Customer Experience

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 Using wrong or outdated tools affects the contact center performance.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.

Live Chat: From Humble beginnings to Revolutionary Growth

In the earlier days of e-commerce, the idea of being able to go online to a website and make a purchase from one’s own home, rather than going to a store, was quite astounding. Not only was this convenient in the sense that one could shop from their home, but to be able to shop with no sales pressure was also a welcomed change. Initially, the trade-off of customer service for convenience seemed fair and consumers were willing to forgo one for the other. Soon however, e-commerce was no longer the novelty it once was, and along with a more experienced and savvy consumer base, had come the demand for better customer service online. As rumblings for better customer service got louder, a visionary group of call center managers began to answer those demands in the form of Live Chat software and support. Etech Global Services was at the forefront of this effort, pioneering live chat service and support that more than a decade later, has completely revolutionized the customer service industry. In the early days I would often ask, “Can you imagine a potential customer entering your store and not having a sale clerk available to answer their questions, accessorize their items or walk them through the purchase if needed?” I could not but yet that is exactly what millions of eRetailers do each and every day. Here’s a look at some of the benefits of Live Chat Services: Increased Customer Satisfaction Levels Increased Online Sales Conversions Detailed Analytics on close rates, sales per hour, average revenue and more Reduced costs in the contact center (less calls, more chats handled at once) Did you know? 43% of consumers 18-39 find online chat preferable to talking on the phone Average wait time for a Chat to start is 3 seconds Average time an operator spends on a chat from start to finish is 6-12 minutes Satisfaction rates with Live Chat are 85-92% We partner with our clients to deliver proactive live chat services that meet their revenue goals. Our clients who use Live Chat have seen the following results: 20% increase in Sales. 25% reduction in inbound call costs. 90%+ CSAT top two boxes on Customer Service Chats. 80%+ CSAT top two boxes on Sales Chats. If you’ve been considering offering a Live Chat option on your website, contact Etech Global Services today. We can walk you through the process quickly and easily and put you on your way to reaping all the benefits Live Chat can offer. 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.

How Social Media and Customer Service Can Work Together to Provide a Better Customer Experience

Customers are becoming more active in the online space for a variety of reasons such as shopping, social & business networking, online transactions, researching products or services, and booking travel. With consumers increasingly engaged online, their expectations on receiving instant and quality customer services at various touch points has also risen. Online retailers are finding unique ways to provide high quality and instantaneous service for a variety of customer problems through social media. According to a recent survey of worldwide online shoppers conducted by Oracle, 46% of the online users expected companies to provide customer support services through social networking sites like Facebook, 29% wanted companies to provide customer service through a company blog, while 17% expected companies to provide customer service through Twitter accounts. There are several ways in which companies can effectively use the power of social media and customer service to provide a great customer experience. Provide a Platform for Customers to Express Their Opinions Despite best efforts to provide the high quality products, there are times when consumers will not be satisfied with the product. Today many consumers will publicly display their frustration on various social media platforms. Social media provides disgruntled customers an easy and accessible medium to vent their irritation in real-time. According to a new study from the Society for New Communications Research, 59% of respondents said they use social media to “vent” about a customer-care experience. To better monitor complaints and possibly turn them into positive experiences, many companies have created a company page on social media sites where customers can communicate feedback, both positive and not so positive. This strategy provides an opportunity for companies to take immediate measures to correct negative experiences. In the absence of an official company page on a social media site, many consumers will find other options to post complaints. Options include their own profiles, communities, or other forums which can go unseen by the company and create a negative brand image. Responding to consumer complaints and resolving issues quickly can spread a positive image for a company. Satisfied consumers can go viral with their positive experiences and even recommend a company due to the excellent customer service provided. Presence of a company through online social media websites, forums, company blogs, communities, directories, etc helps in easy sharing of positive customer service experiences benefiting both consumers and the company. Leverage Existing Customer Base Good companies come with a following of loyal customers; often this customer base is large. These customers can be leveraged by asking them to ‘like’ the company page or profile or share information about the company forum or community on social media sites to cascade awareness of a company’s customer support on social media sites. Companies can also create custom solutions for their profile pages, forums, groups, and communities to help customers with self servicing. This will not only help bring down customer service costs but also help spread a positive image about the company. Pro-Activeness Social media sites and micro blogging sites such as Twitter allow users to instantly post a message. Many companies have implemented strategies that monitor for any customer complaints, even if the company account name is not mentioned in the post. Companies can increase their brand value if they proactively talk with the customers who are posting any type of complaints or positive comments. According to the survey ‘Consumer Views of Live Help Online 2012: A Global Perspective’ conducted by Oracle, 31% of respondents believed that having direct access to customer service representatives or product experts is important for them to connect to the company via social media. 43% said they connected with companies to get direct response to their questions. Reward Promoters As a part of the customer service strategy involving social media, companies can suitably reward users who act as brand ambassadors and influence other customers by spreading positive information about the company. Rewards can be simple like advanced notification of a promotion, special invitations, asking for a free company visit, etc. Be Unique In order to create an impressive customer experience on social media, companies are creating engaging and unique solutions, apps, text, and much more for their company pages, forums, groups, and social communities. By implementing a progressive social media strategy, businesses can cost effectively provide information, contact their virtual customers real-time, receive real-time voice of the customer feedback, and help solve or at least address the frustrations their customers might encounter. Ensure Quick Action No matter the sector the company operates in, a quick approach to solving consumer questions promotes a positive customer experience like nothing else. Action can be in any form such as replacing a spare part, giving a refund, resuming services, sending a technician, and much more. There are some companies who dedicate full time employees to monitor the web and social media sites for any consumer complaints or questions about the company. These employees can directly contact customers, resolve their issues, and provide real-time satisfactory solutions. Conclusion Companies that maintain an efficient customer support system through social media can reap great benefits in the form of reduced costs, increased credibility, and greater visibility into online customers. However, it is important to remember that while social media development is bringing around some exciting new opportunities to better serve customers, the fact is that any company must still maintain and develop strong traditional customer service channels such as voice, email, and chat.

