Expivia PREZintation!

Take an in-depth at all we have to offer here are Expivia.

We are not a contact center, we are a 21st Century Interaction Center. 

http://prezi.com/shwqkbgtj87m/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share


THIS IS EXPIVIA

Converting a Prezi Into a YouTube Video

Prezi has turned into a tool that you can use for presentations, training and in the marketing of your organization.  If you do not know what Prezi is then you need to learn and fast!  Take a second to look at this video put out by them.  Its explains what they do really well!

If you look at our website at www.expivia.net, all of the videos that you see on the site were actually created using Prezi.  Our favorite is our Expivia in 2 video:

 

Currently Prezi does not have a way to instantly turn a presentation into a video from their site and post it on Youtube but there is a work around that is very easy.

If you are a small business, have a small budget or just like to try new things, this is for you.  If you need some help with this we can help you as well here at Expivia.

1)     Create your Prezi.  This is a whole other blog post!!!...lol... but take some time and create a great presentation that explains what your business, product or service does.  Prezi allows you to really use your imagination and you do not have to be a graphics designer to make something great.  That’s one of the huge plusses of the format.

2)     Ok so now you have your prezi completed hit the EXIT button to leave the editor.

3)     Once you have exited and are now in the viewing stage, you need to click DOWNLOAD and then click DOWNLOAD PORTABLE PREZI.

4)   It will then create all the files that you will need to get it in the proper form to create a YouTube video.

5)   You then need to save the folder to your desktop and extract (right click on the file) all the files.  Once the files are extracted and you open the folder you will see one of the files that looks like this:

 

6)   When you double click on that icon/file your Prezi will play.   

7)   Now you need to download screen recording software.  You can find many free ones to download online.  A personal preference when we were just starting was Camstasia Recorder.  You do need to pay for the software after 30 days but its free to start, we believe it did the best job and was the easiest to use.

8)   Open up the recording software and you should be able to manually adjust the size of the area to record.  Make sure you have the full screen area able to be recorded but do not record your menu areas.  Also move the area up a little it from the bottom so it will not record the arrows from the Prezi.

9)   Open your Prezi and then hit the record button.  Now you should always manually click through the Prezi as it is being recorded to make sure you take a little more time on wordier slides.  Just slowly ready though the whole presentation to get the timing right.  If you have music set to your Prezi,  you can play around with clicking though the slides to highlights in the music.  It takes a little more time but is a really cool effect.  Kind of like when you see fireworks set to music!

10) When you are done recording make sure you view everything to make sure it came out how you wanted.  You will find in normally takes a couple "takes" to get it right. Now that you like what you see it is time to upload.  99% of the screen recording software allows for a direct upload to your YouTube account.  If you do not have an account just quickly sign up for a channel on YouTube.

The last part of it is to enjoy the video you just made.  You can now add this to all your online branding.  Put it on your Website, Tweet it, show it on LinkedIn and make a picture of it for your Pinterest page!

It is a very easy way to turn your Prezi masterpiece into a great video that will enhance your brand.  We hope this helps the small entrepreneur, business owner or student who may not be ready for a full online marketing plan to make their business, service or product look professional and more importantly really cool!

Email us for any questions no matter how small.

 

tlaird@expivia.net

 

www.expivia.net

www.pinterest.com/expivia

www.facebook.com/expivia

www.twitter.com/expivianow

 

 

Expivia on Pinterest!

There are many exciting happening starting at Expivia! We will keep everyone aware of this on upcoming blog postings.  We will have some pictures and videos available as well.

In the mean time we are proud to announce the Expivia Pinterest site is alive!  Take a creative look at who Expivia is through pictures.  

  http://pinterest.com/expivia/this-is-expivia/

How to do your Online Branding Pre-Startup

Expivia wants to be able to help all organizations succeed with their CRM plan. Even those that are not funded yet. We understand that many organizations to be are in a pre-startup mode and need some advice.  Since our organization is no longer in startup mode and is now moving down the road with our mission, we wanted to take a second to try to help those companies that are just starting.  We want to show how they can have an online presence/brand before starting to look for funding.  Every entrepreneur must start somewhere.  We hope this helps some others out there as much as it helped us get started.  If you need help beyond this or just have a question please do not hesitate to contact us at tlaird@expivia.net no matter how small the question.  We have lived it and now have grown from it.


