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Let's Turn Today's Customer Service Model on its Head!

Let’s turn the customer service model on its head.

Let’s not relegate service standards to numbers (so 1990's). Numbers are tools to show trends and areas of improvements not the end-all-be-all measurement of poor, good, great or world class service. #fact

Let’s STOP with the frustrating IVR’s that think every customer has the intelligence of a gnat.

Let’s STOP the wait message infomercials that we think are great marketing tools to a captive audience and realize we are just adding to a customer’s frustration.

Let’s not measure a good IVR platform as one that eliminates calls to a live agent as we think the COST factor is too much, but one that provides a great service to those who CHOOSE it.

Let’s train our agents on not being robots saying FAKE “I certainly understand your concern” or fake “I’m Sorry’s” and think that checks the block for empathy.

Let's not hide our customer service number to force customers to use frustrating online self service platforms...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
While we are at it let’s not say “train” agents at all, let’s educate them. You train animals, you educate people.

Let’s not gouge or trick our customers with fees and “penalty's” because someone in finance saw a way to make a quick buck. Let’s see the bigger picture.

ON THE OTHER HAND...


Let’s think differently about how we service our customers.

Let's allow customer to interact the way they want(voice, email, chat, self-service, social media.....), not the way we want to force them to.

Let's get ready for video chat.
Let’s educate associates to not just know what buttons to push on a computer screen but more importantly to recognize what buttons a customer needs pushed to truly delight them.

Let’s make sure we fully help a customer with any need they have, try to develop a relationship and engage BEFORE we upsell a product.

Let’s understand that talking to our customer is an opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty. It is truly a gift and opportunity if handled properly.

Let’s pay associates a reasonable wage, educate them fully, have a truly fun working environment and allow for advancement. Don’t gouge the customer service staff.

Let’s understand that anyone can fire a person but a true leader works to make stars.

Let’s be visionary and not do what everyone else is when it comes to queues. Let’s rethink wait times and hold music (Pandora anyone?), give real self-service options that save time for a customer, not frustrate them.

Let’s realize that true service is only truly measured by one number. How many customers are actually evangelists for your brand after the experience they just had. That is true brand loyalty which can’t be defined by SLA, FCR, TT…think about it.

Let’s realize we are in a different era, an era of social media so we must offer true service that is not measured by money saved but on money earned from loyal customers who talk and talk and talk….

Let’s be different. Lets be Expivia

Embrace the NPS Culture

As those that follow me know I am not a very big fan of educating and measuring customer service to metrics. I do not think that you should base a world class customer experience on metrics that companies seem to be constantly changing to try to “fix” service issues. These metrics are also constantly being argued over to which one is of the most "importance". Not a great way to define service.

The companies that measure this way are ignoring the two main groups that decide a great experience, the customer and the associate, and put all the time in money into the measurements that are in between them. This makes little sense to me.

The process (notice I did not say metric) that I believe truly can show great service is using a Net Promoter Score process. Net Promoter programs are not traditional customer satisfaction programs, and simply measuring your NPS does not lead to success. Companies must follow an associated discipline to actually drive improvements in customer loyalty and enable profitable growth.

WOW! A program that does not just depend just on First call resolution, SLA, Average Talk Time or hold times to tell a company they are offering great service. As I have been saying for many years, these metrics should be used to diagnose and put service issues and techniques under the microscope, not be the goal.

Net Promoter Scoring programs basically ask one simple question and work from there— How likely is it that your customer would recommend your company or product to a friend or colleague? To get this score you survey your customers with the "Would You Recommend” question. The actual process can be found everywhere online if you are really interested in a more in-depth take on it.
What I am here to stress today is that:

WORKING TO GET YOUR NPS SCORE IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS EMBRACING THE PROCESS!

Embrace the Net Promoter Scoring Process…How? Remember, the goal is to get your customers to recommend you. Let's look at some basic recommendations that would include:

• Look at the whole call process. Are their wait times, annoying IVR prompts, bad self-service processes?
• Are you are utilizing multi-channel (voice, email, chat, self-service APPS/IVR’s, social CRM) interactions with your customers. Are you letting your customer interact on their terms or is it the other way around?
• Are your associates trained not just on how to navigate screens but on treating your customers like family? Delight, empathy, not fake “I’m so sorrys” but true engagement with a customer? Too many service centers just assume associates will do this even though it is trained very poorly.
• Is your call center the “fun” place to work in your company or is it the “corrective action” place. Show me a quiet call center and I will show you one with poor quality and high turnover.
• Do you have an organized monitoring platform that gives instant feedback? Do you educate poor calls and CELEBRATE great calls or do you punish the poor calls and ignore the good ones?
• Are you using metrics such as FCR and SLA’s as the measure of great service? If you are its time to realize they are a tool and a tool only.
• Stop the annoying wait “infomercial” and belittling self-service “tips” that we think will lessen calls to the Center and costs. Embrace the chance to talk to a customer. Don’t waste the opportunity by being petty.
• Most importantly, BE DIFFERENT. Since when did the standard for service become bad self-service, infomercial wait messages and typical service?

