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.

Remembering the Call Center of 25 Years Ago

Article from Expivia CEO Thomas Laird:

I have read and written many articles on the future of customer service and the future of the contact center. I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and try to get a discussion on the "old" days. The days when outbound calling was huge, before the advanced telephony, routing, and the CTI that we have today.

For full disclosure here I am only 36 years old but I have grown up around the call center environment since I was 10 years old. My family owed Telatron Marketing Group,  a 500 seat center in Erie PA that I grew up at. From stuffing envelopes, filling vending machines, typing scripts to taking and making sales and service calls, I did it all in those days growing up especially during summer vacations.

We did a lot of outbound calling in those days (1985-1990) mostly for banks. We did a TON of outbound credit card sales. There was no database programming or predictive dialing. We printed out thousands of pressure sensitive labels that we color coded to represent the time zone we were calling. I still remember it like it was yesterday, red was for the east coast time zone, blue for the central time zone, yellow was Mountain and orange represented the pacific time zone. Being a 10 year old I would take the highlighter and drag down the center of each of the labels the color of the specific time zone before they went to the floor.

Once the labels got the floor the associate would hand dial each label. If they got a "no" they would cross off the label, no answer they would leave it alone to be called back later and if they got a sale the sticker would be given to a supervisor. All the sales were processed free hand on a paper application that was faxed (cool technology) or mailed to the client daily. I still remember associates passing around labels for others to call of they heard a funny answering machine or called a strange place.

Because of all the amount of paper applications, Fulfillment was a pretty busy department, one that really does not exist at all in the same form today. I remember folding and stuffing envelopes until my fingers had so many paper cuts I couldn't hold a folk for dinner. I remember teasing my parents I was going to call child labor on them!

I remember we did our scripts in flipbooks that we had in each booth. This way the associates could read an opening and then flip quickly to the rebuttal sheet when they needed it. All the disclosures where on these flip books as well.

Our inbound customer service was pretty basic as well back in 1985. Without getting very technical here we had a bunch of lines that came in and rang in order booth by booth (daisy chain). There was no average wait time or expert agent routing. We did not even know how many calls we were abandoning. We had no stats except for calls offered. There was no CRM software as well. We had customer files written down on index cards with important information that we would update as our basic CRM. Thinking about it now how frustrating it had to of been for customer to get questions answered and problems solved without even a database with their information.

I also remember we had a giant map of the USA that my dad and I painted on the wall using an overhead projector. We painted each state the color of the labels so no one would get confused! The funny things that you remember. The good Ole days!

Would love to hear some of your stories of call center yester years!

www.expivia.net


THIS IS EXPIVIA

 

 

Customer Service Interactions are Rapidly Changing...Are You Ready?

We  at EXPIVA believe we are at a crossroads when it comes to how we handle customer interactions. We will go so far as to say that the "new" way we handle these interactions (chat, email, phone) will actually start to be the old way in about a year from now... that's right a year.  This unfortunately scares a lot of companies as well who have done customer service one way for decades.

Looking out one to five years we have to look at what customers will be doing. Smartphones and tablets will take over the desktop and laptop. Right now about 1 in 4 Americans own a tablet. As competition grows, prices recede and the use of tablets grows in the workplace this number will skyrocket
1800 number communication will seem like the "old" way to communicate. IVRs while still will have value will start to give way to newer technology.

 Why do I say that?

From a customer service standpoint customer service APPs are taking the place of IVR's. If you want information without talking to an agent you will pull up an APP and get that information on your phone or tablet. If you want an account balance, how many points you have, basic questions like this APPs are quickly taking the place of the IVR when it comes to preferred usage.

Now if you want to talk to an agent, dialing a 1800 number will become the antiquated thing to do. Customers will be using WebRTC (web real time communications). This will allow customers from their smart phone or table to instantly connect to an agent that will be connected browser to browser seeing exactly what the customer is seeing with any program to be downloaded. Face time will also be available if you want to look an agent face to face. (kind of star-treky...lol)

Social Media giants such as Facebook are starting to apply this technology to Interactions and Ads.
In the beginning this will be an add-on to a cloud based or premise based provider. We at EXPIVIA believe it will take over the role of the 1800 number and will become the way most customers will communicate with companies and call center agents.
We see the call center agent as having their own tablet as their desktop. They will have a keyboard to type but will be able to take this tablet with then when they go to training or have the tablet as a backup from home if you are using mobile or at home agents or for overflow.

