Is Variety the ‘Spice of Life’ or a Source of Confusion, Indecision and Frustration?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Bruce Pollock

Most of us are fortunate to live in a world where we have many choices in our daily lives — choices about where we want to live, how we dress, how and what we eat, how we spend our spare time (if we have any), and so on.

In fact, as the world continues to evolve, the number of choices and decisions we have to make is growing exponentially. On the one hand, this is a wonderful development and demonstrative of the prosperous era in which we live and the good fortune that has been bestowed on us. On the other hand, growth and proliferation of choices can lead to consumer confusion, indecision and frustration.

For perspective, think back just 20 or even five years.

Twenty years ago, there were perhaps a dozen kinds of home coffeemakers. Now, there are literally thousands of permutations and combinations, from basic coffeemakers to high-end self-cleaning espresso makers with multiple features and functions, including coffee flavor, strength and so on. In a recent Amazon.com search, I found no fewer than 3,000 coffeemakers listed. One espresso manufacturer claims that its top-of-the-line product can make over 850 distinct drinks.

Five years ago, there were only a small number of flat-screen TVs available. Today there are literally hundreds of permutations and combinations.

This raises an interesting question: Do more choices necessarily mean that consumers are better off, or does the plethora of choices cause confusion and frustration and wear consumers out?

I can see both sides of this equation and how an argument can be made either way. When we’re consumers, all of us like choice. But when it comes to customer service provided in IVR systems, websites or other communication channels, I’d make the case that “variety” can often become more of a source of confusion than the “spice of life.” (Is that why, in the product purchase process, Apple has decided to restrict configuration choices for consumers purchasing their products?)

How many websites have you visited recently that provide a quick and easy way to get customer service information or assistance? Not many, I imagine.

How many IVR systems have you interacted with that provide you with clearly worded  options that allow you to get where you need to go, to complete your call quickly and successfully? If you find one, commend the company who designed it. They’re a rare breed.

How many interactions have you had with a contact center agent where the agent knew who you were and why you were calling and didn’t have to ask you all those repetitive questions that you’ve already answered in the IVR? Be sure to tweet about your positive experience, if and when it happens.

Some companies do customer service right, but many still struggle to simplify, streamline and improve the customer experience.

In a world of more choices in products and services coming at us every day, perhaps it makes sense for enterprises to tear a page from the Apple sales strategy and work to and simplify the engagement experience for their customers.

If you’re working in the customer service field, a fair and timely question to ask yourself might be, “What have I (or we) done lately, to simplify things for our customers?”


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Service, IVR, West Interactive

Tagged , , , , ,

Creating a Customer Service Strategy for the Future

Posted on May 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Angie Svec

There are so many ways to communicate with your customers these days that it can be a bit overwhelming. Individual customers generally have a preference for how they would like to send and receive communications from a service provider. The number of additional channels with which a customer may want to interact has grown significantly over the last few years. The list of ways to communicate is large and growing, for example inbound calls, email, text, Web, social media, mobile applications and out-dial calls.

As a business, it is important that you take a step back and build a customer service strategy for the future. With the evolution of so many additional channels, now is the time to create your plan for going forward. Here are some things to consider as you build your strategy:

  1.  Conduct an assessment. You may want to have a third-party organization assess your current customer service environment. The assessment will evaluate your current channels and look for opportunities to improve the customer experience, as well as reduce costs. The assessment would also evaluate your technical environment and architecture.
  2. Determine your goals and priorities. What are your customer service goals and priorities? Establish the most important items to your business. Be sure that everyone in your organization is in agreement and knows the determined priorities.
  3. Learn how your customers are reaching out to you. Perhaps today you only have an inbound call and Web strategy. If a high percentage of your customers is calling from mobile phones, you may want to consider creating a mobile application and/or offer a text messaging channel. Make sure you consider how your customers are reaching out to you, and craft your strategy accordingly.
  4. Consider a multichannel strategy. Technology has made communication and transactions so efficient that customers have high expectations for their experiences. The expectation now is that no matter what channel a customer has used to reach out to you, they expect that other channels will have access to this information. Consider how you are going to create this unified experience in your future strategy.
  5. Consider resources. No matter whether you outsource, have a hybrid solution (outsourcing and on-premise combined) or use a completely on-premise solution, you need to consider your organization’s resources needed to be successful.
  6. Emerging channels. As new channels emerge, set criteria for how you will decide if your organization will adapt them to your customer service strategy.

