Posted by Hoyt Mann on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 @ 03:22 PM
How can we escape the economic news when it is being sent out on the airwaves, printed, tweeted, blogged about, and communicated to death?
So Yes! We Get It! It's the Economy!!!
But...you're not stupid. If you have learned anything from this blog and others pertaining to customer service and support, knowledge management, self service, and customer support software solutions, it is that customer service is the differentiator. It is the customer retention rocket. It is the magnet that attracts new customers. It is the anti-negative-social-media vaccine.
Certainly, if your product is lacking, the best experience in the world won't help you. But if you build it and they come, customer service will be the part that keeps them there. Most products and services in this world are easily duplicated. Sometimes they are even engineered better than the original. But these days, when people can buy almost anything from anywhere with a credit card and the click of a mouse (or touch of a screen or, well you know....) it can be hard to stand out just because your product works.
It is when the customer has a question, wants to upgrade, wants to report a problem (when, for some strange reason your product doesn't work), or in any way interacts with your company that the difference between you and Joe and Josephine Schmoe in another state or down the street can make you stand out from the crowd.
You could try crossing your fingers and hope that Joe and Josephine are one of those companies that bleeds the 63% of customers that defect after a bad customer experience. Maybe they will come to you. But you had better be ready to outdo everyone else those customers may have considered when it comes to customer service. These people are not shy of moving on when they don't like the way they are treated. They left a company once! They can do it again!
Unless you captivate them by understanding and answering their problems, treating each as an individual, empowering your front line employees to help customers without micromanaging or policy policing. You can personalize interactions, keep scrupulous records (without invading privacy), answer before you are asked.
Yea, verily, excellent customer service is what keeps the world going around........
Ahem, sorry, got a little carried away. But you get the message, don't you?
I knew you weren't stupid.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Tue, Dec 08, 2009 @ 07:45 PM
The self service center is becoming ever more ubiquitous as a customer support channel. And that is not a bad thing. Many customers prefer to look up the answer themselves rather than wait for an answer by email or call for one on the phone. It's convenient.
Or is it?
What if something about your self service center makes customers angry? What if it makes them feel helpless? In other words, what do these two customer emotions do to customer satisfaction levels and customer loyalty? It would seem on the face of it that both would lower satisfaction and loyalty. But while both are negative emotions each leads to different behaviors.
Scenario:
Your customer is trying to use the self support center but the interface is very confusing and some of the links are broken. How does he react?
Reaction: Anger
When a person is angry he is placing responsibility for the failure on an external source such as the provider of the self service center; in this case, you. The angry customer wants to do something about it. Usually that means rejecting your self service center (and your product) and switching providers. Boom, you've lost a customer.
What is the best approach to take to defuse this emotion and provide appropriate service?
Angry customers need both emotional support and technical support. The customer must have a way to directly contact a live person, someone with the appropriate skills to calm the customer and help resolve the issue. A general information line with a convoluted IVR system is inappropriate for this purpose. The customer wants to immediately speak to someone who can fix things, not deal with someone who must ultimately pass him off to someone else. A separate line for these types of issues should be offered to give the customer the immediate response he needs.
The first thing you (represented by the customer support agent) should do is apologize and let the customer know the problem is being worked on. The agent must listen and express regret for the inconvenience. The emotional support will relieve the anger and create an environment where the agent can give technical support and actively try to resolve the issue.
Reaction: Helplessness
Instead of anger, a customer may feel helpless when the self service center is misfiring, feeling as if there is no way to affect the situation. In the case of helplessness, the customer does not blame the provider, he only blames the technology so the relationship is spared. The coping response to this tends to be inactivity. Instead of doing something, he does nothing. He does not switch providers. He does not contact you about the problem. You may never hear of the issue. He will simply reduce his use of the self service center, and as time goes by, he will not increase his business with you, losing you an opportunity for a more valuable customer.
If, however, this problem comes to light, you only need give technical support. Because the customer who feels helpless blames the technology, not you, for the problem, there is no need to offer emotional support. If the problem is fixed, you and the customer simply move forward as usual.