Desktops are going away. PBX's are going away; certain cloud based technologies (even though they are relatively new) will be going away.
Real Time communication through the browser with apps on tablets will be the new form of communication. The earlier companies jump on the bigger advantage they will have in dealing with their customers.

Social media is no longer the think only "cool" companies aspire to use.  It is becoming an absolute necessity.  Take a look here for more on the effect of social CRM on every organization http://www.expivia.blogspot.com/2013/05/social-crm-integration-is-important-for.html


Exciting time in the CRM place.
 

Now is the time not to fear these technologies but to take advantage of them. Let EXPIVIA help you.

Visit us at http://www.expivia.net or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/expivia.


THIS IS EXPIVIA

The Power of a Teddy Bear when it Comes to Social CRM

All businesses large and small need to start to harness the power of monitoring social media channels.

Take a quick look at this link from the Today Show that I have placed near the bottom of this article on how Charmin monitored social media channels and found a blog from a mother who was writing how her son with Autism was infatuated with the Charmin Teddy Bear. No other bear captivated the child like the Charmin Bear. Charmin found this blog by monitoring social media and was so touched by the story that they sent the family some stuffed bears so that the child could have the real thing.

This all then turns to positive PR from just the small token of sending a stuffed animal to a child that really would enjoy it.

This is just one small example of how monitoring social media channels can boost your corporate reputation by showing how proactive you can be. Just by me writing this article is continuing to push the Charmin story in a positive light. Powerful. This is what can happen to all organizations who are proactive with their social media.

How do you do this?

If you are a small or medium organization there are many outsourced companies that will do it for you. They can watch sales opportunities by certain keywords or they can monitor your company name or AD campaign. Anytime that these names come up on a monitored forum, Facebook page, blog or internet search you then get the opportunity to respond quickly to shape a sales or customer service opportunity.

These organizations normally charge by the amount of time you want them to respond to "hits". You can have outsourcers check your social media hits on a weekly, daily, or hourly basis depending on your budget and social media need. If you are say a small car dealer you could probably get away with looking more for sales and customer service opportunities a little less than a larger organization would. These organizations likely would benefit from a wider search for both with longer response periods.

Large organizations with Social CRM budgets can purchase software that can do this for them. These "scrubbers",as I call them, constantly are looking for key words for organizations to capitalize on.

Major telecommunications companies like Avaya and Cisco are now moving to add these features right to their contact center software. They are treating social media contacts or hits as important as an inbound customer service or sales opportunity. Representatives in these new "Interaction Centers" now take Inbound, Outbound, Chat, Email and Social media interactions all at the same station and treat all with the same about of importance.


Take a queue form Charmin, all organizations need to "bear" down on these new social marketing techniques for the benefit of all organizations!


If your organization needs help in monitoring social media channels or is looking to develop a full Social CRM Expivia Interaction Marking can help.

Take a look at our social crm capabilities at http://www.expivia.net/#!social-media/c18mo

Also check us out on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79kCzOavSQ for our full company offerings in less than 2 minutes!

tlaird@expivia.net

We are reshaping customer interaction. THIS IS EXPIVIA


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7731349

Social CRM Integration Is Important for All Organizations

Social CRM is very much talked about yet very much unknown to many businesses large and small. So many marketing professionals out there think that having a Facebook page or Twitter account to SHOUT out company messages, deals or specials is all you need when it comes to a social media plan. Having a great website, Facebook page, YouTube, Twitter and Blog online presence is still important but having a fully integrated Social CRM plan is so much more. When properly done is extremely powerful.

What is new in this platform?

SOCIAL SALES:

There is technology in the market place that scour thousands of forums, Facebook pages, twitter accounts, blogs and internet searches for certain key words. For example if your company sells Widgets and you are looking to expand your market into the state of Florida you can have a constant search going of the keywords "Widgets in Florida". This search will relay back to you who is searching or posting on forums about that topic. This way your company can be the first to interact with this potential customer shaping their conversation and hopefully allowing you to sell more Widgets in Florida.

