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The Motivations of Servant Leadership

In my 34 years in contact center management, I have seen a variety of leadership styles. What is important about leadership styles is that it sets the tone for the way a business operates. While I have participated in a variety of leadership styles over the years (autocratic, participative, democratic, etc.), I truly believe that servant leadership enables employees to feel empowered, included and valued; it is the foundation to a culture that fosters all people to reach above and beyond anything they think possible. When this happens, everyone benefits – the company and its people, the customers, the stakeholders and the communities. At its core, servant leadership is not about what a leader does, but why they do it – the motivations. Servant leaders operate in a way that tells their followers I’m here to help you succeed. Their motivation is to see others thrive, and their focus is on what they can do to help make that happen. Servant Leaders are able to view their position, not simply as a place of power and authority, but as an opportunity to hear the voices of others empowering and equiping them to succeed. They seek out the ideas of others and facilitate a place for those ideas to become realities. Servant leaders are driven to see others thrive, they place team member needs first. The natural result is the raising up of new leaders. When leading with a desire to see others thrive a culture of trust will often develop as you train and equip your team members to do their jobs, and then empower them to do them well. Employees will begin to take greater pride in their work as you allow them to step into places of leadership and ownership over their projects. Leadership that equips and encourages, trusts you to own your work and to succeed. When this happens, team members rise, teams rise, departments and the company rises. As with anything, the proof is the results and the rewards. Results and rewards of the journey as well as the destination. In 2007, we began our journey of building a culture with servant leadership at the foundation. While I believe that this is journey that is continual, a solid foundation has been built and Etech’s results have reflected this – Ninety-One (91%) percent growth in the last three years. As we continue to grow, our servant leadership culture and twelve (12) character commitments should not just grow with us, but be the catalyst to support the growth! Culture is the collective habits of our people. It is not the aspirations of leadership, culture is not what we wish it would be or think that it is; it is what it is. However, I believe that like anything else, it all rises on the leader. Every single day, every leader impacts culture by the way they walk, talk, act, lead, serve and treat others. I recently completed a book called Leaders Made Here: Building a Leadership Culture by Mark Miller. Below are some ideas presented by Mr. Miller. Be Clear – What are the key elements of your culture? How could you institutionalize these attributes? If life-long learning is a cultural norm, you could require everyone to have a personal development plan. Make no mistake, vagueness will scale and when it does, you have nothing but vagueness. Are you clear on the elements of your culture that matter most? Are you clear on the actions that can foster scale? Be Selective – You can’t scale everything. I believe attempts to do so quickly look like micro-management. In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about power of keystone habits – those habitual behaviors which have a ripple effect. Work to discover these for your culture. Be Accountable – If you want to scale a certain behavior, determine how you’ll measure your progress. And by measure, I mean real numbers, not approximations or estimates. Be Relentless – We watched a video recently of our founder asking, reminding, and telling us the appropriate response when someone says thank you is … what? We practiced saying “My pleasure” in groups as large as 5,000 people. The interesting thing about the video – it was pieced together from clips over a ten-year period! What are you relentlessly and tirelessly communicating regarding your culture? These are some thought provoking ideas. There are many things that Etech does that fall under one of these categories, but there is always more that can be done. Culture is powerful – so powerful, Peter Drucker once said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If we believe this to be true, then it is our responsibilities as leaders to ensure that we are inspiring the culture we desire and that we are the shining example for all to follow. Every day you will influence company culture. The question is will you be a positive or distracting influence? Until next time, may you make a difference in the lives you touch each day! This blog is first published on LinkedIn.

Creating Glowing Customer Reviews

Glowing customer reviews are the gold dust of modern commerce. Recent studies have consistently shown that customer reviews are one of the most significant drivers of consumer behaviour, with online reviews at least as memorable as any associated advertising. The main psychological mechanism behind the power of reviews is believed to be the innate desire to be like our peers – the “follow the crowd” and “fit in” mentality.   Defining customers and their expectations   You can’t expect to get consistently positive reviews from your customers if you don’t know who they are or what they expect from you. Customer profiling is needed to enable you to define the different groups of customers who buy into your brand, and pick up on the higher values that lie behind their purchasing behaviour. You can tap into these by using a mixture of surveys, questionnaires and more immediate measures such as on-site interviews (for physical stores) and live chat engagement for online businesses. You will discover that customers are less attracted to the features of your products or services and more to the less tangible messages conveyed by your brand: quality, prestige, professionalism, trustworthiness, trendiness, etc. With this information you can start focusing your efforts in the right area.   How to exceed expectations   Once you know what your customers expect from your brand, every touch-point between your brand and your customer becomes an opportunity to reinforce to them that your business can meet those expectations. So if your customers expect your brand to be at the cutting edge of technology, keep up to date with the latest advances and be the first to integrate them into your business. If your customers expect an attentive service, every message communicated to them, whether face-to-face, by email or over the telephone, should be focused on satisfying their every need. By creating a detailed customer experience map you can focus in on every touch-point and ensure your staff and systems support your brand message. Taking this approach will already put you a step ahead of most of your competitors but to achieve those glowing reviews you have to over-deliver on each of these touch-points. A good example is the out-of-town car dealership that not only valets your vehicle as you wait but gives you and your family bus tickets so you can do some shopping.   Soliciting reviews   Many businesses fall down by not actually giving customers the opportunity to give a glowing review. You may have a profile on Yelp! or Facebook, but if your customers are not told specifically that they can leave their feedback on these platforms they may never think to do so. Blog-sale surveys are another place where you can ask for feedback, but make sure the customers have to either opt-in or opt-out of publicizing their reviews. Similarly, if a customer emails you with a glowing review, don’t assume you can use it in your marketing – it is polite to ask them first.   When it goes wrong: rescue tactics   Of course, there is always the possibility that someone will post a bad review of your product or service. This is not necessarily a bad thing as a balanced score – with a range of reviews – can actually look more authentic than a 100% track record. If you do pick up a bad review, don’t panic and take the following steps: Respond immediately – this shows you care about your customers and are conscientious Apologize for their experience Correct any factual discrepancies with a simple, non-defensive correction Apologize for any specific failures and promise to rectify the issue immediately Thank them for their valuable feedback If you want to offer any compensation, contact the customer directly. Bloging an offer of compensation publicly is an invitation for more bad reviews!