Impact on Loyalty and Satisfaction
So what are the effects of anger and helplessness on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty? It turns out that only anger directly impacts customer loyalty and overall satisfaction. A person who is angry blames you for the poor service and will display a significant decrease in these parameters. Helplessness impacts neither. Because the technology is blamed for the poor service, the relationship with you is not affected. Loyalty and satisfaction stay the same as before.
Anger = Decreased Loyalty and Satisfaction
Helplessness = No change in loyalty and satisfaction
This makes it seem like helplessness is more innocuous than anger, safer for the revenue stream. And it is true that the angry customer impacts the bottom line immediately because he rejects the provider (you) and switches to a new one (your competitor).
However, the customer who feels helpless also impacts the bottom line in the long run because he will use self service less and will not increase the amount of business he does with you; his value to you stays the same. It is a more insidious problem because it does not show in the customer satisfaction level. You may never notice. Gaining new customers can cover up the lack of increased business for a time but once the market becomes saturated for your product or service, helplessness will begin to erode revenue generation.
Take-away
Be aware that a problem with your self support center can push a customer in one of two ways, each of which requires a different response. In any case, you must include an easy way to connect with a live person if at all possible. A click to chat or click to call should be available for when problems occur.
Offer the appropriate response for the emotion involved. Helplessness only needs technical support to fix the problem. Anger must have emotional support as well in order to preserve the relationship.
This is not a cut and dried issue. Anger and helplessness are not the only things that drive customer behavior. Often there are other emotions and behaviors involved. Your agents will need the skill to recognize those times when anger or helplessness is the predominant driver in order to offer the correct response.
Resource: Beyond Just Being Dissatisfied: How Angry and Helpless Customers React to Failures When Using Self Service Technologies. By Katja Gelbrich, Professor of Marketing at the Faculty of Economics, Ilmenau Technical University, Germany.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 @ 08:22 PM
I just read a post in the Call Centre Helper from July that does an excellent job illustrating the problem of what Mark Angel, CTO of KANA (recently acquired by Accel-KKR LLC), calls the "two-fingered salute". For the uninitiated, this salute is the practice of using ALT+TAB to switch from one application to another (and another and another) because the customer support system is a hodgepodge of non-integrated (and likely non-integratable) applications that all do a different part of the customer support documentation.
This practice is still prevalent for those companies that have not implemented a customer support management solution that will do all of those actions within a single application. This business of ALT+TABbing back and forth is a frustrating, time wasting activity that can not only end up costing customer satisfaction points but also employee retention. Why make things so difficult for that one person who interacts with a company's biggest (and really only) asset - the customer?
Well, much of it probably occurred over time as different applications were licensed for managing specific types of data. After awhile the system started to look like those old fashioned furnaces with all those air ducts running off in different directions, creating an impression of a metal octopus.
Or, the company created the mishmash by dealing with several different vendors for the varying parts of the solution in an effort to save money. Maybe nobody knew exactly what they were looking for but just knew they had to have it. Yesterday.
Mr. Angel's article gives a good summary of what should be done about this ALT+TABitis. It all comes down to mapping the process, streamlining it, making sure all the different areas are playing nicely and then get them a sandbox that will give each area what it needs while making sure every area can interact with the others in one, easy to use package. Ahhhh....Customer Support Nirvana.
In my estimation, those people who answer the phones all day, answering question after question, troubleshooting their little hearts out, empathizing with irate customers, deserve to have an application that won't give them (and consequently the customer) fits. Justifying the cost of such a system is easily done by determining just how much money is going out the window due to lost patronage, inefficiency, and the expense of replacing customers as well as agents.
First determine what exactly it is the software should do. And make very sure the customer support center is in on it. After all, who knows the process and the customers better? When all the requirements are in place, then go shopping for the perfect gift for those agents who only want to help people.
It will be the gift that keeps on giving because the company will benefit through retention of customers and employees.
Happy Company Survival Day.
(Yes, I just made that up.)