CUSTOMER INTERACTION:

Key words can also be the name of your organization, product, commercial, or marketing campaign. This same technology that can search for "Widgets in Florida" can also search for "Widgets Internation LLC". You will be able to see what your customers may be searching and posting about your organization or products/services. This will allow interaction to your customers on a very proactive basis. No longer do you have to wait for a customer to call you to start a conversation, you can search for them. In the age of social media and topics going viral it is almost a must to have eyes and ears out on the web at all times to protect your company badge.

COMMUNICATION:

So now that we are looking at sales or service opportunities in the web, what do we do when we find them? Well just having a conversation with the customer through non-voice means is a great start but there are now other ways to make a bigger communication splash. One of these methods is with WebRTC (Web Real Time Communications) which allows browser to browser communication without any downloads necessary. So let's say that your Social CRM Search yields a customer on a Twitter account complaining about a product he/she received from your company. You can instantly recognize this and send them a quick invite to do a browser to browser video/audio session with them right now to try to fix any issues that they may be having. How powerful is that! The customer does not have to download anything; all they have to do is click on a button on the browser and are instantly connected. Once the issue is resolved you have turned a negative customer into one that will be an online ally banging the drum of the new standard of world class service your company offers.

To have a fully integrated Social CRM platform you need to take this new technology and seamlessly integrate it into your backbone social media presence. Website, Facebook, Twitter, Blog and any self-service IVR or APP development all are needed keeping in mind company branding. When your online presence is working together you have a relatively inexpensive tool that can sell and service customers and prospective customers. Shouting out daily company happenings on Facebook seems like such a small part of the overall plan now doesn't it!

The contact center is making room for what forward thinking companies are calling the Interaction Center. A center where voice and social media meet, a place where representative value an inbound customer service call with the same about of care and vigor as a social media hit/lead/service opportunity.

Social CRM is no longer something that only "cool companies" do. This is something that all companies big and small can and should
embrace.

Let us help you form your Social CRM plan. Take a moment to visit us at http://www.expivia.net

If you are pushed for time you can get the rundown of our organization in under two minutes at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79kCzOavSQ

tlaird@expivia.net

We are reshaping customer interactions. THIS IS EXPIVIA

Articles from the Tower

EXPIVIA is a diamond rated author on ezinearticles. Let us write articles for your organization. Here are some from our CEO Thomas Laird.

WebRTC for Customer Service

WebRTC is a new communication technology being headed up by Google. It also has some really big players on board as well such as Avaya and Cisco. While that is all fine and well, the question remains... WHAT IS WebRTC??!! We will try to answer that question in this short Blog post.

Simply put WebRTC deals with a very specific problem, voice and video communications to and from the browser without the use of any downloads or plug-ins
.
That seems pretty straight forward and not that amazing until we think of the uses from the contact center and customer service point of view.

Currently if you want to talk to another person/organization though your PC/tablet/smartphone both parties need to download a program or a plugin (think skype) or have the same equipment (like Face Time on an iphone or ipad). That can be time consuming and with so many options for communications there is no unanimity. WebRTC makes that a thing of the past. If you want to video chat, chat, or have a browser to browser session all you would have to do is click with your browser.
With consumers moving away from land lines and into smartphones and tablets, I believe this will be the new way to interact with customers who prefer to still use voice for service.

On the most basic front it is an advanced Click-to-Call method without the awkward transition from computer to phone. On the more advanced platform we can take information from the customer computer (ie cookies) and route calls not though a PBX but through the web to an agent waiting to assist that is connected Internet Explorer to Chrome or Mozilla or any combination of browsers you can think of. One uniform platform.

Companies are driving more and more of their customers to their website for self-service. If the customer must talk to an agent, instead of running up telecom costs or going through a frustrating IVR, going over the web with a direct browser to browser connection will be the cheapest/easiest way to actually have a human interaction with a customer.

When added to social media interfaces, your customers are just a click away from your organization at all times with a truly cost beneficial way to interact.

97% of purchasers research their purchase on the web (study by BIA Kelsey). Why not make it as easy as possible for the potential customer to then contact your organization, especially for a service type businesses where there really cannot be a purchase over the internet? WebRTC makes a seamless and easy transition from website to agent to sale/service.