Increasing Your Social Traffic With Live Chat

While you might already be perfectly aware of the existence of live chat, you might not be too well versed on how to use the tool to effectively increase your company’s social media traffic. Like most things in life, there’s a right way and a wrong way to utilize live chatting while promoting organic marketing. Learn how to better serve your customers rather than serve as an annoyance to them. The Social Toolbar Some live chat app developers have created a social toolbar for direct use in helpdesk apps and live chats. The social toolbar is intended to link social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook directly into chat widgets. Besides following your company’s Twitter page directly from the chat widget, customers also have the option of linking your company’s Facebook page directly from the chat widget. Both options allow for natural marketing with a minimum amount of effort and pressure, which you and your customers are sure to enjoy. Now you don’t have to go out of your way to market and advertise your company or services, and customers can learn more about your company as well as the products and services you offer simply through your chat widget. Subtlety at Its Best Another great thing about the social media toolbar is that it works just as well with your customized themes, giving you the same benefits with a different layout that’s more in line with your preferences and company. Since consumers are using multiple methods of communication on multiple devices, it’s important to mention that the toolbar works the same on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. No matter where your customers are or which device they’re using, they’ll have full use of your live chat capabilities. Integration Benefits When used on Twitter, the social toolbar can: Bring in more followers Improve the scope of your marketing Help you better interact with customers and potential customers in their natural online environment Let you share informational posts and content When used on Facebook, the toolbar can: Get you more likes Supplement your Facebook app Help you perfect your services and products by giving you more info about your customer’s desires Improve the trust between your company and your customers Rather than look at the most traditional and popular ways to increase your company’s social media traffic, look at the issue from a different angle. Customers have more options than ever when it comes to the businesses they support and turn to for specific products and services. Live chatting and social media toolbars are useful and effective ways to communicate with your customers and take better care of them, but they’re also great ways to improve your brand as well as your reputation. Additional Benefits Live chat can also increase your conversion rate. One of the main reasons customers go elsewhere to do their shopping is that a company has a confusing checkout process or a complicated shopping experience. With live chat, customers can get immediate assistance rather than further frustrate themselves as they scour the company’s website in search of help. Not only can this encourage the customer to leave a positive review of the company on social media, it can also make it easier on the company’s call center and customer services department. Boost your social traffic and your company’s reputation with the power of live chat. When done right, you can soon become the company buzzing on everyone’s lips and fingertips.

3 Ways Call Center Quality Improves With Artificial Intelligence

The communication that occurs between customers and agents in your call center hold incredibly valuable information. There are many industry advancements that make it easier to collect insights captured by those calls or text-based chats, but Artificial intelligence (AI) is one that has proven incredibly valuable for the call center sector. AI is an especially powerful tool regarding improving and maintaining quality levels in your customer interactions. It Lets You Monitor How Agents Handle Customer Queries Quality monitoring is crucial for the success of a call center, and using Artificial Intelligence to monitor the effectiveness of your customer relations can lead to better results than ever. With AI you are able to record and transcribe every call that comes in, and analyze what was said in the interaction. As a result, you can evaluate how agents deal with various types of questions and ensure they’re following best practices. If they aren’t, it’s easy to provide specific constructive feedback and keep quality levels high. It Detects Useful Business Patterns A powerful asset of artificial intelligence is automated quality monitoring. This gives you the ability to track trends in your customer feedback. For example, after launching a new login portal for a website, calls from users who don’t understand how to access their accounts might go up by an estimated 25%. That’s a shift worth your attention, but you might not notice the severity of the issue without an intelligent call center solution that includes automated quality monitoring. AI is able to report to you on the data that most needs your attention. Some interfaces allow you to look at history-related metrics. These break down the total number of calls received over a chosen time period, by analyzing data and discovering the most common topics. If metrics show that over the last two weeks a higher than average number of callers were highly satisfied and said they had come to your company after leaving a competitor, then your recent practices are worth continuing. Based on the knowledge gained from captured data, you can then determine whether there are problems that need to be fixed. The information also confirms if the business techniques you’re using are working as intended. It Helps You Stay Compliant Many call center managers have their staff members follow scripts. This approach ensures all customers get similar experiences and reduces your liability. Quality monitoring is an easy way to track this, and enjoy peace of mind, knowing for certain your team members are following the scripts as they’ve been trained to do. If necessary, you can intervene and give guidance to maintain compliant communications. Artificial Intelligence is the next step to managing your call center, and maintaining the level of success that your customers have come to expect. AI-derived knowledge from all your calls combines technology with a human touch. Consider investing in one soon. This blog is first published on LinkedIn.