We hope this helps....

There is no reason your future start up should not have its online branding done BEFORE and start up money is even gone after. When you are pitching your business plan you need to have your online presence done.  This shows how serious you are and also frames your vision not just in words but in an arena that people can visualize.  We all know that the first place people will start their research on your company,  product or service is to go online and Google you!  You need to anticipate this and be ready.

This is a story, the story of our company Expivia Interaction Marketing Group, Inc, on how we did a total online branding before we were funded, made it look very professional with very little graphics/webdesign skill and even better…with very little investment.  When I mean very little I mean under $100 dollars.  It does take time and thought but it can be done. We did it and got funded and now are in a different stratosphere.  Here is how you begin. 

 LOGO 

Your company needs a logo.  Whether it is just the name of your company or a different design you need something that is simple yet catches the eye.  We designed our logo on paper, took it to Fedex/Kinkos and for 20 some dollars they designed the digital look of it and gave me a CD with a couple different variations. 

Our logo can be found here:

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/fe4d38_e4ab5dd09ad1ac8281a9d36eb524333f.png_srz_147_52_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_png_srz

 

WEBSITE

After looking at all the different free online website design formats we found that we liked Wix.com the best.  It is very easy to use, you do not need to be a graphics design major or know any html coding to make a very professional site.  One of the tips though that we will tell you though is in our opinion you should stay away from their flash sites. Our site was done in html5 and there are a lot of templates done this way. Apple is not compatible with flash so a large part of the population out there with ipads and iphones will not be able to see your site in its full glory.  The website took the most amount of time as you need to get this right.  We took about 20-30 hours on our site.  You have to make sure your brand and theme is stated here.  Anything that you do after the design of the website with other online channels must match/compliment the flagship of your online presence,  your website.    Our website set the pace for all of our other branding.  To create the site it is free.  To get a URL and to get it online costs about 30 bucks.  After that the price is about 20-30 some dollars a month for hosting. 

Here is our website.  All the videos were done for free (I will show you how) and I think it came out really well.  We are proud of it.  While we are in the process of a major overhaul away from Wix, the main features will still be the same.

You can see it at:  www.expivia.net

FACEBOOOK

Next we did our Facebook page.  We used our logo and images from our website to tie it together.  Obviously this is free.  Make sure you go through the phone verification to get the more professional URL name.  One of the first things you can post are topics from your website.  It is a good way to start linking both of them.  Don’t worry about your LIKES right now.  Just make sure it looks like you took time to set it up right.  It’s fine if you ask your friends and family to LIKE your new site but don’t worry about that number right now.

Ours is:  www.facebook.com/expivia

 

COMPANY BLOG

This part of your online portfolio takes time and thought.  Your blog should tell everyone about your company, what do you do, why are you different, what cool things are happening in your niche.  While it is ok to post something that you found from the web every once in a while, the blog needs to have mostly original material(such as what you are reading right now!)  People want to hear from you especially if they are interested in what you have to say.  Don’t cheapen that by being lazy and just posting things that you find online.  People can go to a site like Reddit.com for that.  We try to post at least twice a week our company blog.  The fun part of this is to get others in the organization to get involved, then it does not become a “chore”.  Make it a team effort.  You can start your online blog for free from many different sites. 

We chose Googles blogger for our blog :

www.expivia.blogspot.com

 

PREZI/YOUTUBE

Something that we have done and I believe has really enhanced our online brand was to use Prezi.  If you are unfamiliar with Prezi then that needs to change, especially for a small business.  Prezi is what PowerPoint would want to be when it grew up.  It is an amazing cloud based (no download) presentation format that allowed us to not only make marketing slide shows, products presentation or training guides but has allowed us to place these presentation on Youtube.   This will allow you to have free videos for our website or for those that want to know more about our company.  Prezi does not have a way to actually make a Youtube video but all that you need to do is to download a free screen capture program.  Run the Prezi while the screen is being recorded and you have a great marketing video for close to NOTHING!  Prezi allows about three of these for free and then you need to subscribe.  It is like 3 dollars a month for the ability to do more Prezis than you could ever make.