The main benefits of WebRTC:

1) Ease of use for customer. No downloading, no need to pick up a phone or dial. Easy browser to browser click communication.
2) Call center will be able to use web information (cookies, location...) to route calls.  Elimination for those using an IVR for routing purposes.
3) Cost Savings. No longer does your company have to employ a herd of 1800 numbers. This is all done for just the cost of the agent they are taking to. Telecom is zero.

WebRTC is not a technology of the future but is here now. These are exciting times in the CRM world.


Let Expivia help you use this new and exciting technology to its fullest!

www.expivia.net

THIS IS EXPIVIA

Expivia Blog/Article writers Given Highest Author Status on Internet Leader

One of the best ways to gain customer confidence and added traffic to your website is to create original content using ezinearticles.com.  By constantly creating interesting articles that get published by ezine and are viewed by those interested in your topic (product/service) more traffic is created back to your website.

When you start on your first article you are at a basic account status.  It takes many great articles to receive the highest author status possible.  That being Diamond Status.

We are proud to announce that Expivia has received Diamond Status.  This means we are in the top 5% of all the hundreds of thousands of authors that post.

From Ezinearticles:

 

Congratulations! You have now earned our Diamond membership level. This is a status that cannot be bought and can only be earned by sending in high quality articles. Only a small fraction of our thousands of authors ever obtain this level.

 

The Diamond level represents the ideal EzineArticles Expert Author to us. It represents someone who only writes original works, presents them in an easy-to-read format (bullets, numbered lists and only a hint of bold or italics styling), doesn’t generate user complaints, submits regularly and is a genuine expert in the topics he or she writes about (as evidenced by their website URLs and bio).

 

 

 

Let Expivia's Diamond status work for you!  We will write your articles for you which will drive added traffic to your site and create more sales opportunities.

 

THIS IS EXPIVIA

 

 

www.expivia.net



Leadership 101 in the Expivia Interaction Center

Hi everyone.  I wanted to give some quick thoughts on how I believe leadership needs to be taught in the contact center environment.  We take middle management training very seriously.  I hope you can see that in this post.

-Tom Laird
CEO Expivia Interaction Marketing

I have found that leadership skill training of middle management in the contact center environment is lacking at best and non-existent at worst.  Too many contact centers just promote reps that did a good job when a supervisor/team lead leaves.  You can’t hand the keys to a new car until you know that person is ready to drive yet it seems to be the way many centers operate.  Great contact centers must train middle management in many different aspects of the contact center world. 

So many supervisors think that they are given authority and don’t understand that authority is EARNED.  Authority is earned through TRUST.  How does your supervision gain trust?

Trust = Competence + Character.

I take responsibility personally to help our supervisors down this road of trust and ultimately of authority.  This starts by whom we select.  It is our job to train the competence into our supervision. 

Character is a little more difficult.  I believe we can change and mold the character of our supervision to a certain extent.  We are though very careful in whom we select.

If we do have supervisors that have been through our full management training program and we believe have the trust of their reps and of us, now they have to manage.

I believe to have supervisors reach the full potential they must manage three key areas:

1)     Manage themselves

2)     Manage peers- ( Meaning do they understand how to handle relationships with those they do not have authority over)

3)     Manage their team

Do they have the trust of everyone they work with?   If not then it is our job to polish and make them stars.  Making someone competent, although not easy, is much easier than trying to polish up the character of a person (although it can be done!!) so choosing whom we put in these positions is very important.

MANAGE PEERS:

This gets overlooked so much but we must watch and train the proper way for supervisors to handle those that they do not have “authority” over.  How do they handle business relationships with peers, those above them and with those in other departments?  Do they handle these with respect and understand the positive example they are setting for their reps or are they handling these improperly which will actually make it much harder for them to manage their team. 

This is not talked about very much and is such an important part of managing in the contact center world where your reps are with you all the time.  Trust me they see everything their supervisor does good and bad.  They can’t fake these relationships.

MANAGE THEIR TEAM:

The last part of leadership on the call center deals with the actual interactions with their team members.  This is a very interesting dynamic.  Remember,   authority can never be given, it must be earned.  Great reps will not listen to a supervisor just because they said so.  There must be a mutual TRUST that is earned over time.  We must help our supervisor to be ready to take on this role before they go to manage people.  That’s why I hate blind promotions of reps to supervisory roles without going through training.

I will show how I break these down further in training in a future post.