How to Grow and Deliver a Superior Customer Experience

When running any business, even a call center, the goal is to ensure it grows every year and deliver a superior customer experience. In my experience everyone is happy when the company can deliver superior service, the clients, the management, and the end consumers. It’s a win-win for everyone. It is therefore safe to say that, your call center activities should enable you to become superior around quality and delivery of world class service. The real question is what are the reasons holding you back from becoming superior or delivering world class service? As I was thinking about this lately, I looked at the structure and operations of Etech Global Services, what has helped us to keep improving and offering superior quality to our clients? I will highlight three main reasons that I believe have made a huge difference. Leadership The leadership of a company builds or destroys it. As a leader you carry the torch, the vision of the company and everyone looking up to you works in line with the values you portray. The saying that a leader has influence is true; your team will be influenced and follow you only if they see you are worth following. It starts with you as an individual, your character, your values and your behavior. Is your leadership helping your call center get better? If not what areas do you need to work on? Employee turnover You understand the demands of a contact center and you need great agents to help meet all the demands. At Etech, we believe that having happy team members means happy customers. There are dozens of reasons why employees quit; wrong job fit, poor working environment, supervisor problems, poor pay and lack of career advancement opportunities to name a few. Knowing and understanding your agents is the first step in giving them what they need to succeed and make the contact center successful as well. Are you supporting and empowering your agents to help them perform beyond the set targets, and empowering them to happily satisfy the customers? Right tools It is impossible to dig a huge hole in the ground using a spoon, right! The same applies to having the right tools for the job. Using wrong or outdated tools affects the contact center performance. At Etech, we keep up with the ever-changing technology because we know and understand our success lies in having high customer satisfaction levels and the ever changing digital world we all live in. The right tools make our agents work more efficiently and they are actually happier. Important to note is that the right training has to be offered to the agents to maximize their output. Do you have the right tools for the job? In addition, are you training your agents on how to use these tools? As outlined above, answer these questions honestly and you may find the answers to why you are not growing and delivering superior customer experience. You can create and maintain a great contact center program that ensures constant growth, it is not an easy feat but it is possible to achieve. Focus on every stakeholder as you develop it for the good of the business. Effective customer experience is at the heart of a successful business. To exceed your customers’ expectations and maintain a productive team, reach out to Etech. Etech Global Services is recognized as one of the Top Call Center Companies by DesignRush providing innovative contact center solutions and frameworks that your company needs for long-term success.

Top 4 Benefits of a Pre-Chat Survey in Live Chat

A pre-chat survey enables the collection of visitor information prior to the chat session beginning and quickly route the session to the agent most qualified to manage the chat. It is beneficial in service and support scenarios because visitors already expect to provide initial information to have their issue resolved. Some sample pre-chat survey questions include: Name Email address User ID or account Order or ticket number When customers request live chat services, they should be able to provide some preliminary data in a pre-chat survey to set the course of the chat session. For example, they can provide their name and a quick description of what they need. At that point, the chat agent is prepared to enter the discussion with solutions regarding the customer’s concerns. Role of Pre-Chat Surveys Pre-chat surveys serve a significant role in supporting your customers. It is the earliest chance to obtain precise information from a client, so it is important to design pre-chat survey questions that count. Pre-chat surveys help you to get to know your customers better. By customizing the questions, you can improve the responses and enhance case resolution. The top four benefits of designing a pre-chat survey include: Handle situations that begin with a pre-chat survey immediately. Thoughtfully designing questions provide a plethora of additional information, eliminating the need to for details once the live chat starts. You can also add options that enable customers to select particular department they want to reach. For example, if they need to change the shipping address for their order, they can go straight to the section that handles address changes without waiting for an agent to get them to that area. Pre-chat surveys produce meaningful discussions. When businesses utilize custom-tailored surveys, the chat lengths decrease significantly. The more information available, the shorter the chats, and the faster that cases can be resolved. Questions are easier to answer with the availability of a pre-chat survey. Not all problems can be solved in one chat because some are just too complex or are too involved to handle via chat. However, custom pre-chat surveys are an extremely successful method for resolving complex situations quickly. More satisfied customers. Anything might be helpful during live chats should be included in the pre-chat survey design. Nonetheless, you need to limit the number of questions. Make sure to ask only about the most noteworthy details that are vital to swiftly resolving issues. The sweet spot is no more than five precise questions, including name and email address. Aside from the issues, the survey should also include a brief welcome message and an invitation to chat. Select questions that help quickly extract the details you need to help solve a problem. What’s more, all the information agents gather is useful even after the chat ends. For instance, you can offer to send a copy of the chat transcript to the customer. Also, by establishing up customized variables, you can display information about your clients directly using live chat software to provide more for your agents to work with when answering customers’ questions.

Are You Coachable?