Net Promoter Scoring makes your company develop a culture of service. In the era of social media your customer can be year greatest ally or your biggest headache. Don’t just look at numbers and metrics; develop a culture where your customers become your evangelists and their loyalty grants you more customers.
Lets celebrate the proper things!

Seismic Changes are Happening to Customer Service

We are at a crossroads when it comes to how organizations are beginning to handle customer interactions and service. I will go so far as to say that the way we handle these interactions now (chat, email, texting and voice) will actually start to be the old way in about a year from now... that's right I said a year. This scares a lot of companies as well whom have done customer service one way for decades. Companies that embrace these changes will thrive when it comes to customer interaction and engagement.

The Real Shift is in the Consumer
Looking out one to five years we have to look at what customers will be doing and what technology will they be using. Smartphones and tablet sales are taking over the desktop and laptop. Right now about 45% Americans own a tablet. As competition grows, prices recede and the use of tablets grows in the workplace this number will skyrocket. You will begin to see most companies move away from 1800 numbers and to more internet friendly types of communications like social media, click-to-call and video chatting face to face with new technologies like WebRTC. All driven by the wants of the consumer
.
The Contact Center Shift
The contact center leaders of progressive firms are beginning to experiment with agents having their own tablet at their desktop. They have a keyboard to type but are able to take this tablet with then when they go to training or have the tablet as a backup from home if they are using mobile or at home agents or for overflow.
Soon there will be "studios" where video associates will be taking video calls. At first agents will be a booths or cubicles but I see many forward thinking companies, including my own, will try making the video call an experience. We are experimenting with different backgrounds and "stages"
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 APP's on tablets will be the new form of communication. Routing calls in your call center through cookie based internet data will be the way "calls" will become routed. It’s the call center meets video, meets big data all in one.

Please Put Your IVR's Away!
IVRs as we know them will also go the way of the dinosaur in the next five years. Why do I say that?
From a customer service standpoint APP's 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, APP's are quickly taking the place of the IVR. When the traditional IVR is still needed and wanted, the IVR experience is expanded by providing visually guided menus on your website or on your customer’s Smartphone. This provides your customers with a convenient menu driven interface to your IVR. Screaming at a machine though your phone will become an activity you will do less and less.

Get the Make Up Out
For some companies which are still hiding their 1800 numbers deep on their web site (why are you doing that) there is another channel that they really need to start to pay attention to, that of Social Media. To be forced to use some online help screen or IVR that tells me to unplug something, wait 10 seconds and plug it back in is extremely frustrating. With more and more consumers moving to social media to vent these frustrations these will be begin to become a thing of the past.
Social Media will be taking on a much bigger scale and a larger % of most companies CRM budget as well. With more and more customers using this channel you will see many voice agents being cross trained to handle these types of interactions. It will become vital to have your antenna always listening to the pulse of your customers to make sure that when issues arise you are there to handle that opportunity. This is a HUGE shift in how things are done now. Now longer will it be good enough to be reactive to a customer service call that comes in, you now will need to be proactive and take care of these opportunities as early as possible in what I call "the viral cycle".

WebRTC Yellow Pages
I predict that you will see, whether Facebook or another unknown company steps into the realm of becoming the "phone book" of the next generation of the internet. A one stop site where you will be able to video chat with a person, restaurant, company.... directly from their "page" on the site. Not only will you be able to view them but through WebRTC technology, you will be able to be routed to the correct person as well. This site will provide the portal for this to happen. Video chat will become a mainstream channel in the next five years.

Companies Need to Get Back to the Future!
The companies that will be successful are the ones who will embrace these new techniques.
The minimal move for many centers of now must be to allow your customers to have a multi-channel approach in communicating with you. As more and more companies move to this approach customers will be getting "trained" in communicating in multiple ways. If customer service is not being offering through different channels, that company will be in for a rude awakening in a couple years when customers will be clamoring for these new technologies/techniques.

REALLY NO CHOICE HERE!!! Organizations must change the way they handle service or customers will move to a company who is!

Thomas Laird is a customer service and contact center consultant and operations professional with over 25 year of experience. Thomas is currently the CEO of Expivia Interaction Marketing Group, Inc. A 100% onshore multichannel contact center.