Here is a link to our blog about prezi to learn more

http://www.expivia.blogspot.com/2013/04/as-interaction-center-has-changed.html

This link will also show you our completed Youtube Prezis. 

Small business owners need to show a little imagination and ingenuity.  This is one way to make yourself different, to use your imagination and show your vision for almost no cost!

 

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn is the Facebook for the business world.  For a small business owner looking to startup a company LinkedIn is invaluable.  Most business people already know about LinkedIn so I will not belabor its importance.  What you need to do though is to put your soon to be business on LinkedIn as well.  This again needs to be an extension of your website/brand.  Same logos and same theme need to be duplicated.  LinkedIn is really nice because it allows you to break down your products and services as well as just giving a company overview.

Here is our LinkedIn services page:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/expivia-interaction-marketing-group-inc-/products?trk=top_nav_products

TWITTER

Twitter is the voice of your soon to be start up.  It’s a free account as most know.  Again you can pretty it up with your logo and pics.  Don’t worry early on about getting followers, that is for after launch of your company.  All you want to go now is make sure you are up, know how to use twitter, and start having some fun with posting things to groups with your common interest or to a future customer base.

Our twitter account is:



www.twitter.com/expivianow  

EZINEARTICLES

Ezinearticles  is a free site that allows you to “publish” original works online.  We kind of ham and egg this with our blog.  It is really just another way to get your word out for free.  All it takes is some time to write.  It is a great way to get hits to your online channels.

You can see our Ezinearticles from our blog using this link:

http://www.expivia.blogspot.com/2013/05/expivia-is-diamond-rated-author-on.html

 

TIE IT ALL TOGETHER

So now we have a website, Facebook page, LinkedIn site, beautiful videos that we have added to the website on YouTube and a Twitter account.  All of this is in addition to all your written work that was done with your blog and article writing.  All of the different channels all have the same theme, complement each other and look professional. 

Make sure that you tie them all together.  If you post on Facebook your Twitter account and LinkedIn page should do the same.  If you have a new blog post your Facebook and Twitter account should shout that out.  You get the idea.

SAVE ONE

It’s a great idea to save one of the more photo centric online marketing channels (like Pintrest or Instagram) for when you get funded.  Do a whole campaign on your start up journey through pictures.  Use all of the other channels to aid in this campaign.  This is a great way to start to build your following and get our name out for very low cost.

It does not take a lot of money to get this going.  Remember though you need to have all of our online branding done BEFORE you start pitching anyone for start up money. 

Once you get into it, it’s so hard stop!  It becomes a labor of love.  It is something that you are never done with but always changing, evolving and trying to make better.

 

After your business plan, this is the next most important piece of your structure that needs to be done before you should start to seek funding.   Once you get funded you can get into the more complex web technologies.  We are lucky enough to be in this phase right now but we will never forget the fun and love we had setting up our initial platform for the world to see!

Please take a second to comment if this has helped in any way!

Feel free to contact us at tlaird@expivia.net

 

WebRTC Primer

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) is an effort, started by Google, to build a standard-based, real-time Media Engine into all of the available browsers. Since 2002, Global IP Solutions (GIPS) developed software media engines for the likes of Nortel (Avaya), WebEx (Cisco), Yahoo and IBM to support their PC-based telephony applications and other VoIP devices.
 
In 2010, Google purchased GIPS for $68.2M. In 2011, using the technology it acquired in the acquisition, Google created an open source version of GIPS software called WebRTC and built it into its Chrome Web browser. This became the basis of the WebRTC movement and standards activities. With WebRTC functions built into a browser, a Web service can now instruct the browser to use local resources to make a real-time voice or video connection to another WebRTC device or to a WebRTC media server, using SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol). With a HTML5- and WebRTC-enabled Browser, a soft client is now just HTML pages passed from the server, displayed as the visual and functional interface.