For more information on determining the process and deciding on the solution, you are welcome to read our white paper, "Hone Your Customer Support Desk Tool" on our website under Resources.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Wed, Sep 09, 2009 @ 07:52 PM
When was the last time you gave thought to the people answering customer questions, troubleshooting customer problems, and selling customers product? And what was your attitude toward them and the contact center in general?
Too often, those in direct contact with the most vital component of your business, your customers, are often treated as drones who are uneducated, unmotivated, and generally incapable of acting human.
Now, if this is the type of call center agent you have it is because this is the type of call center agent you hired. In an effort to save a few pennies in wages, customer service and support is sacrificed. And it is a sacrifice........customers who have even a single bad customer service and support experience are gone forever, no second chances. There is another company down the road only too happy to offer the customer what you did not: customer service and support that solved their problems, offered them new or extended solutions, anything to keep them happy and coming back for more.
Maybe what I just wrote sounds harsh, maybe puts people on the defensive. But poor customer service and support has not, is not, and never will be good for business. Whatever meager savings are gained from shorting the very staff that is in direct contact with the people who keep your company afloat is lost in spades. In a good economy having good customer service and support is good business. In a poor economy, good customer service and support is essential.
I cannot stress enough: Those who work directly with your customers are your biggest asset. You could have the best widget in the world, but if a customer cannot get good service, your company will never sell them another of those widgets, nor sell any to their friends, nor anyone following their Twitter stream, read their their blog, or seen their opinions about your company in community forums. No amount of marketing, price reduction, or other efforts to repair your reputation will save you. People are far more likely to trust the aforementioned resources than they are to trust anything a company puts out.
Phew! OK, the pummeling is over. I'm sorry I had to do that but it was for your own good.
There have been innumerable articles, blog posts (mine included), whole books even about customer experience, customer service and support, contact center management, customer retention, on and on and on. It can seem overwhelming. And you feel like you don't have time to read any of it anyway, you are trying to keep your business going.
But you don't really need any of those resources if you put yourself in your customer's place as part of any decision making activity you undertake. Just stop for a moment when a suggestion that negatively impacts the contact center is put on the table. Imagine if you needed help from someone who has just taken a pay cut, had more work piled on them, was denied appropriate training. What kind of help would you get? How would it make you feel? And would you ever buy that company's products again?
Go sit with your customer service and support agents on a regular basis. Listen to the calls, read the emails, watch the customer forums. And learn how your agents treat your customers. If you have taken care of your contact center agents, you will be astounded at their expertise, their diplomacy, their very desire to help.
If you haven't, you will see first hand just what that is doing to your business.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Mon, Jun 29, 2009 @ 08:27 PM
Your agents are excited; they will get a new system that they helped choose. Your legacy systems are all tuned up. Now what?
You must determine what you want to do with all the wonderful new data you will have access to with your new system and all its bells and whistles. How do you come up with that?
Ask yourself, and anyone else who is qualified to give an answer, the following questions:
- What are the service goals of the help desk?
- What metrics must be measured to let the help desk know whether it is meeting its service goals?
Once these are defined, it is possible to determine data requirements and strategies.
Data is gathered from both external and internal sources (surveys, call records) to give a clearer picture of customer needs and shape the strategy for service improvement. Gather real time metrics and make them visible to your help desk personnel. This will provide both timely feedback as well as incentive to reach service goals. No longer will your help desk be forced to wait until a weekly or monthly report is issued to see whether goals are being met.
(Data gathering, storage, and retrieval strategies are also important for answering regulatory requirements.)
OK, now we have all this lovely data. What a mess! You need to format some reports so you can make sense of it all.
Reports on system performance can include:
- an evaluation of hardware activity
- security events such as attempts at unauthorized access
- diagnostics of system problems
Reports on help desk performance can include:
- average speed-to-answer
- average handle-time
- call volume with peak and valley
- first call resolution rates
- service level requirements
- metrics on types of calls handled and number of calls abandoned
Reports on customer assets can include:
- version and configuration data
- system status
- network configuration
- service level agreements
Any report you can think of that will help answer the question: how are we doing and where do we need to improve?