THIS IS EXPIVIA

 

-Tom

Power of Todays Social Media

Great article on the power of Social Media for customer service by marketwise.ca.  Let Expivia do this exact same service for your company!

If you follow me on social media, you may know that I’m a bit of an online shopaholic.
It saves time, it often saves money and let’s face it – it’s fun. With the click of a button, you can look forward to the delivery of a shiny new object. Which is always great.
And online shopping has changed dramatically. In recent years, online consumerism has converged with the emergence of social media platforms, and the power has landed squarely back in the hands of the customer.
We no longer have to beat our heads against a wall in frustration when the wrong item is delivered; when we have a question, or when we want to make a return. Even if the customer service department has been outsourced to a foreign country where the agents barely speak our language (literally)…we now have a voice.
And it is louder than ever.

Social Media as a Soapbox

We can herald our anger on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn for the whole world to hear. We can blog about it. And our communication can go viral and have dramatic impact on the brand in question.
The smartest brands understand this dynamic and are monitoring their reputation on social media platforms so that they can participate in conversations that relate to their business and jump in as needed.
They hire social media managers to track hashtags, host live chats and respond to complaints and feedback.
Beyond the Rack is one such brand. They are an online Canadian retailer, and this week, they knocked my socks off. And made me very happy.
I’m sharing this story because I think that all brands, even B2B brands, can learn from this real-life example of customer service done right.

Customer Service Mishap

It didn’t start out right.
I purchased a pair of Ugg boots from Beyond the Rack for my daughter’s birthday. Six weeks later (and more than a month after her birthday), we were still waiting for the boots to arrive.
When they finally came, my daughter was thrilled. She tore open the package, whipped out the left boot, tried it on and was giddy with excitement. But it was short lived.
When she pulled out the other boot, it became clear that BTR had shipped two left boots. Ugg indeed (ugh).
I was angry, but accidents happen. So I called the customer service department to see what they could do to make it better.
After sharing our story, I was told that:

• It was unlikely they had another pair of Uggs in stock
• It would take up to two weeks to determine if the right boot was even available
• I could receive a refund after I mailed back the two left feet
• They would credit me the shipping charge (that I had already paid)

I did not receive any apology and there was no real meaningful acknowledgment that I had been wronged. I was not happy.

I got busy tweeting

I thanked the customer service rep for her time, but I was far from satisfied.
After all, I am a pretty loyal Beyond the Rack customer. I’ve been buying from them since the business launched and I’ve spent a good sum of money.
So I took to social media.
I tweeted my frustration -





I also posted my experience on Facebook, and in both cases, I tagged Beyond the Rack  so that they could jump in on the conversation. if they were so inclined.
And then I waited.

Much to my surprise

Not ten minutes later, I heard back.
First an email, with an effusive apology from Beyond the Rack and a promise to make things right. I was reassured that their customer service team would look into the availability of another pair of Uggs and would get back to me within 24 hours.
And then I got this:





And then I waited again.
Sure enough, the next morning, I received a personal phone call from (a new) customer service representative who had tracked down a replacement pair of Uggs. They were being mailed immediately, at no charge (that’s right…free Uggs) and as soon as I returned the two left feet, my account would be credited.
Now that is customer service! I was happy.
So I tweeted this:






And BTR’s responsed:




And I felt very, very happy.

Social Media & Customer Service Lessons Learned

So what does this mean to you, and more importantly, the brand that you are trying to promote?
I think that there are a few important lessons to learn:

• Always monitor your brand on social media. Beyond the Rack would never have known about my frustration; I would have never shopped there again; their reputation would have been tarnished. But instead, they were able to fix the situation (for not too much of an investment of time and money), and here I am singing their praises on my very well trafficked blog.
• Understand that your customer now has a voice. And they are more inclined to use it than ever!
• Don’t wait for someone to complain. Get on social media platforms and start engaging your stakeholders meaningfully so that your entire social media presence won’t be limited to damage control.

Your Turn

Beyond the Rack emailed yesterday to let me know that my free Uggs have been shipped. And I sent back the two left feet.
So now I’m waiting. Obviously, I will keep you posted to confirm that indeed BTR has followed through on their promise. But I expect they will. They handled this properly and I was extremely happy to see that they care about their customers. Genuinely.


THIS IS EXPIVIA

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