Don't Let Fear Run You! Channel Your Inner 2yr Old

Do you remember when you first started to become afraid or nervous of things? What was the age when innocence left and the "real world" started to creep in? Everyone is apprehensive of something; the business world pushes that fear on you constantly. When did this start? This question jumped at me in the oddest of settings.

I was having lunch with my wife Cara, my mother-in-law, and my beautiful 19 month old daughter London. As any parent of a young child knows, when you go out to eat the clock is always ticking. You don’t know when your child is going to get bored and want to run around the restaurant but you know at some point…it’s going to happen! Well London decided to wait just until the time all our food was being brought out. Feeling ready for the challenge I volunteered for the first shift to allow everyone else to eat.

I picked London up and we proceeded to the lobster tank in the front lobby. She was fascinated. London loved the water, the bubbles, and the little red light on the side of the tank but even more she loved all the people giving her attention. When London saw all the people who were waiting for tables laughing, saying HI! to her, giving her high fives she was elated. My daughter, in front of about 20 total strangers worked the room! She danced, said hi/bye, laughed and pulled out all her cute tricks to get a rise out of her audience. She had no fear. She felt as though it was the right thing to do and her innocence allowed her to go through with it.

As I was smiling and laughing along with everyone else a thought crept into my mind. When did we lose this unabashed sense of “just do it”? When did fear start to tip-toe in to say, noooo you can’t do that, people will laugh at you, you’ll embarrass yourself and just a plain old STOP!

Now I am not naïve enough to believe that we all should be dancing and high fiving strangers in the lobby of a Red Lobster. What I am saying is that everyone needs to remember that unabashed adrenaline rush that happens when you put fear aside and go after something. So many people become paralyzed with fear that it dictates what they do in life and business. We cant let this happen!

In starting our new company Expivia Interaction Marketing, I was very nervous and fearful at the VERY beginning. While I have worked for and managed a company I had never started one. Fear ran though me every day (and still does to a certain extent), who will I get to believe in us and invest, what hardware and software platforms should we use, who should we hire first, where should we be located! A small list of things that I went to sleep thinking about ...if at times I even slept.

I promised myself though, after it was decided that this is what we were going to do, that I would not let fear have any say in the company's success or failure, especially in the beginning. I was going to be all in. If it did or did not happen it would not be because I was fearful of making, or just as importantly, NOT making a decision.

I came across a saying that you may have heard that states “Success is on the other side of FEAR”. That quote resonates with me on a very deep level. That quote got me though many uncomfortable lunches and phone conversations when I was trying to find investors. That quote got me thorough making tough decisions on the future of the company (which is still relatively young).

What I realized is that if you start to get through your fear it becomes a mindset. You will never fully conquer fear but you can get through it and in my case, I like to say I try to dominate it every day. The other feeling that drives me and those that I work with that relates to this is REGRET. Regret is a much more terrifying feeling that any type of fear. Embarrassment or failure go away as you continue on, regret lasts a lifetime.

Don’t let fear run your personal or business life, try different things, talk to different people, do things people tell you that you can’t, prove people wrong who put you down but most importantly prove to yourself that you will not run your life by being afraid.

So the next time fear starts to slow your progress and cloud what you want, think of London dancing around the lobby of Red Lobster. That brazen child is still in all of us! You just need to make him or her come out.

I was going end by saying that I hope this helps a little but that's not true...I hope this helps a lot!! I would love to hear stories on how some of you kept going when you were scared or fearful of doing something. Every great accomplishment happened because someone had the courage to fight through their fear!

If you need a little more motivation check this out. I read it every time someone tells me I can’t do something, laughs at an idea or wants to criticize.

MAN IN THE ARENA

Customer Service with WebRTC for Dummies!

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 article.

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) 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.
3) Elimination for those using an IVR for routing purposes. We can route using the customers browser.
4) Awesome new routing capabilities
5) Its the future of customer service and will allow your organization to truly be on the cutting edge.

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

For more information on WebRTC or for help on implementation please visit http://www.expivia.net
Contact us at tlaird@expivia.net

We are reshaping the customer experience. This is Expivia

The Power of Monitoring Social Media Channels

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.

http://www.today.com/moms/charmin-bear-charms-autistic-boy-1C9882786
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 plan, Expivia Interaction Marking can help.