Even Michael Jordan had a coach, coaching your team is important if you want to drive continuous improvement. Effective coaching is a two-way street, where the coach offers to guide the individual and that person must cooperate and follow through. Essentially, the Coach helps the Coachee to come up with the solutions by highlighting performance improvement areas. We have looked at coaching on several occasions but from the coaches perspective. As I considered this topic, I realized that not much has been said about the Coachee and that relationship cannot work without both parties active involvement. As an employee, are you ready to for coaching? What should you do to ensure that the coaching sessions are successful? Here are my thoughts on how the Coachee can make the coaching successful. 1: Have A Willing Heart A willing heart is a first and most important point. You should be willing to accept the coaching with your manager. Given the nature of coaching where you come up with the solutions to the problems, a willing heart will make the process smoother. A willing heart means that you can take criticism and direction from someone else, and be flexible to use it for the benefit of the company. It will also benefit you as an individual and your career growth. Without a willing heart, the process will be an uphill battle that can lead to hating the job or your manager instead of improving your performance. “Where the heart is willing, it will find a thousand ways: where is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses” Arlen Price 2: Be Committed Coaching is a process that requires commitment, and when you are under fire or criticism, it is easy to give up. Complete commitment means believing you are worthwhile in terms of who you are and what you do. Your coach cannot make you commit to the process; it has to come from within. Allowing yourself and our cause to have sufficient psychological and material resources to achieve your career goals is self-commitment. Without it, you will sabotage yourself by giving all sorts of excuses and negative self-talk. Commit to the coaching process and the outcome will be great. “Nothing will work unless you do.” John Wooden 3: Have Inner Strength Your inner strength will take you miles ahead. When faced with a hard situation at work, how do you respond to it? You can react in two ways, meet with it head on and get a solution or break down. Having inner strength is your ability to control your emotional responses when under pressure and be able to concentrate on what is important. For example, you are an account manager and you lose a key customer. This huge loss will make the leadership ask questions. Your immediate boss will call you for a meeting to figure out what went wrong and how can that customer be won back or how to improve what the company did not to repeat the same mistakes. That is a coaching session, and your inner strength will help you put it together, look at every interaction you have had with the customers and come up with solutions to win them back. Without it, you will not even see where the problem is and the session will be futile. 4: Take Full Responsibility Yes, take full responsibility for your actions and reactions. Remember that at work, when you are being coached, it is more of giving you directions and pushing in the right way. However, you cannot go anywhere if you do not acknowledge your mistakes and successes. When you perform well, accept the applause’s, and when you perform poorly, own your mistakes and be the first to correct it. Your coach will be there to highlight your weak areas, and you can find the best ways to improve them. Taking full responsibility requires you to be humble. 5: Respect your coach Whose advice do you follow? The one you respect or the one you do not? I believe you will listen and follow someone that you respect. To benefit from the coaching, you need to respect your coach. Do not confuse respect with fear. When you fear someone, you will not be open to him or her. When you respect someone, you will be open and have constructive conversations. In summary, when you have a willing heart, you are committed, you have inner strength, you take full responsibility and you respect your coach, the coaching will successful. Remember you are the beneficiary of the coaching. Enjoy and be coachable! This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, Chief Customer Officer for Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

Cultivating Professional Trust

Being in a leadership position in any sort of environment is challenging. No matter the uniqueness of their individual situations, all leaders typically find themselves facing the same obstacle at some point: mistrust. It’s often a natural reaction for subordinates to feel as though those operating above them achieved their positions by only looking out for their own self-interests. This makes being able to cultivate an environment of trust one of the most important leadership skills that one can possess. If you hold a position of authority within your company, it ’s important that you understand the impact that mistrust can have on your team. Not only does affect the way that your employees receive instruction and guidance from you, but it also impacts how they work with each other. When no trust is present, people live in fear of not only asking for help, but also offering it. This “every man for himself ” sort of attitude is the primary obstacle to developing an effective organization culture. How to Show Employees that You Care The responsibility falls to you, then, to create a work environment that’s conducive to trusting in each other. Here are just a few examples of workplace practices that can help to build it: Show how relationships are mutually beneficial: To say that every team member’s role is important can be viewed as incredibly cliche, no matter how true it may be. Employees need to actually be able to see the impact that their work has in order to truly value it. Thus, rather than trying to manage every aspect of employee workflow, consider giving more ownership of your employees’ responsibilities directly to them. This not only introduces an added measure of accountability, but it also demonstrates the level of trust you have in them successfully filling their roles within the team. They, in turn, will trust in your promise to offer them support in order to fulfill them. Let employees do what they do best: No two employees will share the same strengths and aptitudes. When you’re working in an environment where multiple people share the same job description, it’s easy for employees to feel as though their talents aren’t appreciated. Keep a sharp eye out for what each of your team member’s talents may be, and then consider revising their roles to allow them to do more of what they do best. This helps to take unwanted workflow off of other’s plates and raise the overall quality of the work being done. It also shows to your employees that you’ve paid close attention to them and recognized their skill sets. Prove that relationships are more important than outcomes: You don’t want to be viewed as the over-demanding taskmaster driving your team to near-collapse. Simply driving an unmotivated workforce to work harder is only increasing the output of mediocre work. Instead, put people before projects, and let your team know that being at their best means taking care of themselves both in and out of work. If that means taking a day off here or there, so be it. Your success as leader depends largely on having the trust and support of your team members. We here at Etech Global Services have years of experience in working with companies and corporations to help improve their processes. Part of that has been helping individual team leaders develop the skills necessary to motive and inspire those that they manage. Let us help you ensure the full effort of your team by creating an effective and efficient atmosphere of trust and respect.

9 Effective Tips for Customer Service on Social Media

Not only has social media changed the way we communicate and reconnect with old classmates, family and friends, it’s also changed how companies connect with their customers and audience. Learn the nine steps of the customer service dance as you strut across the social media floor. 1. Make Sure Your Support Teams Are Well Trained Anyone who is assisting customers should know where to direct customers and the overall responsibilities of each of your company’s departments. This knowledge ensures questions are fully answered and answered in a timely manner. Some companies have created social media profiles devoted to customer support that are separate from their main company profiles, which makes helping customers even more efficient. 2. Consistency Is Key It’s essential that you have the same individual or team oversee your social media customer services to that customers have a consistent experience. Not only is this a good way to ensure the customer doesn’t feel as if he or she is being passed around, it also helps you to deliver consistent service from customer to customer. 3. Be Prompt Realize that your customers are expecting their questions to be answered just as quickly as they are expecting to connect to the internet or order food. It’s best to aim for taking care of customers within 60 minutes. If you’re unable to answer a question or address a concern in this amount of time, at least let the customer know you’re working on it. 4. Show Your Human Side Don’t make customers feel as though they’re talking to a live chat robot. Show videos and images of your employees having fun at work and add some humor to your responses when appropriate. Taking this route is good for generating goodwill and getting a smile from your customers. 5. Take Responsibility There are times when the customer is clearly at fault for a problem and other times when it’s you who needs to own up. Humans make mistakes, and we should take responsibility for those mistakes, even if there’s a chance of damaging your company’s reputation. 6. Act Rather Than React Instead of always reacting to customer complaints or questions, take out time to act on customer concerns. Sometimes simply acknowledging a customer is enough to restore their faith in your company. Remember that not everything has to be about the bottom line. 7. Man Your Customer Service Stations If you have more than one social media profile, make sure you have someone paying attention to each of them in order that questions don’t linger on the vine unanswered. For multiple social media profiles, you can use services such as Hootsuite to manage all of your platforms in one place. 8. Anticipate Questions Problems are an inevitable part of owning a business. Rather than waiting for customers to ask a question about a website glitch or a product recall, inform your customers of what’s going on and keep them updated on developments. 9. Ensure That the Right Person Is Answering a Question Just like you wouldn’t take a problem with your cable to your doctor, you should make sure an employee with technical knowledge is answering the more technical questions. Putting these nine tips to good use on social media is one of the best things you can do to put your business on the fast track to customer service success.