Leveraging Technology to Measure Customer Experience

Monitoring, measuring and improving the customer experience is a high priority for most forward-thinking businesses in this day and age. Company owners are largely aware that they should be gathering feedback at various ‘touchpoints’ along a customer’s journey and many do have programs in place to capture the data, either to get an overall rating of customer satisfaction levels or to evaluate experience at each of the touchpoints in turn. However, many businesses are failing to make the most of the technology available to them, gathering only a tiny fraction of the available data, using valuable manual resources to process and analyze the data they do get and presenting the findings in an incomplete or unnecessarily complicated way. By leveraging the latest customer experience technology, businesses can now streamline all areas of the above process: Capturing Customer Experience The first task in measuring customer experience is to capture feedback, and many businesses use surveys and questionnaires to achieve this. However, a lot of data is missed by ignoring sources of unsolicited feedback (e.g. on forums, blogs, social media sites and review pages), and not contacting customers fast enough or by using their preferred platform. For example, a customer who has just made an order for a service using their mobile phone is less likely to respond to an email survey a week later than they are to an SMS survey within the hour. In addition, they are less likely to have rationalized their feedback based on prior or more recent experiences. Social media monitoring and advanced survey platforms are just two forms of technology businesses need to be looking into right now. Integration and Analysis Once sufficient data has been collected, this needs to be collated and analyzed to produce predictive patterns that can inform future business development. The main challenge companies face here is with sampling and use of resources. Incomplete or ‘dirty’ samples (where information has been recorded incorrectly) can skew results, while manual data integration and analysis ties up staff who could be employed doing other things. By implementing automated data integration technology with sample control and cleaning functions can lead to more accuracy and efficiency, and can also avoid flaws such as ‘over surveying’ individual customers. Visual Summaries Finally, there is little use in collecting reams of data and crunching the numbers at supersonic speeds if the reporting at the end of it makes little sense to anyone, especially those in charge of directing business policy. Again, technology can come to the rescue, with programs specialized in enterprise-wide visual access that can be user-access controlled. In this way, data can be summarized and presented in the most appropriate way for the department viewing it. Power and Simplicity – for Every Business Perhaps the greatest news of all is that the kind of technology mentioned above is no longer only within the price range of large, cash-rich corporations. The advance of open source technology and a competitive marketplace has made leveraging technology easier and more affordable than ever. Once the powerful, up-to-date customer experience technology is in place, you will find that employees who had previously been bogged down in data processing and compiling reports can be redeployed to other parts of the business or trained to interpreting patterns in the numbers and to help shape company strategy. Ultimately, everybody in the business, from senior directors to customer-facing agents, will experience more clarity about how the business is performing in the eyes of its customers.

How to Blend People and Machines for Better Customer Experiences?