Now we're cookin' with gas. These reports will let you know where and when the bottle necks are, where staffing needs to be adjusted, how many calls are for simple routine stuff that could have been answered by a self service application. Find out all the things that are holding your help desk back from peak performance. Eliminate them.
Excellent support agent experience nearly guaranteed. Add in training, easy information retrieval; take out the call clutter and install a self service application. Put it all together to make happy support agents.
And happy support agents create excellent customer experiences.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 @ 08:47 PM
Blockbuster customer experiences start with your support staff. To optimize their ability to help your customers, you must do everything in your power to remove any obstacle that comes between your agents and your customers.
One step in obstacle removal is giving your support center agents customer support software that they love to use, otherwise the chances for creating your blockbuster customer experience will be slim to none. If the software your agents are using is not specifically configured for their process of providing support then the software will not meet even the most basic of requirements:
Expedite the incident resolution process.
Customer experience will suffer from delays in incident submission, resolution, even checking incident status with inappropriate software.
Therefore, do not just waltz out and pick the first customer support software you see off the shelf. First you must:
- map the support desk processes
- determine user requirements
- show the users how any proposed new system will meet those requirements, and
- listen to their feedback and act on it!
It is natural for people to resist change. But this resistance can be countered by having end users participate in the selection and implementation process. Once the software is in place, the users should be allowed a chance to give feedback to tweak the system into its most useful configuration.
Ease of use, stability, and features that can be fully customized to the support agents' activities goes a long way toward finding a system that they can't wait to use.
PhaseWare Tracker, for example, incorporates a screen designer tool to allow customization of the graphics of most core screens such as the customer entry screen. This tool is a graphical interface itself, so you don't need to be a programmer to create a spiffy customized interface for each screen.
With their shiny new software and smiling faces, your support agents will be at the top of their game:
Giving blockbuster customer support.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Sun, Jun 14, 2009 @ 10:34 AM
I'll cut to the chase here. After all, your call center is too busy for you to spend your time reading a long blog entry. I hope you do read this whole thing but if you have no time to fool around here is the post in a nutshell:
The way to Customer Service Excellence is to:
- Keep your employees with you, don't let them walk.
- Give your customers an experience that keeps them with you, don't let them walk.
That's pretty much it, everything else is in support of those two points. But why is employee retention #1?
Because these are the people who will make or break your relationship with your customers. These are the people who will help fulfill the second point: customer retention. These are the people who will get better the longer they stay with you. If they leave, you have to train new ones and they won't have the depth of experience that your former employees had. This damages not only the budget (recruiting, training) but the customer's experience as well. The customer doesn't want to be the guinea pig for a beginner.....they want their problem resolved quickly and correctly. Another thing customers don't want: to be the victim of an unhappy customer service agent.
Everybody sells widgets and widget services just like yours. So why would they come back to you rather than go to Joe-Bob's Widgets and Bait Shack? Or, more likely, the widget store most convenient to them?
Because they have a relationship with you. After all, relationship is CRM's middle name. Who would you go see for your service: Joe Blow who happens to have what you need but you don't know anything about him or the company where everybody knows your name as well as your needs and desires?
Who fosters that relationship? Certainly not your website, your self service center, or the product itself. It is the way people feel after dealing with your company. Oh, not for routine or simple interactions. But when that make or break call comes in, a good customer service agent can make lemonade of the problem and sell it to the customer; and the customer hangs up smiling because they have a relationship with you that makes them feel good.
And this can feed back to point #1:
Happy Customer = Happy Employee
This is not a chicken and egg issue, you absolutely must have a happy employee who can build that relationship and create a happy customer. But the employee's knowledge that the customer is happy validates their reason for being in the support center: to help people.
A happy employee is one who either has or can learn practices and habits that allow them to form the relationship needed to keep your customer. A happy employee is also one who is confident in their performance and feels that you trust him to be able to act appropriately without micromanagement. Too many rules spoil the customer experience.
Train your people about the products they will support, make certain they know what they can do to help a customer, give them the best tools to do it and let them go.