Technology And Its Impact On Consumer Behavior

Often a company leadership faces unending challenges especially when it comes to the rapid technological changes. Since the emergence of information technology, company communication with its customers took a turn to an unknown destination. Just think back ten years ago or even 5 years, how were businesses reaching their customers? How were customers reaching them? Compare that to how communication is passing between the two parties now and who is driving it. Technology has placed the power in the customers’ hands literally with the internet enabled smart phone and tablets. Note, that these devices are always being improved such that the newest version offers more to the consumers, making the previous one obsolete in as little as six months’ time. How and why has technology changed the way consumers behave? Here are a few things that you need to keep in mind as you reinvent your strategies to keep up with the consumers. Customers are connected Almost everybody is living two lives, a vibrant online life and a somewhat boring offline one. We are all connected in one platform or another through our network of friends. We also own more than one device that keeps us updated. This means that we thrive on being active and informed online, and ExactTarget Marketing content verified this from a study they did, whereby 91% of consumers indicated that access to content across all devices was important. Information technology advancements fuel the connectivity that brings together the world as one big community, from the smart phones to super-fast data. This trend is not about to change because now kids as young as 5 years know how to operate a smart phone, LinkedIn even lowered its age limit to 13years to capitalize on the technology adoption rate. Companies need to meet the consumers where they are and satisfy their sophisticated needs. If your target market spends more time on Instagram or Twitter, be present and respond to them on the same platform. Are you doing enough to leverage technology and handle the informed consumer? Consumer expectations have changed In the past, as a company you set the times that you were open for business, and customers had to put up with it or stay without that particular product. Technology has totally changed that, with the introduction of e-commerce and mobile phones, customers can access products at anytime. They have raised expectations on what is acceptable customer service and what is not. As a business, you have to keep up with the changed consumer behavior or be out of business. For example, if a customer wants to purchase something online at night and has a query, they expect to get instant answers. If they do not they choose another supplier from the myriad available online who can meet their immediate need. Consumers now understand the power they have and will use it when not satisfied with a service. A simple expression of their dissatisfaction on your social media that is not responded to immediately will ignite uproar from other customers who were OK with your products and service. New communication channels In the past, a company provided customer service through emails –that did not get prompt responses – and phone calls. These two communication tools had their own challenges and favored the company more; it was at their discretion what information to give out. This age however, is very refreshed. Social media platforms and live chat place you right in front of your customer; you cannot sacrifice your customer to maintain your brand position. Actually, when you do not respond to a query, you damage your brand reputation because that information is accessible to millions of people. The upside of these new tools is that you have a wider data collection pool; you can fast track your research and development by utilizing the big data. In conclusion, we have seen the growth of technology and its impact on consumer behavior. We have looked at three ways that consumer behavior has changed, from connected consumers to changed expectations and new communication tools use. I believe the statement “Customer is King” has never been experienced by companies like in this information technology era. Customers now know they are powerful, what are you doing to quench their instant information thirst? This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, Executive Vice President of Global Development for Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

5 Colossal Reasons to Focus on Social Customer Service

The enormous snowball effect of social media has fundamentally transformed the buying cycle. Businesses need to be equipped to answer and discover the best methods for working with today’s customers. Digital innovations coupled with the tremendous increase of social media has driven the evolution of social customer service and the appearance of a new consumer, one who can tumble even the largest brands. This undeniable authority is the social customer. Who is the Social Customer? Social media provides a private, intimate connection between all consumers. More than one million people view tweets about customer service weekly, and roughly 80 percent of all customer service tweets are critical or negative. The social customer is changing everything that businesses thought they knew about establishing customer relations by: Listening to peers Bloging complaints on social media Researching heavily online Expectations are high, and the social customer expects constant connectivity and instant solutions at any hour of the day. Paying Attention to Your Customers The social customer is found everywhere because at least 20 percent of the world’s population uses social media. Here are five colossal reasons that companies should focus on various ways to prioritize social customer services. 1. Social customers listen to their peers, not to your business. Online review sites and forums have replaced marketing and PR efforts, and these reviews are completely out of the hands of business owners. Social customers no longer listen to company messages. They listen to peers instead. The power has shifted from the brand to their customers. 2. Unhappy customers tell their friends, who tell their friends. The words of the customers have become the new trusted voice, so listen to your customers and build relationships with them. On average, one social customer will tell 42 other people about a company. Have a detailed crisis-management plan in place to respond. 3. Ignore the social customer and you’ll lose their business. If a company fails to respond to a question or post on social media, many social customers view this as a breakdown in trust. Select one or more employees to be available 24/7 on social media. 4. Adjust to the social customer’s expectations and you’ll make them happy. The social customer’s expectations are extremely demanding, regardless of whether it’s the weekend, holidays or during peak seasons. Smart companies are scrambling to make necessary adjustments to meet these demands. 5. Actively engage with the social customer and you’ll see better results. Social customers no longer call or email customer support when they have a problem. Now they just post their issues publicly on social media. Intelligent brands that thoroughly acknowledge the authority of the social customer and engage with them can use it to their advantage by providing exceptional customer service. On the average, businesses that engage with customers over social media will see a 20 to 40 percent increase in sales. The Bottom Line Regardless of how you feel when a customer complains about your company on social media, you should always respond. When reacting to the social customer, remember to do it quickly, be human, don’t be defensive, thank the customer and always suggest a solution to the problem.