You might be struggling to offer an optimum level of customer service as speed and convenience become more desired. How do you ensure customer satisfaction when they want both speed and traditional human interaction? Here’s how you can blend artificial intelligence (AI) with personal communication within your call centers to serve your customers more effectively. Create a Space Where Artificial Intelligence and People Work Together to Answer Questions Customers are increasingly tech-savvy and comfortable navigating technology without any human interaction. Gartner has reported that the vast majority of customers will manage their connections with companies without ever talking to a person. This means that you have to approach your customers as people who want a certain amount of independence. Despite this, there is still a need for a real person to be on the line. When customers need resolutions to complex problems or are asking a unique question, they usually prefer to speak in real-time with an actual person. You should work on improving both of these areas to dramatically improve your customer experience. When you deliver balanced, quick, and helpful customer service, you get repeat purchasers and loyal promoters. Where Automation Meets Empathy While automated systems will never be as empathetic as people, they can transform the way you assist customers. Technological breakthroughs have allowed computers to become continuously self-learning based on analytics. You can implement AI into your call center and it will monitor how your agents respond to inquiries. The technology will then be able to complete tasks and respond to questions on its own, meaning you can start to rely less on live agents. Using Analytics to Set Up the Process To start blending AI into your call center, rely on analytical tools and data. This will help you find out the best way to solve problems that customers call about. Your implementation will depend on the availability of live support and complexity of the inquiry. For example, you could set up an automated process to instruct customers to speak or enter a specific number that correlates with their question. The AI can provide helpful answers and information for each inquiry while providing a last-resort option to speak to a live representative. This is just an example of how you can utilize AI to streamline your customer service. Personalizing and Branding Your AI You want to provide relevant and helpful service based on preferences and demographics. Tracking trends can help you implement a dynamic call center experience that is automatically customized to previous customer interactions. Keep in mind that even your automated processes should be consistent with your overall brand experience. All content should be in line with your vision and goals. Getting started with automation and intelligence doesn’t have to be a daunting task. You don’t have to overhaul your whole IT department or throw up legacy systems. You can start off by choosing a single product to test your project for 2 or 3 months. Once you have perfected the process with one product, you can expand it across your entire platform. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

How to Enhance Brand Loyalty With Quality Assurance?

Just as important as getting new clients is retaining current ones to grow your business. Although many factors are involved in retention, call centers play a crucial role in building customer loyalty. Consumers want to know that when they have an issue, they will receive exceptional customer service that will resolve the problem. If this happens, the chances of them continuing to do business with and recommending your company greatly increase. Your call center can deliver this positive customer experience through the benefits of quality assurance. Evaluate the Performance of Employees The general purpose of quality assessments is to ensure your agents are doing their jobs correctly. You first must determine if each agent is providing the level of customer service that they are supposed to for clients to perceive your company as helpful and customer-oriented. This includes agents being knowledgeable and clear in their communication. They must also have a balance of friendliness and professionalism, and be able to resolve problems in a reasonable time. If these basics are lacking, you will have to focus on foundational skills before you can build upon them. Obtain In-Depth Quality Assurance Data If areas needing improvement are not readily apparent, you require a superior quality assurance program that can give you more accurate and thorough analytics. It can incorporate behavioral data for a more comprehensive look at agent performance and how it affects customer satisfaction. You can search for specific interactions for reviewal instead of relying on random sampling. Create Custom Coaching for Each Agent The greater options this kind of solution offers allows you to approach employee coaching with more personalization. It informs you of the precise areas in which each employee needs additional training so that you can give useful feedback. Not all agents have the same weaknesses or learn skills in the same way, so a more tailored method will lead to increased and quicker improvement. Enhance Customers’ Brand Loyalty Once your call agents have corrected their mistakes and refined their proficiency in delivering optimal assistance, the rest will take care of itself. The natural significance of pleasing clients will be stronger loyalty to your brand. They will trust your company and will see the reduced effort and improved customer experience. Increase Your Revenue With more loyalty to your brand, business will not only continue but also grow. It will be easier to upsell to current clients who already love you, and easier to gain and retain new ones due to referrals. There is no doubt that your company’s revenue is significantly dependent upon and influenced by your call center’s ability to deliver an extraordinary customer experience to every caller. With so many benefits, it is easy to see the value of integrating a versatile quality assurance program into your call center. It is more than cost-effective; it is profitable for your business. Using the analytics you obtain, will help you gain leverage over competitors because you will follow through best on what every consumer desires: an Effortless Customer Experience. This blog was first published on LinkedIn..