Good luck as you embark on the journey to transform your customer service strategy. With all of the recent and emerging channels of communication, it indeed will be a journey. But with the proper planning and processes that it will continually evolve, you will build a strategy that sets up your business for success now and into the future.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Alerts and Notifications, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Transformation, Customer Experience, Customer Service, IVR, Mobile Apps, Notifications, Preference Management, SCRM, SMS, Social Media, Unified Communications, West Interactive, West Notifications Group

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Meet ‘Generation Text’

Posted on May 8, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Brian Cooper

We’re all familiar with the market demographics analysis that articulates the definition and attributes of Generation X (I happen to be one of them). As businesses continue to build and grow their relationships with Gen Xers, they are also turning focus toward the next generation of consumers, Generation Y — also known as Millennials, Echo Boomers or Generation Next.

A less well-known, but possibly more appropriate, name for this generation is “Generation Text.” This label isn’t new. In fact, if you do a Google search, you’ll find all kinds of interesting references to Generation Text, including websites, articles and books.

Why is Generation Text an appropriate alias for Millennials? Consider the following:

  • The birth dates of those in Generation Text range from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, with ages ranging from 12 to 32. I can personally relate to this, as my 14-year-old son sent and received 2,700 text messages last month alone.
  • According to Nielsen Mobile, in the first quarter of 2009, the average U.S. teen sent and received 2,899 text messages per month. By the third quarter, the number of texts increased to 3,146 messages per month.
  • A more recent Nielson study shows that those in Generation Text (age groups 18 to 24 and 25 to 34) have the highest smartphone adoption rates from Q3 2010 to Q3 2011 (see chart below).

So, What Does Generation Text Mean for the Enterprise?
It’s no surprise that mobile is mainstream, especially with Millennials. As smartphone adoption continues to increase, transactions that are traditionally handled in the voice channel are beginning to migrate into the data channel, either via Web or native mobile applications. A recent survey conducted by American Express, “Consumers on the Future of Payments: Millennials to Lead Adoption and Security Is King”, showed that more than half (52 percent) of consumers ages 18 to 24 are likely to try new technology-enabled (mobile) payment tools as they become available, compared with 23 percent of those ages 55 to 65. This suggests that the fate of emerging payments clearly lies in the hands of Millennials.

Building on the mobile adoption by the Millennials, what may be surprising is the increasing interest from the enterprise in texting as a legitimate and effective customer care channel. The text channel can also be a “gateway to mobile” by driving the adoption of a company’s mobile application or mobile-optimized website through the SMS channel — that is,  once  companies have consumer opt-in via the text channel, they can “push” a link to the company’s mobile application directly to the consumer, making it easy for consumers to simply click to download and use the app).

The fact that the majority of the Generation Text demographic is established consumers in the market and users of the typical subscriber-based services, such as utilities, is a huge catalyst to text-based customer care.

This trend started several years ago with the reality TV boom and the ability to “text the word ‘VOTE’ to short code XXXXXX” for “American Idol,” “X-Factor,” “The Voice,” “Dancing With the Stars” and others. Next came the ability to order pay-per-view events and other programming through satellite providers, opening up new channels for communication, building stronger relationships with customers and driving incremental revenue from a new set of customers who weren’t using the Web or telephone to order but are more than willing to use the SMS channel.