The Social Enabled Call Center: How to Create a Social Media Call Center (Part 2)

In my last blog post, we defined what a Social Enabled Call Center is, a call center using social media platforms to effectively interact with their customers. We also looked at a couple of ways to enhance the customer experience within the Social Media call center. Hiring customer centric people and increasing response times across all channels were two primary means of building a socially enabled call center. Let’s take a look at a few more ways to create and strengthen a socially enabled call center. Plan for quick and personal service: In addition to developing quick response times, it is essential that call centers develop personal service. Based on recent statistics from Forrester, 82% of consumers say that “getting their issues resolved quickly is the number one factor to a great customer experience.” However, in addition to wanting quick resolution, customers also expect a certain level of personalized service. They want to be treated as a valued customer and one that is known by the company. One of the benefits of social media is the quick and personal response that it offers. A quick and relevant response from the call center via social media is an important component to building your social media call center. Lead from the Front: Train your agents to excellence by providing excellent leadership. The answers provided by call center agents are as good as the advice and direction they receive from their managers. Lead by example and remember that attitude is everything. Train, Train, Train: On-going training of your agents is another key component of the socially enabled call center. Well trained agents tend to be satisfied agents who then deliver excellent customer service. Provide training in all relevant areas and then empower your agents to do what they need to do to resolve the customer’s issue. Always seek feedback: Regular customer feedback is essential to creating and maintaining a superior socially enabled call center. The best way to solicit feedback is through short customer surveys. A short survey ensures a response from your customer; who wants to answer a ton of questions. Making the questions relevant enables you to pinpoint specific areas that need addressing. Short and relevant customer surveys are an invaluable tool for your call center. Social Media is here to stay so creating and maintaining a socially enabled call center is essential in today’s market. If you’re not sure how many times your business was mentioned this week on Twitter, Yelp! Google+ or Facebook then it’s time to make your call center a Socially Enabled call center. This blog was written by Etech’s Jim Iyoob, Chief Customer Officer. If you would like to learn more about Etech and how to develop a socially enabled call center, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

Internal Threats – The Weakest Link

While many businesses are concerned about the threat external hackers pose to their online systems, it is crucial to note that a clear majority of breaches begin with the compromise of an internal source. Data security is something no company should take lightly, especially smaller entities that may not have access to or knowledge of more advanced methods of intrusion detection and prevention. There are several reasons why business owners should be extremely concerned about internal threats to their infrastructure security. Access Requirements A requirement of efficient business operations today calls for employees to have the proper access to perform their jobs. Depending on the size of an organization, this can be a daunting task. Ensuring someone has the proper credentials without overstepping is critical to ensure potential breach points are limited. I have witnessed organizations that will “open-the-farm” and allow almost unrestricted access to virtually everyone simply because it’s easier to set up. This is a dangerous practice and sets a company up as an easy target. There may also be employees that have system administration duties necessitating their access to confidential information. For those skilled with computers, it is not extremely difficult to steal information or plant malware. Just one disgruntled employee with the right skills and access can wreak havoc. Set a standard as to what access levels are required for each level. Establish the proper credentials and permissions from the beginning. Permissions should also be regularly audited to ensure standards established by the organization are being met and adhered to. Trusting Employees People working for the same company can develop a certain level of trust with one another. This can lead to employees sharing passwords or other credentials, opening the door for a potential security breach. Most companies have not taken proper measures to educate their staff on the seriousness of keeping personal information and access credentials confidential. Lack of awareness can quickly set an organization up to be a target of phishing emails or scam phone calls requesting confidential information. Personal Internet Browsing In the business world, a typical employee can spend hours each day surfing the internet for personal reasons. The ever-increasing presence of malware and viruses on the internet means an employee can unintentionally introduce destructive content into company software and systems. Even games and videos that seem innocent may contain a rootkit that can go unnoticed until it wreaks havoc a company’s infrastructure. Clicking on the wrong link or downloading what is thought to be legitimate software can cause system compromise, loss and/or corruption of critical data, ransomware, etc. While most organization are utilizing some type of AV/AM along with IDS/IPS, they may not catch everything. It is equally important that all employees are fully educated on security awareness and best practices as it relates to navigating the web. Portable Information Advancing technology has continued to make information storage devices more portable and capable of holding increasing amounts of data. From MP3 players to USB drives, an individual has many ways to get information from a company’s network and out the door. Because the storage capacity on portable hard drives has gotten so large, vast amounts of data can be transferred and stolen. Even web-based email accounts or devices with Bluetooth capabilities pose threats to online security. Network Abuse Anytime an employee uses a company network to take part in illegal activities such as selling drugs or distribution of sexually offensive material, the company could be held liable. Fear of being caught using a personal network can drive some employees to their company’s network for their unlawful activities. Many companies have found it necessary to block specific websites and disable certain applications to help prevent employees from committing crimes on their network. Use of web filtering and/or proxy systems allow an organization to establish approved sites and limit access to business need. Monitoring software that scans emails and internet use for harmful file types or incriminating keywords can also be used to further protect the company infrastructure from malicious activity. A company’s network and infrastructure security are paramount to its ability to function properly and increase its customer base. Threats to the system and data security of an organization could spell disaster or even threaten the future of the business. Prudent organizations are beginning to understand the need to watch for both external and internal threats to their protected information.