 Signaling and protocol standards are coming from the IETF, and the APIs for Web app developers are coming from W3C. The next step at the IETF is approval of the RFC next month. Today, WebRTC-enabled browsers are generally available from Google (Chrome) and Mozilla (Firefox) So far, Microsoft has an alternative approach and Apple is in stealth mode.  So, we have the start of something...a standard supported by some vendors but not all (so is that really a standard?).  As you can imagine, there are a number of topics that come to mind; please let us know if you would like us to add some others to the list we're starting with:

* Market Dynamics
* Security
* Integration or replacement
* Technology

This article was written by Chris Vitek and Dave Stein of the STC.

55% of customers expect companies to reply to Facebook & Twitter posts within 4 hours

 

Facebook and Twitter have become essential customer utilities.

A survey on customer service expectations which sampled 2,766 respondents has found that 55 per cent of those who raise a customer service issue via a company’s Facebook or Twitter presence expect to be answered within four hours.
It concludes that customer expectations continue to increase with the adoption of social media platforms.
“Consumers have very high expectations of customer service,” said Steven Van Belleghem, who carried out the research.
“95 per cent find it important to be helped quickly. 89 per cent want a transparent overview of the next steps in a purchase or complaint procedure. 89 per cent expect to be treated in a very friendly manner and 88 per cent want to complete the procedure in a single contact.”
The research found that speed “tops the list” of customer expectations, with four in 10 expecting an email to be answered, and 55 per cent expecting a reply to their Facebook and Twitter posts within the same period.
“Consumers are becoming increasingly demanding and due to social media, word about good and bad service experiences gets around quickly,” Van Belleghem said.
“Accounts of positive experiences raise the pressure on less successful companies. Society as a whole is becoming faster and faster and customer expectations reflect this trend".
The study, undertaken before the recent Prism revelations on data trawling, also found that consumers are willing to share data, but only if they perceive a benefit from their own openness.

From thereddrum.com

Ongoing Associate Training at Expivia - Agent Analysis Program

There are a lot of centers that think a quick morning meeting is their only basis for ongoing quality training.  Not at Expivia.

You would never go on a long road trip without any kind of map or GPS right? How can representatives and supervisor kn​ow where you want them to go unless they too look at their map for success? We call this our Expivia Agent Analysis program…Our map to success for our agents.

It’s very important to give out goals to each of your reps daily. It’s also just as important to have each of your reps have an achievement/progression plan that gets looked at and talked about weekly in a much more detailed format.

Our Expivia Agent Analysis program is one of the cornerstones in developing high quality representatives. Not only does it show that we care about the standards that are set, it also shows representatives that we care about them; it shows we care about their personal development. They can see there is a path to career progression.

Each of our representatives are pulled from the floor for at least 15-20 minutes a week to talk a little deeper about how they are doing, what they need to do and how we can help them. We make sure the tone of this meeting is positive in tone.

1) We talk about the past week, what were the quality/sales/social media goals that were given last week to that representative. Did they meet the goal, if not then talk about how they can better achieve these goals in the next week.  Our supervisors are trained to be prepared for this. They give specific examples to help the representatives.(“Janie we talked last week about to recognizing closing signals in your calls, I think you have done a little better especially yesterday when you…..”). We go over recorded calls here that are specific to the goals that were set the past week. We talk about their specific monitoring scores as well.

2) Any attendance/dress code/team behaviors are brought up at this point. This is the only part that may get a little negative so we like to sandwich it between the recap of the week and the next weeks plan.

3) Give each representative SPECIFIC individual plan/goals for the week.
“Janie we need 4.0/5.0 quality score average for all your monitored calls for next week, you were really close to that this week so I know you will be able to do this. I would like to see your conversion go to 6% from 5.2% next week on your cross-sell opportunities as well, recognize those closing signals that we talked about and you will be above 6%! I know you can do it!!!”

4) We end the meeting talking about their career plan. Do they want to be a management trainee, supervisor, team lead? Do they want to learn more programs/social media opportunities? We talk about how we can help get them to the next level. Career progression is very important to us at Expivia.

