Keeping up with customer expectations (Part 2)

March 5, 2013 — Kelly

In my last post, I encouraged managers to use their comprehension of their contact centers as a starting point for a conversation with training personnel.  I’d like to dive a little more into that theme, with a step-by-step plan for contact center training.  Keep in mind that this is a rather simplistic version of plan that must really be much more detailed in its implementation; it should, however, be enough for a solid start!

 

1.      Identify the performance gaps.  What knowledge or skills do your employees need to have to best perform their jobs?  Does your contact center data indicate weaknesses that can be improved through training?  It is important to ensure that your needs can be addressed through training (and are not related to motivation or environment); be as specific as possible in identifying the training needs and learning objectives.
 
2.      Identify the time you have available.  Using historical data from your contact center, identify all chunks of time that could be used for training.  Keep in mind that periods as short as a minute or two up to several hours (or days) could potentially be used for training purposes.
 
3.      Talk to training personnel at your organization.  They should be the experts about education and training, and they will be able to help you match learning goals with available time periods.  This will likely be a time-consuming step, as you work with the training personnel to clearly identify next best steps.
 
4.      Coordinate with the trainers to determine the best plan for rollout.  This could include a wide variety of plans: an email link to short tutorials, a 1-hour refresher course, or a day-long session covering a new skill.
 
5.      Deliver the training.  Depending on the time required for the session, use your historical or real-time data to identify the best times for delivery. Do you historically have a down-time, with several slower hours?  Use that to deliver longer sessions.  Do agents sometimes have a few minutes between calls?  Use real-time data to encourage agents to watch a minute-long video tutorial.  As I mentioned in my previous post, software is available to identify these time frames and push information automatically.
 
6.      Evaluate your training.  This is where your robust understanding of data can really be useful; compare your contact center data before and after training to determine if your efforts were successful.

 

Of course, even if your attempts are a raging success, you will need to start the whole process again as customer expectations continue to evolve, new products or services or released, or other new skills are required!

Posted in Call Center Management, Call Center Resources, Customer service, Uncategorized. No Comments »

Keeping up with customer expectations (Part 1)

February 25, 2013 — Kelly

It’s not news that the customer experience has changed over the years, especially in our new digital era.  Like most consumers today, I’m spoiled by the amount of information that is nearly instantly accessible at my fingertips.  I’ve become an information junkie, rarely making a purchase for a good or a service without a significant amount of time spent reviewing my options.  While I’m shopping (either at a brick-and-mortar store or online), I’m checking prices at other local and online retailers, reading reviews, or even shopping for accessories.  Before signing up for a new service, I pour over reviews from other consumers and spend extended periods of time comparing the details of the different options or providers.

With this instant access so easily obtained, I’ve come to expect the same level of knowledge from company personnel.  Whether an in-store salesperson or a remote customer service representative, it is no longer enough for these employees to have first-hand experiences with products or services; these personnel must now be able to cite and compare specifications, comparative reviews, service and warranty plans, and a multitude of other details.  Contact center supervisors and training managers must find ways to ensure that employees are always aware of the latest information, and able to quickly access any relevant details to share with customers.  

How do you help your employees learn and manage the ever expanding amount of content and knowledge that they must have at their grasp?  Certainly it is critical to find a way to manage this need for knowledge with your contact center’s day-to-day performance measures such as managing call volumes, achieving service level goals, lowering abandon percentages, or maintaining first call resolution scores. 

While it might sound overwhelming, there is good news!  Contact Center Performance Management solutions that manage and deliver historical and real-time performance metrics can be a major piece of the puzzle.  You can use the data to both help identify and manage performance gaps in real-time, as well as to target potential “down time” that might be available for training.  Consider that training can sometimes be delivered in only a minute or two!  With a clear picture of your contact center data, you can partner with training personnel at your organization to ensure that contact center employees continue to have the knowledge and skills they need to meet ever-changing customer expectations. 

Posted in Call Center Management, Call Center Resources, Customer service. No Comments »

Real Time Performance Management: Coming of Age in 2013

January 29, 2013 — Kelly

Real-time analytics has been a keyword in the contact center for some time now, but Paul Stockford argues in a January 2013 Contact Center Pipeline article that everything we thought we knew about “real-time anything as it applies to the contact center is wrong.”  In “Real-Time is the Real Deal,” Stockford writes that real-time no longer means soon after, and that the definition can now fully align with the term; real-time analytics will now mean information measured the exact second that it occurs. 