Can AI Replace Call Center Human Agents ?

Why you may want to adopt a best-of-both-worlds approach. While androids are both an operating system and a sci-fi concept that’s becoming more realistic with each passing day, the artificial intelligence that powers androids has started to ease its way into the call center industry. Even though it might seem as though androids and artificial intelligence (AI) might soon replace humans in certain jobs and industries altogether, the truth of the matter is that there are some tasks that automated processes will never be able to accomplish with the same results or general efficiency as a human being. Let’s look at why your best bet for your call center and your representatives is to blend AI and the traditional human touch, as well as some reasons why AI can never replace humans in call centers. Why You Need the Best of Both Worlds No matter how well-trained or experienced your call center agents are, they don’t possess the same processing power and speed as AI. But instead of letting the AI handle the zippier aspects of running a call center, you’ll want to ensure that your representatives are using the AI’s speed and convenience to be more proficient at their jobs. The AI engine can be used to identify training gaps based on examples from real customers, and can provide more relevant information to the training department to enhance current and future training classes. One way you can implement this is to let callers and site visitors work through a system of menus when they first reach out to you. With the way technology has changed, a majority of your customers are likely used to figuring out issues and getting answers to questions without interacting with a fleshand- blood human, so don’t feel that this approach is impersonal. On the contrary, some people actually prefer to interact with technology, and there are some situations in which they don’t really need to speak or chat with someone. Something else to think about is the fact that including such menus shows that your company stays up-to-date on current industry trends and customer expectations. All that being said, there are some instances in which your agents need to be close at hand for complex situations and questions. The right balance of hands-on/ hands-off is beneficial to both customer and call center agent. But remember, the use of the AI engine will also ensure that the processes you put in place are working. For example, if a customer tries to self-serve and then calls because the self-service did not work, it allows the company to fix the process and avoid channel switching. From the AI Root to the Fruit Now that you know it’s possible to make sweet and well-balanced harmony with AI and human representatives, it’s time to learn how to do it right. The first thing you want to do is put the power of analytics to good use. Doing so gives you a solid idea of problem areas that can be helped with AI and where you can start implementing AI. You can also use AI to gather customer information on how your agents are interacting with your customers, what pain points are customers talking about and how to use this data to identify actionable opportunities. As you start to figure out areas in which AI could help, know that you’ll likely experience some growing pains for your customers as well as your employees while you adjust to this new way of doing things. This is all part of the process, so don’t be afraid to make changes as you get used to using AI in this manner. Remember using AI is not “set it and forget it”—you must constantly review and adjust. So, do you feel AI will eventually replace the need for humans in call centers? We think not. AI Needs to Learn How to Feel For all its ingenuity, AI still can’t always accurately replicate human emotion or do it quickly enough so that a caller doesn’t realize she or he is interacting with a computer program. However, AI can learn how to display a proper emotional response by studying your call center representatives’ interactions with customers. This will go a long way toward avoiding awkward interactions, ones that might cost you customers or your professional reputation. Before you grow concerned with the idea that this might mean you don’t need live agents anymore, it’s better to look at the opportunities it provides. Instead of answering frequently asked questions day in and day out, your agents will have more time for other pursuits, which is great for challenging their minds and preventing them from feeling stagnant, bored and unmotivated at work. Now you can do more crosstraining, tackle projects that have been left undone and find more ways to bring out the absolute best in your agents and your call center. Some People Prefer Human Interaction A person doesn’t have to be part of the older generation to prefer communicating with a human being when reaching out to a call center. Some individuals are simply more comfortable talking with another person. While AI voices have most certainly come a long way in terms of authenticity, some people can easily tell when they’re hearing a human voice and when they’re interacting with a voice programmed to sound like a human. There are nuances, cadences and flows to the way we talk, and AI generally isn’t programmed with tones as intricate as those in a human voice. There is also the fact that some AI isn’t programmed to understand the most current human jargon. Your call center representatives, on the other hand, are usually up-todate on the latest lingo and will know exactly what the caller is talking about. Language is constantly evolving, and while the same is true of technology, there’s no telling what’s useful and what’s unnecessary when it comes to deciding which jargon to include in AI call center programming. You Need to Keep Customers Happy

TEAMWORK: 4th in the Series of Etech’s 12 Character Commitments

Today I’m submitting the 4th blog in our Character Commitment Series. I’ve spent the past several months writing a blog on each of Etech’s 12 Character Commitments that form the foundation of our organization. I’ve welcomed this opportunity to take the time to sit down and write about each trait. For me, it’s been a little bit of “getting back to the basics” as I’ve found myself renewing my own personal commitment to these traits and not just on the job, but in my personal life as well. Getting back to the basics is always a good thing to do and today’s character trait is the very basic one of Teamwork. Teamwork is one of those words that has the potential to become very “cliché”. We hear it so often from coaches and managers but let’s take a look at the definition of TEAMWORK. Noun: cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause. That’s a pretty simple and straightforward definition, isn’t it? A group of people working together for a common interest or cause. It sounds so simple, but when there is a lack of teamwork, be it on an athletic team or in the corporate world, the results can be disastrous. On the other hand, coming together and being committed to a common cause or goal can yield amazing results that can be far-reaching in their benefits. But how do you do this? What are some key elements of building teamwork? I came across an article recently that identified ten principles of teamwork. You can check out the full article here, but I’d like to highlight what are the top five for me. The team understands the goals and is committed to attaining them. This, to me, is the foundation of team unity. The team must understand what the goal is and that everyone is equally committed to attaining it. Communication is open, honest and respectful. When people feel that their opinions matter and that they are heard, unity on the team is nurtured and maintained. Team members have a strong sense of belonging to the group. When a team has spent time together developing relationship guidelines, this enhances their overall commitment and sense of belonging. Team members are viewed as unique people with strengths and abilities they bring to the table that are unlike anyone else’s. Innovation, creativity and differing viewpoints are expected and welcomed. No one fears their ideas will be dismissed. These particular traits of teamwork emerged as my favorites because they place value on the individual and their gifts, ideas and opinions. That is the foundation of teamwork: everyone is valued equally while their individual gifts and abilities are recognized and esteemed for what they bring to the team. When these elements are in place, the sky is the limit as to what any team can accomplish. As the great Packer Coach Vince Lombardi stated, “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” This blog entry was written by Matt Rocco, President and General Manager of Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech and our contact center technology and service solutions, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