This is another way we are different from other marketing organizations.
​

Creating Fun in the Contact Center

Call center work is hard work. Representatives on the phone can take a ton of abuse from customers and sometime from supervisors themselves!
Our job is to make the customers we talk to have a world class experience. We cannot do this if we have reps that are lethargic, have bad attitudes and do not want to be at work. One way we can help them is by making the call center THE fun place to work.

I believe that the call center can be a place where you can do things that you cannot do in any other department. You can yell out loud, high five, cheer each other on! You can't do that in accounting! Show me a quiet call center and I will show you one with high turnover, low quality and more importantly it will reflect that the reps are not enjoying themselves.
If we can get our reps to have fun at their job it takes their mind off of all the negative things that hamper great call center work. All call centers have reps that seem to always come in with their days troubles on their sleeve. All call centers have reps that leave "sick" every day because they are just plain bored. If we can take their attention off these things and channel it into something positive, then we have taken a huge step in improving our center.
It does not matter if you are running a center with an insurance, banking, pure customer care or sales vertical. You can, and in my opinion, must make the environment enjoyable.

DECOR:
Take a look at your center. Most of you are probably at work right now looking at this so take a second to look at your center... I'll wait... lol
Does it have energy, or is it just plain and boring? If you were a rep would you like coming to work in this room every day?
I'm not saying you need to overhaul your center if it's not where it should be. There are a couple basic things you can do. Also I would love to get some of your ideas on this as well.

• Balloons can add a ton to a room. Just some company balloons or a "great job" balloons go a long way. As basic as that sounds, if you give a balloon to each team's top producer daily based on your specific KPI, it goes a long way for moral and adds to the fun look of the center.


• Team Crests/logos/mascot pics can really brighten up the room and add to great team spirit. Just having each team decide a team logo can be a lot of fun for the team members. You can even make a game out of it where each sale/great call/cross sell gets to add a name for consideration and the top producer get to pick the name. Use your imagination!


• Posters. I really like to put up great sayings that my reps used on a call. It's a reward for them to have a poster "named" after them and the phrase will get more uses because an actual rep used it. Having generic posters in a room is OK but tends to just get ignored a bit.

GAMES:
I have a TON of games that can be played in a call center. I just wanted to add a couple that are easy to do and you need basically no money to pull off. This hopefully will to give you some ideas. These are games that can be played daily on each team. You can do team vs. team or rep vs. rep.
BINGO- Set up a board that includes some KPIs that can be measured during the day. Each time your rep hits on of the goals they mark it off the sheet. Once they get enough BINGO gets yelled out and you have a winner.
POKER- Each time a rep hits a KPI they get a card. Best poker hand wins at the end of shift.
CHAIR GAME- I don't know about you but in my center the supervisors have different chairs that the reps love. We play pass the chair. Each time a rep gets a sale or hits a KPI, they get the chair until it get "stolen" by the next person.
PASS THE... - Like the chair we will pass an object for each Sale or KPI hit. If its summer I will go get some beach ball and we will pass or hit around a beach ball, winter maybe a stuffed Santa. You can award the owner of the ball each hour or just once at the end of shift.
OFF THE CLOCK- Reps love to be off the phones, its human nature. Set up some games like having a putting green on the floor, little nerf basketball hoop or some darts up in your center. Again however you have it set up, great sale, great monitoring score, KPI hit, the rep gets to get out of the booth and go play the game for a small prize. The real prize though is the 5 minutes off the phone!
HANGMAN- Pretty self-explanatory. Supervisor set up a board and the word/phrase and the reps get rewarded with chances at guessing a letter and the word or phrase.
Those are all just a very small sample of games a supervisor should be playing at all times on his/her team. Remember is in addition to a center wide motivation that maybe runs for a week or a month.
PRIZES:
What should the prizes be? Well I can tell you they do not have to be big to have the reps fighting over them. Candy, lottery tickets, a new pencil or pen, cup, homemade cookies, a free soda are all things that work. It's funny it really depends on how your supervisor sells it. I had a supervisor give away a 5 cent pencil eraser. Sounds boring right? But the way she sold it to her reps made it should like the greatest thing every. They died to try to win it.
It's very important that your middle management buys into all off this. I will have more later on expectations and training for your supervision.
I hope you guys enjoyed this, brought back some great memories of some of the fun I have had on the call center floor. I hope it gets you to realize how important your role is in the overall "fun" culture of your center

To see this culture in place take some time to visit http://www.expivia.net
Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are reshaping customer interactions. This is EXPIVIA

Training Delight Into Your Customer Service Associates

Talking to customer service reps when you dial that 1800 number is hit or miss when it comes to tone and quality. From what I have seen most reps MISS! There really does not seem to be a great deal of effort put in to have world class calls. Now every call center manager ALWAYS says that quality is the number on goal, if this is so why are the experiences overwhelmingly bad? I'll tell you why.