- Let them know of career advancement opportunities if they want.
- Provide motivation and recognition that really means something, not a coffee cup with the company logo on it.
- Make sure the tools they are using are as efficient and easy to use as you can find.
Put this into place and the second requirement is nearly met.
To increase customer satisfaction, not only is a good relationship essential, but providing a way for the customer to help himself and multiple ways to reach out for help will seal the deal.
- Access to a customer self service center for quick answers to routine questions, possible help from other customers in a forum, and access to a knowledgebase geared to your specific product.
- Access to multiple channels of support so each customer reaches out in the way most comfortable for them.
- Access to a live person on the phone if the above fails to satisfy their needs.
There are others points that can be made about offering excellent service but, as far as I am concerned, they are supports for the two I discussed. This includes obtaining and using customer feedback, adopting tools and technology, and transforming customer service into a profit center rather than a cost center.
They all hinge on the first two.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 @ 08:21 PM
Written by guest blogger Jack Sumrall, Sales, PhaseWare, Inc.
As my wife can testify, I'm a lousy handyman. She's known this for a long time, but I have been completely delusional about this flaw in my otherwise moderately complete male résumé. The evidence was there - over the years, we've had to have cars towed to real mechanics after I've tuned-up a well running vehicle or lost fragile, family heirlooms when they've fallen from a wobbly bookshelf project. Not to mention the numerous blackened fingernails or the more dangerous near death experiences that ended in an emergency room - like the little mishap with a knife cleaning up a window caulking job. However, it was the latest episode with a simple dimmer switch installation that finally shocked me into reality - belatedly, but with amped intensity. I have now been forbidden to pursue any project regarding the house. My family role has been reassigned to Assistant Gardner - meaning I get to dig holes wherever my wife points.
Several days ago I was bemoaning my demotion to a neighbor as we watched my wife from a distance. She was talking to some guy dressed in overalls. He was standing next to his small, dirty van that proclaimed "Mr. Handyman - no job too small". His overalls had several loops and pockets filled with a tape measure, a hammer and several devices I could not identify. I couldn't hear their conversation, but it was quite animated and every now and then they would laugh.
"You know, don't you," my sympathetic neighbor offered, "that unless you're a Joe Fix-it, like that guy, there are only two tools that you really need."
"Please continue," I said.
"WD-40 and Duct Tape."
"Say that again."
"WD-40 and Duct Tape," my neighbor said louder. "If it doesn't move and it should - lather it in WD-40; if it does move and it shouldn't - wrap it in Duct Tape until it doesn't."
I'm afraid that too many Help Desks have adopted my neighbor's philosophy. Their tools are limited to what they've always had. It may have worked in the beginning, but their needs and customers have outgrown the capabilities they were designed for. Maybe they never were adequate tools, but with sheer manpower and determination they were able to keep their support efforts satisfactory for awhile. It's not that they aren't trying to improve their processes, or that they have an unmotivated staff. The problem is that they no longer have the correct tools and that they are alienating their customers with the trials and delays of trying to use duct tape to fix everything that's broken. And, guess what? They are also frustrating their Help Desk personnel.
Obsolete tools. Frustrated Staff. How long before Missing Customers?
And let's face it - when times are tough and money is tight, it always tempting to get by on the support side with what's already in place. However, how much time and money was invested in acquiring the customer? How much has been invested in the support personnel? What is the benefit of making them more productive? What if they had the tools they needed? Good tools + motivated people = more productivity, right? Who knows - an investment in good tools could actually pay for itself in a short period of time. Your support staff handling more issues and resolving problems faster could free up valuable resources.
It's hard to quantify, but there is one measurement that doesn't require a cost accountant to be quantified - your customers will notice the difference.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Mon, Apr 06, 2009 @ 09:10 PM
I found an interesting piece of information in a study of the influence of service agents on customer satisfaction, done by Craig Froehle of the University of Cincinnati. Now this study was published in 2006, but I doubt that its relevance has changed.