Full Data Protection: Go Beyond Securing the Control Points

Historically, when an organization thought about properly securing the logical infrastructure, it was about placing controls at the access points. Simply by limiting systems admission for different users and requiring passwords to access certain files/shares, a business could be fairly confident its information would remain private. With the advanced technologies available today, online security has become much more involved. Excellent website security is paramount to most companies and properly securing the data is a top priority for businesses in today’s marketplace. There are three key ways for a company to safeguard its information. Controlling Data at Rest Most data stored on a hard drive is fairly easy to protect with measures such as encryption, anti-virus programs and firewalls. These safeguards all provide a different layer of defense against intruders. Another important step that some businesses forget to take or are unaware of is to store smaller elements of data separately and in different places. This precaution can prohibit invaders from gaining access to large amounts of information at the same time and using it for illegal purposes such as fraud. And finally, encrypt the data using accepted standards such as AES256. Always assume the data will eventually be compromised and take the appropriate measures to make it practically useless if it occurs. Track Data in Use The more a company knows about how its information and networks are being utilized, the better chance it has of preventing significant attacks to its online security. Because data being used is accessible to more people, it presents a larger threat to companies. Limiting the number of devices and people able to access the data can reduce the risk it will be misused. Forcing privileged users to provide authentication before gaining access to the data is a common safety measure businesses should enforce. Multi-factor authentication will add another layer of security in specially identifying the user and/or device accessing the data. Creation of a data-flow-diagram and tracking when and where data is accessed can alert a company to suspicious activity and expose possible threats. It can also enable a business to improve its security before an attack occurs by identifying problematic patterns or unusual user behavior. Safeguard Data in Transit Any time data is transmitted, it is extremely vulnerable. Special precautions are necessary to protect data in this form. As many business deals and transactions require an immediate response, sensitive information such as contracts, government forms and other confidential content are sent through emails. The main problem with this method of delivery is the journey an email must take through multiple network locations before reaching its intended recipient. This provides multiple opportunities for someone with special computer skills to intercept an email and be privy to all the information it contains. Keeping an email and any attached data secure is most easily accomplished by sending it though some type of encryption platform that works with the email system. The email is encrypted and unusable if intercepted. The recipient will need to enter the proper key and/or credentials to access the correspondence in decrypted format. Both small businesses and large companies face an increasing number of threats to their data security on a daily basis. Avoiding passwords and accessing restricted files are small deals to the criminals of today, and website security needs to be tightly monitored and improved to prevent privileged information from falling into the wrong hands. When there are attackers actively trying to infiltrate company networks, businesses large and small must guard confidential data with intentionality and intensity.

Accountability: Is It Good or Bad?

Accountability: We hear that word thrown around a lot and for some it can hold deep meaning while for others it can conger up feelings of failure, belittling, defeat, you name it! As I was thinking through what I wanted to say in this series entry, I came across an article by Roger Connors and Tom Smith of Partners in Leadership that I thought was quite profound. Here’s an excerpt: What does it mean to be “held accountable?” Unfortunately, most people view accountability as something that belittles them or happens when performance wanes, problems develop or results fail to materialize. After all, when things are sailing along smoothly, people rarely ask, “Who is accountable for this success?” Webster’s defines “accountable” as “Subject to having to report, explain or justify; being answerable, responsible.” Notice how the definition begins with the words “subject to,” implying little choice in the matter. This confession-oriented and powerless definition suggests what we all have observed—accountability is viewed as a consequence for poor performance; it’s a principle you should fear because it can only end up hurting you. Consider the following new definition of accountability: “A personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results—to See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It.” This definition includes a mindset or attitude of continually asking, “What else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve the results I desire?” It requires a level of ownership that includes making, keeping and answering for personal commitments. Such a perspective embraces both current and future efforts. Armed with this new definition of accountability, you can help yourself and others do everything possible to both overcome difficult circumstances and achieve desired results. The full article is well worth the read and you can check it out here, but this excerpt really resonated with me because it’s SO TRUE! Accountability, for some, can have hugely negative implications that may be associated with failure. We almost never hold anyone accountable for success, while when there’s failure, that’s always the first question asked: “Who is responsible for this?” Someone’s going to take the blame for this failure. What happens when a company turns accountability around from blaming for failure to figuring out how we can do better? That’s kind of a refreshing perspective isn’t it? This caused me to ponder how we approach this very important Character Commitment here at Etech. Are we causing people to fear accountability by tying it to failure, or are we creating a culture that embraces accountability by encouraging our staff to: SEE IT, OWN IT, SOLVE IT & DO IT? As I continually work on improving my own application of accountability, I challenge you to do that same in your organization! This blog has been written in a series based on the Etech Global Services 12 Character Commitments. It was written by Matt Rocco, President and General Manager of Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech and our contact center technology and service solutions, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

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