Now, we’re starting to see companies showing interest in leveraging the SMS channel as a way to provide “traditional” types of customer care transactions (e.g., check my balance, pay my bill, manage my account). This is further building the relationships with customers and validating the text channel as an effective way to drive self-service through lower cost, and increase customer satisfaction for customers who prefer to communicate via mobile devices — and specifically through the SMS text channel.

As you consider your overall customer contact strategy, is the text channel a part of this strategy? If not, it should be. Your Generation Text customers will thank you.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Millennials, Preference Management, SMS, West Interactive, West Notifications Group

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

But We’ve Always Done It This Way!

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Martha DeGraw

Yes, we all understand that change is disruptive. Just as we settle into a daily work routine and feel confident that we have it all under control and have all the answers, something comes along to “improve” what we are doing, or an issue causes us to realize that we were just kidding ourselves that things were under control in the first place.

These days, if someone is bold (or foolish) enough to utter the words “but we’ve always done it this way” or “why fix something that isn’t broken,” they get groans from the room. Things may not be broken, but we have to always ask ourselves: Can it be better?

The contact center is arguably the most dynamic organism of a large organization. Customer experience managers are constantly measuring the speed, agility and strength of customer service in a variety of ways and are leading the efforts to find better, faster ways to differentiate the enterprise through customer service. Ironically, the better an organization is at measuring the contact center activities, the easier it is to prove return on investment from automating customer service.

Since quality customer service comes with a price, when companies want to reduce expenses, COOs put pressure on the care organizations to lead the cost reduction charge. Contact center managers must get creative in both process and automation so the overall customer experience is well balanced and not degraded. Automating IVRs, developing self-care websites and self-managing communities are good ways to push the service effort to the customer.

Although customers are definitely demanding these tools as alternatives to live customer support, the live-agent experience cannot lose priority for continued improvement. Live agents have to be even more prepared to solve customer issues because the customers who do get through may have already failed in self-service channels.

So, how can a contact center minimize service disruption when it is adjusting to new technologies or automation? What if the automation doesn’t produce the desired results?

Sometimes things might start out quiet and the agents and supervisors breathe a sigh of relief of the early reduction in call volume. When customers start providing feedback and weaknesses in the self-care tools are exposed, frustrations can run high for both customers and contact center resources.

Recovery can be painful, so the need to minimize disruption is critical. While you can’t plan for everything, here are a few things to consider when planning for change:

  • Train agents on the self-service tools from the customer’s point of view so they understand the automation from the customer’s perspective.
  • Anticipate potential issues and develop scenario-based training for agents.
  • Ensure knowledge bases are updated to give quick and easy answers that are consistent for online for customers and for the agents.
  • Leverage skills-based routing tools to roll out changes gradually and adjust processes as they are tested by more experienced agents.
  • Complement self-service tools with improved agent and supervisor desktops with context aware pop-ups and scripts.
  • Identify ways to use unified communications tools for quicker access to non-customer-facing support experts.
  • Use survey and engagement recording tools so supervisors can review the engagement immediately and provide feedback.
  • Closely monitor workflow management reporting tools and do before and after comparisons of key performance metrics.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, CRM, Customer Experience, Customer Service, IVR, Uncategorized, West Interactive

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Why Did You Say That?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Glenn Reid

In the world of speech recognition, callers often respond to prompts in ways you would never expect. This is one of the main reasons that the process of tuning is essential after a new speech application goes live. Only by scouring through thousands of transcribed utterances can we truly understand how effective the speech application is performing.

The process of tuning provides valuable insight into where customers get frustrated or confused, as well as where callers easily navigate through IVR. The ability to look at such a large number of utterances during tuning is what makes tuning different from usability or focus group testing, which may only include a dozen or more participants. Tuning enables you to spot trends that you may not see in a focus group.

When you look at why callers respond to an IVR prompt in an unexpected way, you can often see that it is caused by the way in which the prompt directs the caller to respond. If you are looking for a “yes” or “no” response at a given prompt and are getting many responses that aren’t “yes” or “no,” then you might need to be more direct. Take the following actual prompt exchange for example:

Question: Did that fix your problem?
Actual Answer: I have a diagnostic code.
New Question: Did that fix your problem? Please say yes or no.
Likely New Answer: No.

