interactive, so I pressed 1 on my keypad to confirm that I'd made the purchase. I guess my credit card company was happy because they don't have to block my card; I was happy because I wasn't being defrauded; and I'm still happy because out of all their millions of customers, they proved to me that they were looking out for me. The system called me by name, and it knew what was going on with the storied life of my credit card. That was a nice feeling. Plus, the call was short and no-one tried to sell me anything.

Companies should feel that they can call their customers rather than waiting for customers to call them. But there are some ifs. You can call me...

If you call me with something that matters to me
If you know me by name
If you call me at a reasonable time
If I should take immediate action based on the information you're telling me (if not, send me a letter)
If it's something I've told you I really want to know (e.g. you've just mailed my prescription refill)
If you let me opt out whenever I want to

These calls save time, and they improve customer service. We don't want to have to call their airline to re-book after we arrive at the airport to discover the flight has been canceled. We'd much rather receive a message before we leave, letting us re-book from home, keep watching back-to-back election coverage and trying to figure out all these super-delegate shenanigans.

Ramen Noodles: The International Symbol of Struggle

2008-02-05T00:46:00Z

So opened Robert Stephens, Founder and Chief Inspector, Geek Squad http://www.geeksquad.com/default.aspx at today's "customer service is the new marketing" http://csitnm.com/ conference in San Francisco. The Ramen reference was one most in the audience can relate to - the meal staple many programmers use to keep energy flowing as - as the the time of ay/night becomes unimportant - as they work on solving a technical glitch or innovate the next "big" idea.

He was an entertaining, genuine and engaging speaker - (highly recommend for any of you needing charismatic speakers for customer care, or brand-related events. Heralding from Minnesota, Robert donned the customary white shirt, black tie, white socks (more here later) and Geek-commissioned shoes with the Geek Squad logo in reverse on the sole (brand impression) . (the average Geek Squad staff walks approximately 7K feet a day - almost ensuring a logo footprint outside of a puddle or in the mud on their way to solve the latest technical challenge" Oh, and don't worry about that water or mud getting on your nice carpet, Geek Squad employees must remove their shoes upon entering your home. (brand impression) If you think this sounds like the good old days - that was part of the inspiration. As Robert admitted, much of the ideas he has - are credited to late night TV. One night, while watching Apollo 13, he watched the "nerdy" NASA scientists - and realized they were in a uniform - that would fit the "Geek Squad" brand.

Looking to innovate? look at another industry he suggested. A company you don't compete with will share how they are improving customer service.

Secrets? there aren't any - anymore, due to social media etc. Robert was asked a tough question in the crowd about Geek Squad employees downloading inappropriate materials from someone's personal computer. He aptly replied that employees of a publicly held company are better in your home that a privately held company (implying that a publicly held company is one that can more easily address grievances..) He also mentioned that when things like that happen - it "hurts" the other "squad" members who take pride in their roles. (which I believed as about 8-10 of them, in full uniform (including badges on their belt) watched their Chief Inspector - beaming with pride from the balconey of the Golden Gate club.

He agreed with CEO of Zappos' comment about the importance of a little bit of weirdness. He also emphasized that "I don't know" isn't an acceptable phrase for the Geek Squad to use. Rather - "I'll find out" it how customer service "agents" need to respond. Back at corporate headquarters 15-20 "public defenders" respond to the especially tough, or unhappy customers. Stephen himself recounted a scenario where he used a program to provide key words or phrases to get the essence of a podcast, and "shocked" the podcaster by calling her and sharing he had heard about her issue. She said "no one listens to my podcast." I do. He said.

Most interesting, was how Stephen, founder of his own company which was purchased by Best Buy - is working to drive innovation within a larger organization. It is too easy he shared, for innvoators, to eschew the trappings of a big company. His goal is to help the larger organization - act a little smaller - when it comes to the quality of care - his "squad" provides. That - he shared, is innovation. And, "it is not about "perfection" it is about "trying" - that means the most to the customer. If they feel you are "trying" to resolved their problem - that will go a long way to improve their satisfaction.

CEO of Zappos "Create Fun and a Little Weirdness"

2008-02-05T00:15:00Z

At today's "customer service is the new marketing conference" http://csitnm.com/ at the beautiful Golden Gate club in San Francisco, Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos http://www.zappos.com/welcome.zhtml was clear that the way to drive a business' success, was not about looking at the care operation as an expense item, but as an investment. At this conference, focused on a new way of viewing customer service, Tony was one of the headliners whose passion was catching as he positioned care as one of the most important branding opportunities. Each interaction - he shared - is an opportunity to create an impression. The company's 5 week training in Las Vegas for new employees is more about the culture and role of the customer's experience in their interactions than it is about any employee's specific role. The call center staff isn't measured by # of transactions handled, upselling or time spent per call - rather it is completely about how the customer feels at the end of the interaction. To create that "right" interaction - their team is empowered to make decisions on the fly. More often than not - they encourage their staff to be more generous in terms of making a problematic situation right - when they provide feedback on a call. And - he emphasized - their goal is to allow people to start at the $13 an hour job, and work themselves up to the lead in a department. Retraining people who have already learned bad customer care habits (like getting a customer off a call fast) can be very difficult. Getting someone with no experience, is often a better fit for the Zappos culture. This culture of "care for the customer" is captured by employees (everyone contributes and it is organized by department) in an annual "culture" book Zappos publishes for new employees, vendors and individuals interviewing at the company.