I suppose that seems like a small difference, but it can have a major impact on how data is used in your contact center.  If you are constantly tracking data that has already happened, you are constantly reacting to situations that have already occurred.  Access to truly real-time data can allow both contact center managers and agents to be more proactive and to adapt to the situation currently at hand. 

In his research, Stockford found that 51% of respondents were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the time it was taking to share performance metrics with managers.

He also discovered that 90% of customer service executives found value in sharing real-time metrics with agents.  Using real-time performance reporting solutions, such as those built on LightLink, gives you the capability to capture performance information as it happens, allowing you to make adjustments to queues and schedules on the fly.  You can create custom queries to display the metrics that are critical for success in your contact center, and send the data instantly to a variety of display options.  A well-implemented real-time performance management system will allow you to effectively utilize real-time analytics, even as the term comes to achieve its true “right-now” meaning!

Posted in Call center KPIs, Call Center Management, Call Center Resources, Customer service, Performance Management, System Maintenance, Technology. 1 Comment »

Using Multiple Data Sources to Tailor the Customer Experience

January 2, 2013 — Kelly

Last week I received a surprising call from a catalog and online retailer where I have shopped before. The agent said that she noticed that I made a large purchase of supplies last December. She also noted that I had started to place items in my online cart this year, but had not completed the order. The agent asked if I needed any help completing the order, or if I had any questions about the products. Before closing, she also offered me an additional percentage discount on my next purchase to thank me for my loyalty.

Given my unique perspective as something of a contact center insider, I was fascinated by the company’s correlation of several different pieces of data to enhance my customer experience. I restrained myself from asking twenty questions of the agent who called, but I was intrigued about the exact process that was used to target my account for an outbound contact. Presumably, my large purchase from last December was flagged and matched with my current incomplete shopping transaction; then this was kicked out to an agent to make the actual contact. Perhaps there was even an additional notation that all of my purchases have been made with a discount code, and that offering a code now might lead to a completed transaction.

Experiences such as this are becoming more common for today’s consumers. The vast amount of data available to companies can be leveraged by contact center managers to better understand customers’ habits and preferences; this can then be utilized to create a customized experience that will appeal to nearly every individual. One of the key components for this to work effectively is a data management and reporting system that allows managers to efficiently and clearly understand targeted types of information. Inova Solutions’ LightLink Data Analysis can be a key component of any efforts to quantify and improve a customized experience for your audience.

Posted in Call Center Management, Call Center Resources, Customer service, Performance Management. No Comments »

The importance of first call resolution in the contact center

October 11, 2012 — Maureen

Many contact centers monitor ACD metrics as part of their customer service operational strategy. But with high volumes of data available for reporting, call center managers must prioritize to decide which metrics are worth focusing on.

At Inova Solutions, our customers often ask us which metrics will most affect their bottom line. While key performance indicators like calls in queue, average wait time, agents available, and calls waiting are all valuable in alerting contact center teams to red flags that require attention, I’ve found that the most powerful statistic is first call resolution.

First call resolution, or FCR, is a representation of the customer inquiries that are resolved with a single interaction with a company. This is important for a number of reasons. First of all, customers who have their question answered or issue resolved promptly are more likely to be satisfied with their experience and remain loyal to the company. In addition, the contact center’s cost associated with one call is pretty substantial, and any effort to minimize repeat calls will dramatically impact the bottom line. In fact, some estimate that up to 20% of incoming calls are from customers whose inquiry wasn’t resolved the first time.

If your goal is to increase FCR, you may notice some associated changes in other metrics, including an increase in average handle time, as your agents may need to spend more time on the call to resolve it. Also, don’t be concerned about a dip in call volume numbers, because when customers call multiple times, that statistic becomes inflated. If your FCR is going up, it’s okay for total calls to go down.

So how exactly do you calculate FCR? The answer differs for each call center, but a comprehensive formula is likely to include both an internal component and an external component. That is, does the agent think the issue was resolved (recorded by agent coding)? Does the customer believe the issue was addressed to their satisfaction (perhaps via a post-call survey)?

How does your company calculate first call resolution? What measures do you utilize to improve FCR?

Posted in Call center KPIs, Call Center Management, Customer service. 4 Comments »

Personalizing the Customer Experience

September 6, 2012 — Kelly

There has been a big focus lately on personalizing the customer experience, especially on the digital stage.  New ways of tracking, especially through website usage, can provide mountains of data about customer locations, preferences, purchases, and even computer type and so much more.  This data can then be used by marketing and customer service to create a custom user experience.