With the original question, the caller is inclined to jump ahead and give an incorrect response. However, with the revised question the caller is specifically told the required response is “yes” or “no.”

Alternately, you may have a prompt where a more specific response is expected and are receiving unexpected “yes” or “no” responses. Consider the following actual prompt exchange:

Question: How would you like to search — by phone or account number?
Actual Answer: Yes.
New Question: Which would you like to search by? Say phone or account number.
Likely New Answer: Phone.

Here the original question is worded in a way that may callers would, if wanting to search by phone, have a tendency to answer “yes” as soon as they hear that option. By replacing the word “how” with “which” along with swapping the words “by phone” with “say phone” you can greatly reduce the number of invalid responses.

There are many other examples where callers will say the unexpected. Depending on the business and the reason for the call, you may hear common phrases like, “speak to an agent” or “I want something else.”

By doing a thorough tuning, these callers can either be redirected to speak the information that is being asked or at very least accommodated by allowing for these common phrases to, at a minimum, be understood. Understanding why your callers are responding they way they are will give you the best chance to design an IVR and speech application that allows the best possible user experience.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Advanced Speech Recognition, App Management, Application Management, Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Customer Service, IVR, Speech Applications, Speech Recognition, Speech Technology, Uncategorized, West Interactive

Tagged , , , ,

Keeping Score So You Know When You Win

Posted on April 19, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Fonda Narke

One of the best things about being a sports fan is that you know who wins and who gets the loss. The score tells us the answer to that question.

The 2012 Super Bowl drew a lot of national attention. You may have heard that according to the Nielsen rating, the 2012 Super Bowl set the record as the most watched television show in history with 111.3 million people tuning in to see who wins. (It was the NY Giants, in case you missed it.) The world of sports is the perfect example of looking at data to judge how a team or player did. Think of all the measuring that goes on:

  • The score (you either win or lose)
  • The endless stats — passing yards, rushing yards, tackles, pass completions, quarterback sacks, etc.
  • The money spent to place advertisements during the Super Bowl

The concept of keeping score also applies in business. The most obvious “score” in business is the financial data — is a company making money (win) or losing money (loss)? But there are many other ways to keep score in business operations: Was the latest IT project completed on time and on budget? Did the recent process change improve productivity? How much time and money did it cost to add that extra approval step?

In order to know if the changes we are making in business are successful, we need to establish metrics to measure the success so we can recognize the wins. Or maybe just as important, we need to recognize when results are not up to par so additional focus occurs in the needed area.

In the automated care world, there are many ways to keep score and measure the value that our services provide to our clients:

  • CSAT or customer satisfaction — many businesses utilize a survey following a customer service event to measure the customer satisfaction. This is a best practice that we highly recommend in the automated care world.
  • Call center agent talk minutes — whether it’s through partial automation or complete self service, one of the best values of an automated care strategy is the reduction in agent talk minutes.
  • Call completion rate — was the caller able to obtain the needed information or perform the required function successfully?

So, when your business is ready to make changes, make sure part of the process includes keeping score so you know when you win.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, CRM, Customer Service, Uncategorized, West Interactive

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Through Thick and Thin

Posted on February 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Darren Kunkel

An IBM PS/2

I vividly remember getting out of college in 1987 and being very excited to put my computer science degree to work. IBM had just come out with a full PS/2 line of personal computers, with the OS/2-ready Models 70 and 80 at the top end. Back then, you could boost the memory in those machines all the way up to 3 MB (yes, that’s megabytes, not gigabytes).

Also at the time, true cooperative client/server architectures were just breaking ground, while the vast majority of processing was accomplished via mainframe systems with a host of  dumb terminals (3270, etc.), aka thin clients.