This great customer service btw - isn't just for the customer. Zappos' focus on interactions transcends to employees, vendors...investors.....

He walked thru their 10 core values.......my favorite was "create fun and a little weirdness." Tony confirmed that not everyone is comfortable with this, but to drive change, requires a little adventure, creativity and open-mindedness.

Consulting the customer service consultants...

2008-01-29T14:19:00Z

Just wanted to share a great article over at crmbuyer.com, from an interview with customer service consultant Bobbi Paine. Some quotable quotes:

"Businesses are losing business they can't afford to lose," she said, pointing to the results of a 2007 Harris Poll, which reported 80 percent of customers saying they will never return to a business after a negative customer-service experience. That's up from 68 percent in 2006.
Every time you pick up the phone or go to a restaurant, a store or the airport, you have a customer-service experience. Time and time again when I hear about outstanding customer service, the person was only doing their job. The reason the customer thought it was outstanding is because they were treated so poorly the last time.
Consumers are in control because they can go somewhere else. When we were a full-service society, there wasn't as much competition. There didn't used to be a Starbucks, a gas station, a bank or a restaurant on every corner. Now, if I don't like the service somewhere, I don't have to go back. Surveys show people are willing to pay at least 10 percent more to get better service on a consistent basis.

You can't hide from a bad experience

2008-01-28T18:04:00Z

I came across a great example of poor customer service that I just had to share here: an experience flying to the Grand Caymans with the low-budget Spirit Airlines. It has it all: poor service from poor policies. Clueless employees. A terrible phone service (not even automated... no one available to take the call, and one number for both reservations and service inquiries.) And the end result that's quite indicative of today's Care 2.0 world -- a blog post that will be passed along multiple times to many more readers to serve as excellent negative PR against ever flying Spirit anywhere.

In fact, all it took was a google on Spirit Airlines to unearth several other sob stories. The guy whose Spirit flight was cancelled and his attempts to rebook involved the 800 number hanging up on him. His blog includes links to three other complaint stories, finally leading to one unbelievable slip-up by the CEO which eventually got more prominent coverage. Even the folks at the top don't care about customer service. If you don't care about how you care, it shows throughout the organization.

You can't hide from a bad experience!

Para continuar con acento mexicano, marque numero dos

2008-01-25T14:00:00Z

Last week I was looking at a demonstration of one of the analytics tools that we work with. The demonstrator was breaking down call dispositions and cross-referencing them with things like the type of call, the eventual final destination of the call, and even things like which language the person chose (English or Spanish). Using the tool, he showed me an interesting piece of information: the percentage of people that hung up on the automated voice system was insanely high for people coming into the Spanish system (almost 50%) as compared to people coming into the English system. It turns out that our consultants had found this, and investigated further. The result? Aha! The "native Spanish speaker" that was speaking the prompts for the Spanish system had a Cuban accent. Most of the people calling in to this particular system were of Mexican descent, I think because the call center was operating in the southern United States. I was further informed that "some Mexicans don't get along as well with Cubans" and that this cultural clash was causing people potentially to hang up earlier than expected.

My thought? Holy crap, there's a lot of subtleties involved in keeping a contact center's automated system operating smoothly. This was a great example of how various analytics tools can really dig down deeper than the normal statistics and log reports that are often generated and associated with most typical automated voice systems.

It also emphasized a greater point. The tool itself could not have picked out that particular problem. Someone had to know where to look. And even then, the tool only alerted the people that were working on the optimization of the systems that there might have been an issue. It was then bringing their expertise to bear that identified the problem and enabled us to solve it.

It seems like most of the contact centers that we at Nuance are dealing with today are inquiring about analytics. Often, however, they're asking about the tools themselves -- will it analyze my recorded conversations? What sort of reports will it generate? How quickly can it analyze X calls? While these can be valuable questions to ask for any particular tool, they're not the questions that a contact center should be asking when considering adding analytics to their analysis of the contact center's performance. First they should be thinking of the problem they're trying to solve: are they worried about their automation rate? Customer satisfaction? Whether agents are complying with scripts? Once they’ve identified what the actual problem is, then they can determine which tool is best to solve it. Individual tool vendors often think of their tool as a hammer and every problem as a nail. But the only way to truly give the customer the best possible experience is to look at the analysis of the contact center's performance with multiple tools that are designed to solve a particular problem. That's our approach and so far it's met with success.