Take a look at our social crm capabilities at www.expivia.net

Also check us out on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c443sR_Z3os

We are reshaping customer interaction. This is Expivia

Why You Should Consider Outsourcing Your Customer Service

Many organizations do not have the know-how or the resources to keep up with today's customer interactions. Because of this we see many companies telling their customers how they should interact instead of listening to the customer tell the company how they WANT to interact. Companies are also nervous in putting their customers in the hands of outsourcers. I am here to show you how a top flight US based Interaction Center can be the answer to many of these issues.

So many companies see their customer service department as a cost center for their marketing departments. They see the cost "benefit" of not putting a 1800 number on their website or burying it so deep that customer are forced to try the self-service route.
In the age of social media I can tell you that these decisions will turn out to be nothing but harmful to their operation.
Lets allow the customer to interact with us ant way they want to. Lets embrace this! Now is the time of the Interaction Center.

This is a way to allow your contact center to now take multiple channels of customer interactions. The contact center of the past would allow inbound, outbound, chat, and email interactions very easily. The Interaction Center of today takes the ways of the contact center and adds in WebRTC, Social CRM along with a fully integrated self-service IVR and APP Development.

WebRTC is a way that customers can connect to your center directly through their browser with no downloads needed. Google is behind WebRTC and WebRTC looks like it will be the biggest thing to hit customer service since the advent of the smartphone. It is the molding of the web browser to big data to your contact center without any download needed. Amazing stuff. All available in the outsourced Interaction Center of today!

Social CRM is also a newer technology that needs to be embraced. Imagine scanning tens of thousands of web searches, forums, twitter and Facebook sites all at once looking for keywords that would ignite a sales opportunity or a customer service opportunity and being able to instantly interact on that site to the customer or would be customer. POWERFUL!
That technology is available now and if your company is not utilizing this then it is missing out on many opportunities for sales and for customer interactions.

Many organizations think that Social CRM is just having a Facebook or Twitter account where they SHOUT new happening, discounts or specials at their customers. That is just one small piece of the social CRM pie and it is getting less and less daily.

Another Social CRM technique that can be very beneficial to companies is article and blog writing. Blog and article writing is another great way to get information out in a "white paper" style. It affords more detail than just having some quick information on your web site.

The last piece of the Interaction Center of today is to have a fully integrated self-service platform. As I spoke about earlier too many companies think of this as the first step when actually is should be a great add-on to the end of your interaction cycle. Many customers love the freedom to pay a bill, get account information, or make a purchase without talking to deal with an associate. When done correctly having a full-scale IVR and/or a smartphone or table APP is a huge must have.
If any of this new technology scares you fear not. Many outsourcers are out there doing this right now. Now is the time to show your customers how much they mean to you. The contact center is going away in its current form. The Interaction Center will now be the new standard for world class customer support.

If you would like more information on our Interaction Center at Expivia take a look at our quick Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c443sR_Z3os
Visit our website at http://www.expivia.net or contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are the future of customer interactions.
This is Expivia

The Call Center Is not Good Enough Anymore!

Is your organization telling your customers how they are to interact with your company? Seems backwards doesn't it? So many organizations make customers go through long drawn out IVRs, have no mobile strategy, Facebook pages with only company updates (thinking that's a social media strategy). Worse of all though are organizations that hide their phone number on their website to try to force non-voice options because it's cheaper (so they think)! I don't understand this; your customers should be telling you how they want to interact with your company. We should want to talk to our customers if they want to talk to us, why are we pushing them away or funneling them to one or two channels when that is not what they want?

Now is the time for the Interaction Center. BPO's need to move to this model and in-house customer service centers need to start to embrace it. What is an interaction center? It's the contact centers big brother. It is the seamless joining of all the new marketing channels with your contact center. I believe this should consist of three main channels and some sub channels.

1. Contact Center- This includes your inbound and outbound along with email and chat. New technologies such as WebRTC (real time communication)/cobrowsing are now needed to be embraced. World class customer service still starts here but is rapidly changing. This is still the foundation but is not and cannot be the end all be all to your customer service strategy.


2. Social Media- Social media is so misused by organizations right now. They use it as "shout" media only to tell customers about new things going on with the company (waste). Social media is such a powerful tool when it comes to customer service and so few organizations embrace this. The ability to engage customers on many different formats, push company initiatives and maybe most importantly fix issues with disgruntled customers before they spread is so powerful. With consumers moving to more mobile strategies through tablets and smart phones, I believe that the social media aspect to customer interactions will be growing exponentially in the coming years. Having a full social media strategy that is integrated with your contact center will be a very powerful tool and a must have. There is a reason the company blog is the new whitepaper, people are moving this way.


3. Self-Service. Websites and IVRs are currently the main standby for self-service interactions, mobile APPS though are slowly making the IVR the channel of the past. I believe that getting information from an IVR will go the way of the dinosaur in the next 5-7 years. A properly designed mobile app strategy will be the new way most customers will be moving to interact. Tablets and Smart phones are growing in use. This technology needs to be embraced.