Of six characteristics of a customer service agent, three have the most impact on customer satisfaction. However, it is not the three characteristics that have historically been thought to matter most in customer interactions.
It seems that people prefer agents who are:
- thorough
- knowledgeable
- prepared
These caused a much greater impact on customer satisfaction than courtesy, professionalism, or attentiveness, all of which were considered important in face-to-face encounters. But how many personal encounters will the agents of a call center have? Likely none. All interaction will come via telephone or internet. And that is where thoroughness, knowledgeableness, and preparedness paid off.
I still would want the agent I was dealing with to be courteous and professional. Attentiveness is also important, especially in today's fast paced world where everyone you speak with tries to anticipate what you are going to say rather than listen through to the end. But no matter how courteous and professional someone is, if they do not know their product, if they are unprepared to answer questions, if they are lackadaisical about details, they are no good to me.
Courtesy may get you in the door but knowledge and the ability to use it will close the deal.
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Wed, Apr 01, 2009 @ 10:38 AM
Written by guest blogger Jack Sumrall, Sales, PhaseWare, Inc.
Remember the urban legend about the two women that lived next door to each other? They were both married with families, they both worked and they were close friends. One had a German Shepherd as a pet and the other had a rabbit. Klaus was the German Shepherd and Private was the rabbit's name. Both pets lived in their respective backyards and the woman with Klaus was secretly afraid that her dog would harm the rabbit at some point. She knew this would hurt her friendship with her neighbor as everyone loved the fluffy, cuddly hare. Her fears were realized one day when she arrived home to see the Klaus romping around the yard with the lifeless, limp Private in its mouth. She noticed that no one was home next door and thinking quickly, she retrieved the rabbit from the dog - scolding him severely, if rather briefly. The rabbit was covered with dirt and dog saliva. She ran inside to the kitchen sink and washed the rabbit in warm sudsy water, then toweled off all of the excess water. Taking the clean, but damp, scraggly carcass she rushed to the bathroom and with brush, comb and hair dryer, vigorously worked the rabbit's coat to a fluffy, white sheen. Sprinting back through the house, she considered a few dryer tumbles on Delicate, but decided she couldn't afford the time. Cracking the blinds, she peeked next door and saw no activity. Quickly, quietly she eased through her neighbor's gate, looked around, walked nonchalantly to the little rabbit hutch and placed the impeccably coiffured hare in a restive pose. Before sneaking away, she admired her work - "I could have been a beautician", she thought - "or, a mortician", as her conscience weighed in. Safely home, she caught her breath, cleaned up her mess and started supper for the family, trying to act normal. A short while later she heard a commotion in the neighbor's backyard. The neighbor and her children were gathered around the rabbit hutch and were obviously distraught. Rushing out to add her condolences, she reached the sad scene and asked demurely, "Did Private die?"
"Yes...yes, he died yesterday," the neighbor cried. "We buried him next to the fence...and....and, now he's back in his house," the neighbor whimpered, "...looking better than when he died!"
We, in customer service, have the same opportunity to impress (and surprise) our customers. And, we can go even further - we can bring the rabbit back to life. We can take the deadest, dirtiest, down and buried problems and respond with cleaned-up, combed-out, blown dried solutions that get the customer rolling again. And, if we do it professionally, quickly and with a personal touch - we'll have a lifelong relationship with our neighbor...I mean customer.
We all know that a (pleasantly) surprised customer is a valuable asset. A European car manufacturer validated this fact with an extensive study in the ‘90s. They examined the buying tendencies of customers that had owned their cars. Their findings were very interesting.
- If a car owner had experienced no problems with their car, they would purchase from the same manufacturer 83% of the time.
- If a car owner had experienced problems and was not satisfied with the service, they would purchase from the same manufacturer 45% of the time.
- However, if a car owner had experienced problems with their car and was satisfied with the service, they would purchase from the same manufacturer 92% of the time. That's twice as likely as the car owner that was not satisfied with their service (no surprise), but it is over 10% more likely than the car owner that had no problems (surprise).
Good service is a surprise. Surprise your customers!