Interesting enough, and for a host of reasons, there was a push to move much of that application processing to the desktop. With the right combination of computer science graduates, you could develop a local thick (or fat) client that required little to no outside processing “help” — that is, as long as you stayed within the operating system’s 640K memory barrier, which is a discussion for another time — and you could still access the old mainframe world through terminal emulation.

So, the push was on to move from thin client to thick client, and the graphical front ends that one could develop were state-of-the-art, thanks in part to IBM’s Presentation Manager (PM) toolkit. With PM, the user community would add terms such as spin buttons, drop-down list boxes and more to their vocabulary — and all in 32-bit color.

It seemed just as the 640K barrier was broken, and as memory and PCs became more affordable, we ironically experienced a return to the thin client for entirely different reasons — among them the Internet and total cost of ownership (TCO).

One reason for the thin client’s return was that Gartner, Inc., estimated that the TCO of a PC-based Internet system to be $12,000 per year per desktop. Along the way we discovered that the operational benefits (deployment, maintenance) of thin clients significantly outweighed their thick counterparts. To make things even better, the application platforms improved exponentially, including browser-based HTML (thin) clients, distributed computing platforms and Web services.

Today, we’re witnessing new terminology and technology that no longer represents an exclusive thick or thin definition. Terminology including rich clients, rich thin clients and smart clients has taken hold, and these applications represent merits of both the thin and thick client models and apply to the mobile client world.

Developers of these mobile applications now must consider a host of new requirements, including offline processing, operability across devices, deployment models and capacity.

So, which way will the pendulum swing next? The good news is that it can swing in any direction we want it to or that it needs to. Nothing against 1987, but this is certainly a better time knowing what we’ve accomplished, understanding what can be done and leveraging new technology that will take us wherever we want to go.


 

 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Mobile Apps, West Interactive

Tagged , , , , ,

The Best Way to Improve CSAT? Make Your Customer Service Easy

Posted on February 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Mousumi Quaglietta

Photo: Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This holiday season, like most people, I did a lot of shopping for my family and friends. And, like most people, my shopping was a combination of brick-and-mortar, phone and online stores. If I look back at all of the retailers I engaged, I realize one thing: My overall willingness to purchase again from a particular retailer is inversely related to the level of effort I expended. The easier things are, the more likely I am to purchase from your establishment.

And I’m not the only one. Generally, customers want to address problems easily and quickly. They want answers that are clear and consistent.

For decades now, contact center managers and executives have focused on customer satisfaction as the primary indicator of loyalty. But the reality is that reducing customer effort and making interactions simpler and effortless is a better gauge of loyalty than any CSAT score. This directly ties back to the recommendations I made back in my November blog post. Whether it be personalization or preference management, for example, building a better customer engagement methodology allows you to retain your customers and build brand loyalty.

Almost two years ago, the Harvard Business Journal wrote an article on this very subject, and I think it’s a good time to revisit the recommendations presented in the article. As the authors say, “All customers really want is a simple, quick solution to their problem.” They don’t care about all kinds of efforts to go “above and beyond” for them; they just want you to make purchasing easy for them. The article states five key ways to achieve this:

  1. Don’t just resolve the customer’s current issue; prevent the next one.
  2. Train customer service reps to better interact with customers on an emotional level.
  3. Make self-service channels, such as websites and chat, easy and convenient to use.
  4. Don’t just gather customer survey information to make the customer feel like you’re listening. Use customer feedback to improve your business and your customer service.
  5. Empower CSRs to make the customer’s experience easy.

Customer satisfaction is not about rebates, loyalty perks or other incentives. It’s really about giving customers the products they need and the customer service they want — and making it easy for them. In what ways does your company make customer service easy for its customers?