How powerful would it be if your organization has a marketing interaction center that with the help of the mastery of the three channels above you could:

1. Have a world class contact center that handles all out customer's voice needs. You have the ability to handle all voice, email, chat interaction along with being able to jump on your customer's browser to help with any site issues.


2. Have an integrated group that handles all your social media interactions. This means not only using tools like Facebook, Twitter and blog writing to engage customers but to also be proactive in viewing customers reviews and issues. You are able to stop issues before they start and show customers you are proactive in caring about them!


3. The last step would then be to create apps that allow your customers to get information on their phones and tablets for true mobile self-service. If they have any issues though you still have your integrated contact center to pick up the slack.

I believe that the contact center is now not the end all be all to customer interactions but a powerful tool that used with emerging technologies and interaction channels creates what will be the new measure of customer service... A World Class Interaction Center.

For more on this visit our YouTube video on this topic at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNa_LEMnMTs

Visit us at http://www.expivia.net or contact us at tlaird@expivia.net.
We are the future of customer interactions. This is Expivia.

Why Internal Customer Service Center Struggle with....SERVICE!

Why is customer service so bad in most companies? There are many reasons for this, just look at all the books written on this subject. I would like to focus on a couple reasons that I have seen in many different companies.

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.

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.
Again I hope this get you to think a little on how to make your customer experience better at your organization.

If your need help with your Customer Interactions let us help. We offer contact center services, IVR/APP development and Social CRM. Visit us at http://www.expivia.net or contact me at tlaird@expivia.net

Dealing With Difficult Associates in your Contact Center

There are many ways to handle confrontation between supervisors and representatives in a call center environment. I want to give you four basic ways that I teach my supervisors to limit difficult situations on their teams.

1) SUPERVISOR RESPECT: The supervisor needs to be respected. This is not something that is just given it must be earned. If you are not arming your supervision with the tools they need to succeed then whose fault is it when there are issues in the center? If there is a lack of supervisor respect then you will have unneeded situations arise. They must be the first one to show up on the team, dress properly, they must have the most amount of program knowledge and most importantly they must have a want to help each team member succeed... in short they must be great leaders. I put the most amount of my day in constantly working with my middle management team. If they are world-class the sky is the limit. If they are average how can we expect our reps to be more than that?
Ask yourself, have I done all I can my make stars out of my middle management?

2) UNDERSTANDING OF EXPECTATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES: Make sure everyone knows what is tolerated and what is not tolerated in writing. We would give a quick quiz on dress code, attendance issues, how to address management and things of this nature in their initial training. Our policy book that was online for each rep to look at had what was expected and if those expectations were not met what the consequences were. There is nothing worse than having HR, your supervisors, or yourself try to be a judge and jury when it comes to inappropriate behavior. When you leave consequences to be dealt with in a subjective way more issues arise. If these things are in writing then consequences are known and are not up in the air depending on who is handing them out.

3) DON'T LET THE SITUATION LINGER: If there is an issue on a team the supervisor must take care of it immediately and they must do this off the floor. If a rep has a blowup on a supervisor then we immediately take both of them off the floor and deal with the situation. If you are not sure who was at "fault" then what I suggest is you send your rep home for the day after getting a statement from them and tell them that the incident is under investigation. If it was a little blow up and we document the incident and hopefully move on after both are talked to. I am talking though about bigger issues that happen on a team. I have made SOOOOO many bad mistakes on spur of the moment judgments. Take a deep breath, get a rep statement, and send the rep home. Then get a supervisor statement. Because how well I believe my supervisors are trained I can tell you I normally have their back unless they admit they were wrong (which is OK!!!) and we deal with it from there. I try to call the rep and have them come in for their shift tomorrow for a quick meeting if we think the situation has calmed down. If it's a big deal and the rep was wrong we will tell them of their consequences over the phone (1-3 day suspension... or whatever your penalties are)

4) KNOW YOUR REPS: If every supervisor takes the time to know their reps on a professional level then a lot of this can be avoided. Supervisor need to know what motivates certain individuals. Humor may work for Suzie, Rah Rahs for Janie, and tough love for Jeff are all tools that your supervisors need to be trained on and know how to deploy. Also know strengths and weaknesses of each team member individually. Knowing shows your supervision have bought into their team members.

Moral of the story:
Properly trained middle management will cut down on a ton of confrontational issues. If you are promoting reps to become supervisor without training you are doing your organization and more importantly your supervisor a disservice. Training for middle management never ends, if you reach for perfection you will hit excellent. Keep moving the bar!