Omni-channel: New Multi-Channel To Customer Service Experience

The one thing in this recent fast-paced and virtual savvy environment which changes more hastily than technology is, the terminology used for references to technicalities and aspects of technology. Two such phrases which occupy the heart of customer service enterprise are “Omni-Channel customer service” and “Multi-Channel customer support”. Often, these two phrases are used interchangeably, however if you dive deep, you’ll find that there’s a big distinction between them. Customer service enterprise is expanding, with the inclusion of new ever developing technological improvements and attention-to-detail parameters and approaches. In such situations, it becomes more and more difficult to manage and regulate as per the norms specified. So, in case your call center is using Multi-Channel Customer Service or if it’s offering Omni-Channel Customer Service, your clients would set their expectancies accordingly. So, it becomes vital to recognize the distinction in these phrases and use it wisely. What is Multi-channel as compared to Omni-channel service? Customers reach out to companies and organizations in a diffusion of approaches nowadays, inclusive of web, text, mobile, e-mail, social media, and phone. Call centers that provide customer service on all of these channels in an included way, instead of in silos, deliver the steady customer experience every customer craves. Multi-channel service actually means the use of a couple of channels while delivering customer experience. Omni-channel service, specifically in retail, provides effortless consistency across all channels. Omni-channel services are vital, as these days, clients are making use of mobile phones more frequently to access the internet, in fact, more than they use desktop PCs. These customers may initiate contact with an organization on one channel and later interact with the company through another, frequently using more than one gadget at the same time. Technology is likewise pushing forth new platforms increasing the customer experience beyond simply gadgets. Technology and Customer Expectations Drive the Need for Omni-Channel Retail Solutions The days of people picking up the phone book to get in touch with companies are long over, as customers moved to the Internet at their home and then to tablets and smartphones to reach out to companies. A recent research study suggests that 63% of U.S. adults use mobile gadgets several times in a month to search for customer support, and 90% of them have had bad customer experience. These consumers are defining their customer experience by how properly businesses manage their interactions on their site, via mobile technology, and across the several channels through which they interact with brands. Getting this right, with steady delivery and relevant content that meets customer desires and needs at the right time and on their favoured channels, is important for success. Delivering an Omni-channel Service and the Benefits of Customer Satisfaction Great customer experience affects the bottom line in several ways: 45% of customers inside the U.S. abandon online transactions if their questions or issues aren’t addressed speedily. 89% of consumers stop patronizing call centers that gives bad customer experience. Customers are 2X more likely to spread bad customer service experiences than that of positive. Consumers are 4X more likely to buy from competitors if an issue is associated with service, as opposed to price or product-related problems. 33% of customers will recommend call centers that offer short, yet useless responses. 17% of customers recommend call centers that offer slow but perfect solutions. 12 positive customer experiences are needed to make up for just one negative customer experience. 70% of purchasing experiences depend on how clients feel they’re being attended to. 83% of clients require at least some support when making an online purchase. That’s why thriving organizations have already shifted their attention to a customer-centric technique with mobile responsiveness being a top precedence. So far, the records indicate that call centers making use of tools and techniques to improve customer experience are winning. Research additionally shows that customers will spend more money with a company that offers a wonderful experience. Customer expectations additionally have an effect on their level of satisfaction, and leading businesses have gone further FAQ pages to offer round-the-clock assistance with services that screens social media and the Internet for mentions by customers and social media experts who maintain a steady presence online. By giving customers a very fast and accurate response on social media, call centers often save their reputations and display a willingness to correct issues to ensure customer satisfaction. Omni-channel customer support experience additionally helps to lessen consumer churn, which attributes to bad quality customer service. Making Multi-Channel Retailing Consistent Call centers must try not to simply provide a multi-channel retailing experience, though. To give a great omni-channel retail experience, call centers must assume that customers will begin an interaction in a channel and then move to another while searching for a solution. But the focus should not be on the channels, rather, it should be on the customer. Customers are too regularly segmented by channel – assuming that the call center has “Twitter clients,” “Facebook clients,” and “mobile clients,” as an instance, when in reality call centers have a set of customers who just happen to interact with them on a large number of channels. Customers’ demands and needs remain consistent across all channels from which they have an interaction with a call center. Consumers should understand their transitions from one channel to another as being fluid. The best call centers are 30% more probable to optimize for omni-channel simplicity to gain consistency and meet the needs of customers across all channels. One of the most effective methods to improve a customer experience is to tap into customer analytics to determine the customer preferred channels and gain insights into the efficiency of the company’s content and knowledge base when addressing these issues in actual-time. Analytics also reveal which channels most efficaciously meet client expectations, so call centers can tailor their technique for laser-targeted, consistent delivery. Leveraging technology that reach customers across all channels and making use of available information to monitor and optimize the customer experience gives modern call centers a

Can Predictive Analytics Really Improve Customer Experience?