Most companies put all their training in how to run the program. What to look for, what screen do you have to be on, who button do you have to click. They do NOT do a great job in training DELIGHT in their calls. Most companies want to train as fast as they can so they can have reps producing as quickly as possible even to the detriment to their client or customer.
DELIGHT for me is that certain element that makes great customer service representatives. It's the tone in the voice that wants to give quality. Most are not born with it but it can be trained in reps.

This is an easy way to train DELIGHT in your calls. This also will set you up with a baseline monitoring program as well to team with the way you have trained.
I call this method/technique to fix quality "You Own the Call".

The first thing that you would look to attack when looking to change the quality of your calls would be to listen to as many reps/calls you can, make no changes, just listen. It is OK to get frustrated here with what you hear. Remember this is the stuff we need to fix.
So many call center managers don't monitor and many do not know what they are listening for. You want to get a good feel for the different types of calls that you take and how your reps respond to these calls. This would include meeting with all call center management as well to get as much feedback as possible and to get them on board to understanding how we are going to up our quality.

What you need then to get started is after you understand your calls you break down each vertical by call flow. You would also want to know what your main goals to focus on are. Where are you weak, where do you need to focus the quality effort? Is it overall rep satisfaction, one call resolution, length of call satisfaction, things of this nature?
Let's say for our example we are having many rep complaints so we are looking to get our rep satisfaction scores to come up. Using the "You Own the Call Method" we would break down the call into segments.

For Example:
Opening/Greeting
Verification
Issue handling
Resolving stage
Call to action
Close

You would then come up with a training plan to train all of these areas separately from a DELIGHT standpoint. How are we greeting customers, are their specific words to use during the verification, how is our tone when we resolve their issue, are we empathic to their need no matter if it was out fault or not, do we know of lag times during calls where we MUST make small talk. Small talk is huge in engaging your customers if done well. How do we form a relationship quickly with each call? All these segments need to be trained so the rep understands how the customer should be treated during each segment.

If you have major issues then you need to be more specific with what a rep says (more scripted) and make them focus solely on their tone. You all have heard it's not what you say but how you say it. The better they get with tone the more freedom they get to go off script.

TONE IS VERY IMPORTANT. It's the number 1 factor to a high quality call center.
The next step would be to come up with a QA monitoring form to score all of our calls this way. You then do weekly benchmarking sessions to make sure you are all in agreement with the scoring. Your form should break down the segments and score each one from a delight factor. I like a 1-5 scoring but it doesn't really matter as long as you score and you are benchmarked.
The last step is the one that will make a huge difference. You must make sure that you are giving instant feedback to the supervisors and reps. All scored calls need to be sent directly to the floor from QA right after the law score, do not wait! Develop a simple rule as well to make sure that we all reps are heard in a certain period. Any rep that fails the minimal level of satisfaction is pulled immediately and retrained on the specific areas that have opportunity. This need to be done in a positive way. They are also then re-monitored within a half hour of going back on the phones. That is very important.

If quality is what is needed to be improved then you should post daily and weekly quality ranking in the center as well. You can do some daily team and weekly center motivations around this topic as well.

Something cool that I have seen was well was putting up quality posters in the room based on actual things that a rep has said. This means much more than a random "Quality is our job" poster. Get the reps to buy in.

This is the first thing that I would do in coming into a new center with quality issues. There are many other things that we can do to help with quality but this get right to the heart of how we train/monitor/treat our reps and customers.
 