Visit us at http://www.expivia.net or contact me at tlaird@expivia.net.

We are the future of customer interactions. This is Expivia.

Hosting Multiple Call Center Agents in the Same Working Area

What are some of the best ways to have multiple agents using the same booth? A person's work area is an important thing. Not handling this properly can turn into an unneeded distraction.
There are a couple thoughts on this. How do you make sure each rep feels like this area is theirs even though multiple agents share it? How do you make the area sanitary for each rep? How do you make each rep feel like this is home for them?

A person's work area is very important to them. Just as most of us want to keep a nice home, our work area is the same. If a rep has a huge issue with where they work, how are they supposed to do a great job for you during the day?
I think back to my school days studying Maslow and Maslow's hierarchy. We must take care of the most basic needs first.
OK enough with the Psych lesson... lol.

First thing I like to have is an assigned seating chart. I know it is not always possible for each moment of the day to do but I like to have the same reps seated in the same seats with the same supervisor each day as much as possible. This takes away many rep issues as you can seat people where you feel you will have the least amount of issues. If you know you have a couple reps that are a handful they should be seated near a supervisor. We don't want these guys far off in a corner. Common sense.

SANITATION:
You need to have some type of sanitizer in the room as well. I always like having Clorox wipes and some hand sanitizer in the room. Each rep can use the wipes at the beginning of their shift to wipe down and disinfect their area. This solved a lot of problems.

HEADSETS:
Headsets are another question you need to answer. Do you give each of your reps their own head set to be left on a shelf each day after their shift? Do you keep one head set in each booth and just give out different ear pieces to each rep? I have done this both ways and I can tell you giving the reps their own headsets to keep on site was the best way. Yes we would have broken headsets here and there we needed to replace here and there but at least we knew who was doing the breaking. Keeping the headsets in the booths we found we had a never ending situation of handing out more ear pieces all the time due to loss. Also since there was no ownership of the headset we had more issues with broken headsets then if we handed them out.

OWNERSHIP:
You want to make each rep feel a sense of ownership for their area. One way you can do this is having simple picture plates with the representative's name on them. They can put pictures of family, kids, pets or any other meaningful picture and have it with them during the day. Place some simple magnets on the back and they can be up in any booth that rep may be stationed in for the day. When the shift is over they can be kept on the same shelf as the headsets. You can set up any awards ribbons or buttons as well to attach to the picture plate so your reps can show them off.

CHAIRS:
I have found that no matter what contact center I am in chairs are normally the BIGGEST concern call center reps have. It makes sense since they are on them for many hours. Whenever you buy chairs save yourself some headaches and get some samples in to have the reps try them out to approve. There have been many times when I have purchased expensive chairs only to have a revolt for the older cheaper model. Anytime you can get your reps to buy in it is a good thing, when it comes to chairs is a necessity!!

I believe you owe it to your agents to give them a work place they are proud of. The more time you put into making your agents happy the less time you will have fighting with them!

Take a look at this type of call center culture at http://www.expivia.net or visit us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/expivia
Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are reshaping customer interactions. This is Expivia.

Quality and Progression plan for your Call Center Agents... You have one right?

Do all your reps have a current, up to date improvement plan? Do they understand their goals for quality, sales, and conversion? There are a lot of centers that just do a quick morning meeting and then get on with their day. If that is the basis for your reps improvement/goal setting then let's look at something very easy to do that I think can benefit all centers.

You would never go on a long road trip without any kind of map or GPS right? How can your reps and supervisor know where you want them to go unless they too look at their map for success? I call this an Agent Analysis program... your map to success for your agents.
As we talked about in an earlier post 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.

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

Each of your representatives should be 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 your supervisors can help them. The tone of this meeting needs to be primarily positive in tone. You cannot have your reps dreading their 15 minute Agent Analysis meeting every week, it makes things counterproductive.

1) Talk about the past week, what were the quality/sales/conversion goals that were given last week to that rep. Did they meet the goal, if not then talk about how they can better achieve these goals in the next week? Your supervisors need to be prepared for this. They need to give specific examples to help the reps.("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... "). Go over recorded calls here if you have any that are specific to the goals that you set the past week. Talk about their specific monitoring scores as well.

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

3) Give each rep SPECIFIC individual plan/goals for the week. Make sure it deals individually with a goal that is attainable for that rep. You stars will have higher goals and expectations than your new reps, although you should be ramping up a little quicker with your new reps... again be specific:
"Janie we need 3.0/5.0 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%! We also had a couple days missed last week so let's shoot for a full week; I know you can do it!!!"