Photo: Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Survey, West Interactive

Tagged , , , , , , ,

The Pace of Change

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Submitted by Craig Webster

I remember listening to my grandfather talk about “the good ole days.” Grandpa was born in 1901, and thinking back on it now, it is astounding to consider the technological changes he witnessed in his lifetime. He was 2 years old when the Wright Brothers achieved success at Kitty Hawk. Automobiles were just starting to be mass-produced. Silent films were gaining popularity. As he passed middle age, he had seen the invention of jet airplanes, 3-D motion pictures, air conditioning, television, Polaroid cameras, transistor radios and microwave ovens. And, by the time Grandpa had reached old age in 1981, he had witnessed humans landing on the moon, the invention of lasers, the personal computer and the dawn of the Information Age.

These technological advances are just a sampling of the changes during that interval. Now consider the technology changes we have seen since 1981: laptops, portable GPS devices, the World Wide Web, satellite radio, wireless networking, smartphones, speech recognition, tablet computers and social media, to name a few. The world is becoming increasingly connected like never before, driven by the global nature of the Internet and the flow of information between an ever-growing array of connected devices. The pace of change has accelerated. Heck, I don’t know if they even offer what I was taught in college anymore.

How are enterprises dealing with the pace of technological change? Certainly, they are investing in technology that drives automation, as well as technology that enables a globalized work force. Increasingly, the business community is embracing the power of cloud-based services.

A cloud-based or hosted service can maximize flexibility while protecting against technology obsolescence — all the while enabling an on-demand pay-as-you-go cost model. Cloud services provide flexibility on multiple levels, freeing enterprises from constraints such as data center infrastructure, server horsepower, disk storage capacity, application upgrades and staff resources/expertise.

The Information Age is in full swing, and enterprises need to be agile. They need access to information and communication services anytime, anywhere, via any device. With change comes opportunity, and the enterprises that thrive will be those that embrace change.

If Grandpa were alive today, he would marvel at how far we have come in the past 20 years. My hunch is that when I reach the age of 80 and sit down with my grandson to talk about the good ole days, we both will be similarly amazed.


 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Cloud Computing, Hosted Services, Technology

Tagged , , , , , ,

Presidential Elections Demonstrate the Impact of Social Media

Posted on February 16, 2012 by | 7 Comments

Submitted by Nick Osborne

While skimming through updates recently from LinkedIn, an article caught eye in the “Job Discussions” section of the daily digest. Mixed in with the promises of profits without leaving your couch and “hot new firm seeks marketing executive” was a post that I almost missed, but for some reason it caught my eye. “Social Media Manager for a GOP Presidential Campaign.”

It reminded me of a few years ago when a senator from Illinois was climbing through the presidential polls in meteoric fashion. His innovative use of then-emerging social media channels was credited by many strategists as the turning point in his campaign and catalyst for his election.

The president’s campaign in 2008 really highlighted the power of social media tools. Large groups of people can now be reached instantly with your message. President Obama and his team recognized this, and it was one of the tools he used to become elected president of the United States. Businesses should also leverage the power of social media in getting their messages out there and to interact with their customers.

Marketing is not the only way to leverage social media. Technical support, sales and relationship management with customers have all started to dip their toes into this pool. Some organizations have done more than just dip their toes in, especially in the area of technical support. Social media, and forums in particular, are becoming a primary support mechanism for technical products, services and software.

One-way communication is not enough anymore. Anybody can send a tweet or start a Facebook page. That is only the start. Considering that the marketing piece of this pie alone is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States, it is safe to assume that businesses will want more from social media than just sending out some tweets.

Knowing how to engage social media, how to leverage social media to connect with your customers, having the tools you need, understanding the data you are seeing and ensuring that you are looking at relevant data are all key pieces of the social media puzzle for businesses. Partners who can provide the tools, reporting and expertise to cut through all of the noise are critical to a successful social media strategy.

Obama’s campaign in ’08 was innovative and leveraged new technologies as part of a strategy to win. The GOP, it would seem, is trying to learn from that experience in this year’s presidential election. As businesses catch up to something that the political world learned a few years ago, it will be critical to have a strategy in place for your organization.


 

→ 7 Comments

Posted in Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Engagement, Customer Service, Social Media, West Interactive

Tagged , , , ,