In many cases, this customization is welcomed by the customers.  When I call my favorite catalog retailer, I love being greeted by name with a follow up question about my satisfaction with a recent purchase.  And, after all, email blasts from a hospitality company about the best local happy hours are not particularly relevant for my 90+ year old grandmother.

However, the effort to personalize can all too easily cross the line and begin to irritate, or even spook, your customer.   Consider these two red flags when reviewing your organization’s efforts to personalize your customers’ experiences:

Does the effort pigeonhole the user?  Most people don’t like to be assigned to certain categories, since human nature insists that we are all distinct individuals.  Along the same lines, a customer may resent being pigeonholed into a specific user category; just because they buy a box of diapers online, does not mean that they want all future shopping experiences to categorize them as a parent of small children.  People are not simply parents, singles, seniors, etc., and they will likely resent most efforts to classify them into one specific role.

Does the effort indicate that you know “too much” about the user?  People also value their privacy, even if it is somewhat of an illusion.  While I know that some companies could probably give a full run down of my life down to the smallest detail, I don’t necessarily like it and I definitely don’t want to be reminded of it with any frequency!  For example, it is certainly possible for pharmaceutical companies to track a shopper’s online pharmacy orders and then send free samples, publications, or other information related to the medical condition; however, this could certainly make many users uncomfortable.

In a contact center, it would be helpful if your agents understood your organization’s overall goal regarding personalization.  Just because all of the data is on a screen before an agent, doesn’t mean that she needs to share her knowledge of the customer’s entire history and preferences!  By sharing the overall goal with your agents, you can help ensure a positive and personalized experience for your customers!

Posted in Business, Customer service, Miscellaneous, Technology. No Comments »

Customer Service for Mobile Users

July 26, 2012 — Maureen

The prevalence of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices is on the rise, and the customer service industry must adapt to this new way of doing business. A recent survey conducted by Avaya found that 57% of customers are likely to use a smart phone app for customer service. That’s a growing number that your contact center can’t afford to ignore.

So is your company equipped with an easy-to-use mobile app that meets customer needs? Brian Hillis from Avaya suggests on a recent blog that even though many companies are jumping on the mobile app bandwagon, the majority are not designed to be seamlessly integrated with call center operations. He writes, “among the flood of mobile apps for self service, few offer direct conduits to contact centers. Bridging the gap between your app and your contact center is an opportunity to differentiate your business.”

The first step is to design an app that improves the mobile user’s experience. Or if you already have one, evaluate its functionality. Can users do everything on the app that they want to do, including contact an agent quickly and easily if the need arises? Is there a self-service portal that actually answers user questions, or does it send them in an endless loop of browsing? The best way to answer these questions is to set up a focus group and watch actual users utilizing the app. Where and when did they get frustrated? Was it easy for them to navigate to customer service options? If not, back to the drawing board.

The next step is to watch the metrics of mobile app usage closely. Use reporting tools to discover what features customers are using, and what they aren’t. Are users downloading the app at all? If not, you may consider running an awareness campaign letting customers and prospects know what features are available with the app and how those features translate to a better customer service experience for them. Finally, equip your call center agents to respond to mobile app inquiries and integrate this into your center’s daily activities.

How is your customer service department staying current with mobile device users?

Posted in Customer service, Technology. 1 Comment »

Successfully Implementing Customer Service Chats

July 6, 2012 — Kelly

I’ve noticed an increasing trend lately for websites to offer the option to “chat” with customer service representatives.  Personally, I love this option and will choose it over an email or a phone call any time I can.  I find it to be much more efficient, as the agent can presumably manage multiple chats at once rather than only one phone conversation, and the resolution is also more immediate than email exchanges.

As much as I love the feature, I find that I’m often frustrated by its implementation on some sites.  Just from my own experiences, I’ve identified a few best practices that can make chats more customer friendly:

If you choose to offer chats, place that contact option in one place on your site.  My favorite photo ordering site does offer the chat function, but it only pops up sporadically.  It’s not always available on the Contact Us or Help pages.  I find it quite frustrating to search around for something that I KNOW was there before, only to find that it is nowhere to be found!  As a user, I would prefer that the option always be in the same place, even if it is disabled at some times.  Of course, it would be great if there was a note that agents are not available for chats at that time; or, if agents were always available!  Either way, customers wouldn’t drive themselves crazy looking for the mysterious chat option.

Once a customer is engaged in the chat, ensure that the disconnect time is reasonable.  I’ve been in the middle of a detailed chat with an agent and changed windows to check an email, only to return seconds later to find that my session had been closed.  Understandably, some limit must be placed on the customer’s time away, but it should not be unreasonably short.