Speech analytics has become an important feature in the operation of many contact centers. These sophisticated systems have the ability to precisely identify words and phrases that can be used to guide the customer through help menus and connect them with appropriate agents. Speech systems can also be used to gather a considerable volume of information that can be used to gauge insights about a brand and many other valuable data points; the ability of these systems to collect information from the entire call made to a center means it can accomplish what even a large team of people cannot. It is not surprising that many global call center leaders have been using analytical systems to improve customer experience (CX) and accomplish other essential operational goals, including revenue, reduction in customer effort and channel switching. As advanced as these systems are, the ability to predict customer needs and behavior is even more cutting edge. Predictive analytics has gotten a lot of buzz but can it really improve CX strategies and outcomes? Solve Problems Before They Arise Systems capable of predictive analysis can provide invaluable insight into emerging problems. This peek into the near future gives business decision makers and departmental leaders time to develop strategies that address these concerns before damage control is required. Preempting problems often takes much less time and overall effort compared to repairing the damage after the fact. Often, a small increase in problems reported with a particular feature gives employees enough information that the feature can be fixed before the problem affects the broader population of users. All this means less downtime for maintenance, fewer reports related to the problem, and more effective delivery of service. Knowing that customers are likely to be calling about a particular problem also lets agents present those solutions first, thereby resolving calls in much less time. Driving Revenue Through Improved Customer Experience Analysis systems with predictive capabilities are closely related to revenue driving because they help accomplish the features of CX most closely correlated with increased revenue, namely: Research into customer demographics Insight into customer behavior Strategy for problem-solving and improved outreach Simply collecting data has never been enough to actually leverage the advantage that information volume potentially has. Smart sorting and analysis are required to perceive evolving trends and patterns. Industry insight and experience developing CX will help pinpoint the strategies most likely to achieve optimal outcomes. While no system is capable of replacing experience, CX specialists will have a much larger collection of information from which to draw conclusions about experience improvement. Outperforming Competition and Supporting Company Growth Companies that excel at CX outperform their competition, resulting in greater revenue and market domination. Widespread brand awareness also takes place as a result of improving CX strategies and delivery. Increased revenue and market domination will allow companies to grow to the next level. Identifying highly precise segments of a customer population will allow targeted messaging and service provision relevant to the concerns affecting that particular group. This nuanced segmentation of customers actually improves the likelihood that people will respond positively to outreach strategies. Implementing predictive systems will provide highly relevant data that can be immediately leveraged towards key organizational outcomes – all through improving the experience offered to customers. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Improving the Customer Experience With Personalization

Customer service has long been a cornerstone of business success and, in a way, this is never going to change. What has changed is the way we think and talk about the experiences customers have with the companies they choose to patronize. This comprehensive and dynamic perspective is what makes the field of customer experience a more effective approach than a straightforward focus on the delivery of service. Customer experience (CX) encompasses many nuances of interactions between companies and company representatives and their customers. Data gathered through analytics can help business leaders develop improved experiences for their customers but sometimes strong, lasting results can seem elusive. Personalization is an excellent way to rethink the cultivation of experience for customers. Furthermore, a more personalized approach can help various departments finally achieve CX goals that have not been met by using other strategies. A Closer Look at Personalization Personalized customer experience speaks directly to the way that customers behave when they interact with your company. The way that this personalized experience is delivered to customers naturally varies from one company to another but certain commonalities exist. For instance, customer feedback is often solicited with the help of messaging that reflects the particulars of a customer’s recent past behavior. This high degree of personalization is made possible through careful tracking and record-keeping systems. Data collection is can be a very neglected part of CX development even though this information provides direct insight into customer activity, including emerging patterns of behavior. In short, personalization can accomplish a few key outcomes, including: Generating prompt customer response to requests for feedback Driving the submission of reviews and ratings Initiating personal contact following a customer’s experience with a brand or product As these examples will show, the effort put into personalization can have very positive benefits for a company seeking CX improvement. Personalized Customer Feedback After a transaction has been completed, customers can be sent a feedback form. Personalized data can be used to inquire about specific products or services purchased by the customer; other specifics about the transaction, such as on-time delivery, can also be used in the messaging of these feedback forms. Responsive Thank You Notes Thank you notes can also be personalized with the same details that make feedback forms stand out. In fact, certain systems even allow the display of different responses based on feedback from input; for instance, customers can be thanked for purchasing a service contract and receive information regarding the date of the first scheduled engagement. Highly positive feedback can trigger a screen or note encouraging customers to leave a review online. This is a good way to increase the number of reviews left for a company or service because customers are at their most engaged at this moment in the experience cycle. Initiating Personalized Follow-Up Certain customer responses lead naturally to follow-up from a customer service agent or other company representative. This contact is perhaps most commonly associated with dissatisfactory customer experiences but this can follow many different kinds of feedback. Agents can confirm contracted service scheduling and other matters with this personalized contact. Personalization is a natural way to improve CX outcomes and meet goals identified with CX experts within your organization. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