If you need help in getting your customer satisfaction scores higher visit us at

http://www.expivia.net

Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net

We are reshaping customer interactions. This is EXPIVIA

Customers of Today Want Social Interactions

Change can be a scary thing, especially when your organization has done things one way for so many years when it comes to customer service and sales.  Many marketing and customer service managers are from the “old school” ways of customer interaction where you push calls to self-service IVR’s and then on to a contact center.

While there is still a place for this model the fact is it is your customers who are changing.  Many customers in their 20’s and 30s have grown up with the internet.  They have seen the change from the “let’s get online” stage to the full scale social CRM stage.  They are used to using tablets and smartphones to connect with self-service apps and using click to call technology.  When a customer receives a substandard product or service they do not call and complain anymore, they POST!  They post to blogs, on twitter and on their Facebook accounts.  No longer can an organization sit back and wait to fix problems from an inbound phone call.

All organizations must be proactive in finding their own issues socially and shaping that message into a positive one before the complaint of the customer goes viral.  It is very difficult to put all the negativity back in the hat once it is out.  All marketing managers and customer service executives must push for their organization not just have a Facebook and Twitter account but to have a full social CRM initiative that interacts with customers proactively.

Number one problem with many companies social crm platform:

They use the tools they know about (Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Instagram…) to SHOUT to their customers.  They shout specials, deals and company news.  They do not interact with customers on a level that allows them to gain trust.  Now don’t get me wrong, using social media to get information out is not all bad, it’s just one small step that a company needs to take.  They cannot stop there.

Social media when done right cannot be one person talking and the other one listening.  It needs to be a conversation.  When you can get your customers to interact with you on this type of experience you have a customer for life!

Companies need to start to use technology, or outsource the job to marketing agencies if they do not have the capacity to handle in house. The ability to search the social CRM world for posts that use key word for sales and/or service opportunities is now of vital importance. A company's social antennae need to be listing at all times. 

In real time you can now search thousands of forums, blogs, Facebook accounts and internet searches.  You can also respond to these customer and prospective customers in real time.  With new open source technology like WebRTC, you no longer have to just use text or an email to talk to these customers.  You can have a one on one face to face conversation without and downloading using this enhanced technology.  WebRTC will be one of the new technologies that will be embraced by everyone in the next five year.  Understand it now!

This is a tool that if you are not using, I guarantee one of your competitors are.

The second problem with many companies social crm platform:

The rehashing of the same materials on Social Sites. 

Many company social sites are basically just copies of the actual web site.  The whole story or product will be copied or just the link gets posted on Facebook or tweeted out.  All this drives is...boredom!

Your Website is normally your crown jewel.  Your social platform should have different content but content that complements the site.  Content that can engage and get a conversation going with customers and those interested in your product/service.  For example:

Say your website is a travel site and you have a story on Wines of the Central Coast of California, your Facebook page should not tell people that with a link to the story.  It should be asking followers to take a look at the story and come back to post their favorite recipes that match those wines.  Maybe you have your own recipes to compliment the story.

Take the time to enhance and compliment your social content to truly energize and engage your customers and follower.

Third mistake many companies are doing on their social crm platform:

The underuse and misuse of the company blog.  A well thought out blog with original and meaningful information is a very persuasive tool.  Use your interactions with your customers or prospective customer to shape the content of your blog.  Give them topics that will actually be interested.  I have seen so many blogs that are just reposts from other sites (just like the Facebook mistake).  Take some time and have this done right.  If your company does not have the time then there are many social marketing companies that can handle this for you.  Not only will it get more eyes onto your website but when done correctly will have many people pass this information along; you are shaping your social message.  Great content is now very potent when is comes to getting your message and expertise out.

I have just touched on a couple ways to use social CRM easily and cheaply for your organization.  If you just did what was discussed here:

1)      Set up your social accounts. with different yet complimentary content.  Make sure you are responding to all customer interactions proactively.

2)      Start monitoring the web for all social interaction that may affect your organization.  Once recognized start a conversation with text or by using state of the art cheap/free technology like Email/WebRTC to talk one on with a prospect/customer.

3)      Set up a strong blog that is updated daily with original and meaningful content.  Use affiliate article writing as well to start to get your blog and website viewed.  Make sure you use your customer interactions to shape the articles of your blog.