4) End the meeting talking about their career plan if possible. Do they want to be a management trainee, supervisor, team lead? Do they want to learn more programs? Talk about how you can help get them to the next level. Career progression is a great way to help with turnover.
This meeting should be documented in a database or simply in email or excel. You have to have this for both the supervisor and the rep but also for you and the contact center manger to look at to understand how a supervisor's team is doing on a personal level

Get a first hand look at our quality educated associates at http://www.expivia.net. We can help lower customer service costs while raising customer satisfaction.

Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are reshaping customer interactions. This is Expivia

Benchmarking Efficiency on a Small to Medium Size BPO Call Center

Now if you are a major outsourcer I'm sure you have this down pat. I was surprised in the past year when I had the opportunity to see many small (100 seat) to medium (300 seats) centers really had no reporting on the efficiency of their center, programs, and/or teams.
This is not very difficult to do and can really help endear yourself to upper management when you are the one who brings this to their attention.

The following is a general example of how to do this.

In the outsource world most of the clients that we worked for on the inbound/customer service side paid us by the minute. For this example we are going to say that if have a revenue goal of $24-26 per hour/rep. So that is our goal, make sure each of our reps are making $24-26 per hour for the company.

How do we do that?

First we need to be able to measure this. To do this we take our cost of goods sold, which for this example is our payroll hours, divided by the amount of minutes each rep was in a paid state. (We are going to say we have a client that paid us for ring time, total talk time but not after call work/wrap time)

You can look at this by program, rep and at the center as a whole. I would suggest you set your profit standard to make sure that you are 75-80% efficient each day. That means for the total amount of minutes the company pays in rep payroll hours the company needs to bill for 75-80% of those minutes. For my supervisors I broke it down and told them we need each of your reps to be talking about 45 minutes out of the hour.

We would then look at this each day with a break down like this (now this is basic but gives the idea)
Payroll hours 100
Ring time: 1 minute
Talk time: 69 minutes
Hold time: 5 minutes
Time in a paid state: 75 minutes
Non Billable Minutes
Available time: 10 minutes
ACW/Wrap time: 10 minutes
Break time: 5 minutes
So let's say we are getting paid .55 a minute if you are getting .55*45 minutes (75% efficiency) we would be making $24.75 per hour.
We now have a metric to benchmark our reps with. If we were below 75-80% for a day we could now look how to fix it. We would look at the metrics then and see if the reps were over break, if they were in after call work too long, were they waiting too long for calls? We could now quantify our issues to fix them. You as the call center manager can see exactly how much each program has made based on how efficient you were.

Now that is efficiency for getting paid for the calls you are taking. For a company who is trying to make their in-house center their profit center we would look at things a little differently.
For an in-house contact center that has a cross sell or selling aspect we would need to look at our cost per call (for our purpose we will look use payroll hours here again) then look at the dollars per contact or amount per call that we are bringing in. Once we know what is attainable and what will meet the company's profit expectations we will know the goal for each of our reps to hit per call. Noticed I did not say qualified calls. We are looking at overall profitability so we must look at each call.

We have just benchmarked the center from an efficiency/profitability standpoint and we can now see where reps fall. You will normally see in the beginning that 20% of reps exceed, 55% are average performers and 25% are far below standards. That's where we start the work.

If you need help in getting your contact center costs down then look at http://www.expivia.net. We can lower costs while adding to your customer satisfaction.
Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are reshaping customer interactions. This is Expivia.

The Interaction Center of Today..We are a call center on Steroids!

Many organizations do not have the know-how or the resources to keep up with today's customer engagement preferences. Because of this we see many companies telling their customers how they should interact instead of listening to the customer tell the company how they WANT to interact. Companies are also nervous in putting their customers in the hands of outsourcers. I am here to show you how a top flight US based Interaction Center can be the answer to many of these issues.

So many companies see their customer service department as a cost center for their marketing departments. They see the cost "benefit" of not putting a 1800 number on their website or burying it so deep that customer are forced to try the self-service route.
In the age of social media I can tell you that these decisions will turn out to be nothing but harmful to their operation.

Lets allow the customer to interact with us ant way they want to. Lets embrace this! Now is the time of the Interaction Center.

This is a way to allow your contact center to now take multiple channels of customer interactions. The contact center of the past would allow inbound, outbound, chat, and email interactions very easily. The Interaction Center of today takes the ways of the contact center and adds in WebRTC, Social CRM along with a fully integrated self-service IVR and APP Development.