Add a notification or other functionality to the chat window to let the customer know when the agent has responded.  When I’m engaged in a chat, I’m aware that I’m likely not the only customer being assisted.  Since I’m generally working on several different things at once, I can keep myself busy in another window until I receive a response.  However, I’ve been disconnected more than once because I didn’t realize there was a response.

Save all chat conversations to the customer’s file.  On occasions where my chat is disconnected or can’t be resolved, I’ve chosen to call the contact center for final resolution and am thrilled when I find that the information I’ve already communicated in the chat is accessible to the phone agent!

Overall, I’ve found chats to be an efficient way to manage many of my customer service comments, questions, or problems.  Integration of a few key practices can make this tool even more universally beneficial!

Posted in Customer service, Technology. No Comments »

In Surveys We Trust. Or do we?

June 28, 2012 — Camille

I read a very interesting article last week on retailcustomerexperience.com about how consumers like to give feedback, but don’t believe their comments are carried out to affect the business in a meaningful way.  The article states, “Survey results showed that 85 percent of consumers have provided some form of feedback to big box retailers, yet only 46 percent of respondents believe that brands actually use it to make constructive changes to the customer experience.”  What’s more is that “only 52 percent believe that feedback is shared with individual locations — even though the majority of consumers (81 percent) believe that feedback should not only be shared with local managers, but with all of the brand’s employees.”

Although this article focuses on the retail experience, it’s extremely relevant to the contact center industry as well.  Almost every company I contact these days asks me to participate in a customer service survey after my phone call.  I almost always oblige, but just like my fellow consumers in this survey, I often wonder who looks at my survey responses and what they do about them.

The lesson learned is this: make sure your customers know how you’re using their feedback and how their feedback is helping you create a better customer experience.  How do you do this?  First, talk to your marketing department and ask them to include this information in customer newsletters.  Your newsletter could have a featured section about the most common comments that week (or month, quarter, or the frequency at which you send out your newsletter).  Then comment on how you’re using feedback to make changes.  Let customers know you’re not only listening, but acting.  Second, add this as a talking point for your agents while they’re on the phone or chatting and emailing with customers.  Rather than discussing something generic, like the weather, while an agent is waiting on help answering a customer question, have them explain how much your company values customer opinions and let them know about some recent changes thanks to customer suggestions.  Use your contact center LCD displays to give agents suggestions for these talking points.

Here at Inova Solutions, customers who contact our support team receive a survey afterwards and results are reviewed by customer service managers.  I’m proud to say our customer satisfaction rate is extremely high thanks to the wonderful support team we have.  We keep our customers up-to-date on changes at Inova with our monthly training sessions, quarterly user forums and quarterly newsletters.

When customers know they’re being listened to, they are much more motivated to provide feedback and I’m willing to bet you’ll see your response rates rise dramatically.

Posted in Business, Call Center Management, Customer service. 1 Comment »

Handling Customer Complaints in Social Media

June 7, 2012 — Kelly

Has your company made any progress in implementing a social media strategy?  This new avenue of communication is certainly all over the customer service field and the blogosphere lately, with articles popping up daily.  Just in managing a Facebook page for a small-town community event, I’ve found the amount of information to be almost overwhelming.  Fortunately, that event has not elicited any customer complaints, which is surely a common concern for customer service departments using social media.  How do you respond to customer complaints logged in social media forums?

  1. First, you need a consistent strategy for accurately identifying public complaints.  There are numerous paid options that will search and notify you when your company name appears in social media sites.  If you have Inova’s real-time contact center reporting software, LightLink, deployed you can pull in RSS feeds and other social media information to show directly on your call center displays.
  2. If and when you find a customer concern in a public forum, it is probably best to avoid public discussion.  For a variety of reasons, including customer security and privacy, publicly acknowledge the customer’s concern but then try to find a resolution in private.
  3. Once you have engaged the customer offline, try to link the social persona of the customer with any existing customer information in your database.  This will give you a more robust picture of the customer and his history with your company.
  4. Once you have resolved the issue, respond to the customer’s original complaint.  Include a statement that you’re happy that he is now satisfied, and thank the customer for offering you the opportunity to keep his business.

If your company has any presence on social media, it is critical to be able to handle any negative comments.  Even without a social presence, it is still possible that customers can make disparaging remarks that are easily visible to the greater population.  Take the time to work with key personnel in customer service to develop a strategy for identifying and managing any negative customer feedback.

Posted in Call Center Management, Customer service, Social media, Technology. No Comments »
« Older posts «
»