Just doing these three basic things will get you well on the road to having a full and profitable social CRM plan.
 

Why Some Internal Call Centers Struggle

Many internal call enters struggle when it comes to satisfaction with customers.  Why?  Here are some reasons:

Reason 1: Who Has the Say?
Who is running your call center? What I mean by that is it your financial people, your marketing people, your sales people? Who has the most say, who is the squeaky wheel that you always seem to have to appease. The mindset of the people running your center has a lot to do with the culture and the personality of your center. Now a great center can meet a happy medium for all these different aspects but when one takes over as more important as what happens in a lot of companies you can have a disconnect and the customer take the brunt. If...
Financial importance is your main effort:
When this happens you feel the pressure of constantly being efficient even to a fault. High service levels do not mean as much as low AHT, Wait Times, and Wrap time. You get pressure to handle more calls in a shorter period of time. When this happens you have a couple issues, one you already are going to get irritated customers before they even get to an agent because of long wait times in queue, second when reps feel the pressure of quicker calls the service of the call drops. This has a snowball effect as well because the bigger the queue the more pressure you and each of your supervisors put on the reps to handle the next call. WE HAVE ALL BEEN THERE!! It's funny as well when you look at the SL and Wait times for people calling in to buy something from the company... they are over staffed and the customer service is under staffed. This is true in most companies.
COMPANIES STILL DO NOT REALIZE THAT SELLING TO AN EXISTING CUSTOMER WHO IS HAPPY WITH THEIR SERVICE IS SO MUCH EASIER AND CHEAPER THAT GETTING NEW CUSTOMERS... MARKETING 101!!!
Marketing/Sales is your main effort:
So many contact centers, rightfully so, are trying to make their center not just a customer service center but a profit center. There is nothing wrong with cross-selling your customer service calls as long as we all understand it is an add-on. Some mistakes I see here is when
A) your cross-sell effort does not match your call type (I have seen crazy things that have tried to be sold just for a quick buck) and
B) and most importantly your selling effort takes over as the main reason for the call. When this happens not only are you not getting a sale but you may be losing a customer. You have to make sure you handle the customer's issues first; build a rapport and then try to cross sell based a product that meets the needs of the customer.
Do you just keep track of how many sales your reps have in a day? That's probably posted in the room right? Your top sales people get all the rewards right... I hope you have your quality scores and reps satisfaction scores posted as well... most don't.

Reason 2: Training.
Another issue why I think customer service is so bad in general is that it is not trained properly. In an earlier blog I talked about breaking down your calls and training each aspect with how you would like it to be handled which I won't duplicate here in its entirety. Companies can't think of a call as one lump sum to deal with. It's a lot of small moving parts that all need to be handled in their own way. For example, as discussed in the earlier blog, you need to train how a rep handles portion of calls when you know there will be a long wait/hold times. Teach them how to handle this, give them talk off topics. Companies are good at training product and screen knowledge, they are not very good are training DELIGHT into calls.

Reason 3: No Fluid Processes
Large and small companies can all have this issue but you normally see it in large companies. When multiple departments have a say in how the customer service for their specific is to be handled you can get inconsistent and confusing service. Different 1800 numbers, transferred call, multiple call resolution. It's really frustrating! When you are told by a company rep that they do not handle that issue in his/her department the frustration level rises and you may have already lost that customer. Disjointed departments all handling sales/service is a huge reason for the lack of service in the marketplace.

Reason 4: Lack of Information
Many companies do not have proper CRM software to help with their service. Asking multiple times for you SSN (process issue as well), having to recap your story multiple times because it is not in any software the company has. This is a huge expense and one of the reasons that I recommend outsourcing if you are just starting a customer service department. You have to do your homework (or hire me to help... cheap plug!) but if you find the right group with the right tools it can be a huge asset for you to deal with your customers properly.

Reason 5: Lack if Caring
This goes back to reason number one. You must put as much time in keeping the customers you have as you do with getting new ones. Its effects things such as sales, customer appreciation, customer loyally and more importantly the reputation of your organization.