WebRTC is a way that customers can connect to your center directly through their browser with no downloads needed. Google is behind WebRTC and WebRTC looks like it will be the biggest thing to hit customer service since the advent of the smartphone. It is the molding of the web browser to big data to your contact center without any download needed. Amazing stuff. All available in the outsourced Interaction Center of today!

Social CRM is also a newer technology that needs to be embraced. Imagine scanning tens of thousands of web searches, forums, twitter and Facebook sites all at once looking for keywords that would ignite a sales opportunity or a customer service opportunity and being able to instantly interact on that site to the customer or would be customer. POWERFUL!
That technology is available now and if your company is not utilizing this then it is missing out on many opportunities for sales and for customer interactions.

Many organizations think that Social CRM is just having a Facebook or Twitter account where they SHOUT new happening, discounts or specials at their customers. That is just one small piece of the social CRM pie and it is getting less and less daily.
Another Social CRM technique that can be very beneficial to companies is article and blog writing. Blog and article writing is another great way to get information out in a "white paper" style. It affords more detail than just having some quick information on your web site.

The last piece of the Interaction Center of today is to have a fully integrated self-service platform. As I spoke about earlier too many companies think of this as the first step when actually is should be a great add-on to the end of your interaction cycle. Many customers love the freedom to pay a bill, get account information, or make a purchase without talking to deal with an associate. When done correctly having a full-scale IVR and/or a smartphone or table APP is a huge must have.
If any of this new technology scares you fear not. Many outsourcers are out there doing this right now. Now is the time to show your customers how much they mean to you. The contact center is going away in its current form. The Interaction Center will now be the new standard for world class customer support.

If you would like more information on our Interaction Center at Expivia take a look at our quick Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c443sR_Z3os
Visit our website at http://www.expivia.net or contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are the future of customer interactions.
This is Expivia

Management Trainee Program for the Contact Center Enviroment

How do you train the middle management in your contact center? Do you have a training plan at all or do you just take long tenured reps and make them supervisors/team leads when a supervisor leaves? If you hire a supervisor off the street what training do you give them?
Most call center organizations that I have seen do not do a very good job in preparing their supervision for the job at hand. Many call center managers assume that because they were good reps they will be good supervisors. Big mistake.
I have found that having a solid management trainee program not only trains your future managers on their job but also shows career progression.

THE PROGRAM:
I like to have my tenured supervisors each have a management trainee on their team if possible. That way if they need to go to lunch or are sick the team is covered. When the main supervisor is there they are on the phones working and learning.

Here is a quick rundown of the 3-6 month program.

I try to have a trainee class when needed. While it is fine to hire a couple trainees off the street I believe it is much more beneficial for the organization to really try to hire from within. This way we can have classes just when we need them and do not have someone designated a management trainee for a long period getting frustrated from there being no supervisor position available.
We would have an hour weekly meeting where training would take place. This is the fun part. You can really tailor this to the needs of your operation. I put a ton on emphasis on leadership, how to act on the team, how to deal with tough reps, dealing with confrontation and how to turn attitudes around. I want to give them all the "psychological tools" for them to succeed.
We will also train on systems (call management system, workforce management, theory behind how and why we route calls... ).

One of the most important classes is our legal class. We make sure to go over sexual harassment issues, what you can say and what you can't say on your team, any companies policies such as dress code are all handed here as well to make sure that all our middle management are as professional as possible and do not open us up to any litigation.
These meeting are also the times where we train how to open and close a shift, controlling the first 30 minutes, how do weekly agent analysis and career progressions and how to make their reps better from a quality perspective.

If you have the time it's great to have each trainee spend a week or two in all the companies' different departments as well to see how everything works together. They can see when errors happen how it affects the company and how each department is dependent on another.
Remember as they are learning all of this they are applying it every day when their main supervisor is on break or lunch. We also make sure to sit in on trainees while they are doing supervisor weekly agent analysis reviews and any monitoring issues that arise with associates.
Once you have them trained on all aspects of what it means to be a supervisor in your organization it's now time for the final test.
They are given a team for one week on their own where they are reviewed for how they do. They are closely supervised but given reign over that team.

If they pass and you feel they are ready it's GRADUATION TIME!!!
We had a small swearing-in ceremony before a shift (normally on a Friday) where they would take an oath (let me know if you want the oath), get a diploma and then have balloons and cake. We also presented them with a new name badge as well. Make it fun. They put a lot of time in they deserve a little recognition.

Hope this helps a little to get you to think about how you help your middle management become stars!

If you would like more information of how we train supervision at Expivia visit our website at http://www.expivia.net or visit our blog at http://www.expivia.blogspot.com.
Contact me at tlaird@expivia.net
We are Reshaping Customer Interactions. This is Expivia.