4 Ideas To Offer Exceptional Customer Experience Through Social Media

Are your clients on social media? Do you relate with them? The key to actually making use of social media for multichannel customer support is to concentrate, take action and make the most advantage of what your network tells you to improve productivity. Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter have advanced to emerge as more than new platforms for advertising and publicity. They are additionally legit and vital channels through which consumers solicit and get multichannel customer support. About half of United States, purchasers uses social media to make inquiries, report satisfaction, or to make complaints and a 3rd of social media users opt for “social care” to the phone. “Social care” is not a brand new idea, yet offering multichannel customer support that includes social media can become real demanding situations for call centers both large and small—as well as possibilities to impact productivity and consumer loyalty. The truth is that multichannel customer support expectations are growing yearly and clients are looking for call centers to create a seamless experience that spans the showroom floor to the Facebook timeline. Only having a social media presence is no longer enough; you need to be a social media celebrity to enhance productivity. In this article, you’ll find out four ways to offer excellent multichannel customer support via social media. 1. Be Where Your Customers are One of the primary challenges to providing a strong multichannel customer support over social media is figuring out where to direct your time and resources. While advertising and marketing efforts might drive visitors to targeted social sites, customer service groups have to meet their clients where they are already socializing. For most call centers, Facebook and Twitter will be the primary target for social care, but some call center may discover that their clients also use Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, or other social websites frequently. To determine where your customers are, look for mentions of your call center in popular social media. Whether that is an initial step toward growing a social media presence or something your marketing department already did, it’s a big mistake to leave dialogue about your call center solely to online commenter’s and the Google search set of rules. If you discover that clients are not yet speaking about your call center online, look for ways to include yourself in conversations related to call centers. The way to be welcomed into social conversations is to add value. Because of the customer and not the call center wields the most power over a call center image on social media, the bottom line is that neglecting conversations that arise on websites like Facebook and Twitter may have astonishing consequences. Conversocial said that 88% of consumers are less in all likelihood to buy from an organization that leaves questions on social media unanswered. 2. Ask for Feedback Leverage offline channels to promote online reviews. If you’ve got a call center, an e-mail database or different platforms where your company communicates with clients, ask customers to recollect leaving reviews for your social channels. You can inspire customers to publish on Facebook or leave a comment online. Keep in thoughts that some review sites like Yelp have guidelines that state corporations can not explicitly ask customers to leave comments. 3. Solve Issues Promptly Another way to make your customers happy and show them you care is to address any problems right away, whether or not it’s a query or a complaint. That is, continuously tracking social media accounts so you can see remarks and reply as soon as it’s being posted. Set up a unique business policy with detailed steps to exhibit the way you want to handle complaints. Take it a step ahead and try to apprehend why your client had an issue or question in the first place, and take note of how regularly he or she contacts your business. When you make an unhappy client into a satisfied one, you get a brand advocate as a result thus increasing your productivity. Also, in case your company meets itself in a social media crisis, irrespective of the type or origin, own up to it and deal with it immediately. Your customers’ persistence and the experience in general receives challenges mostly during issues times. Identify keywords and set up signals to stay on top of the situation. Direct clients to an online crisis center with useful links for current information so that they feel cared for and updated. A social media crisis is the moment of reality for any company. It can both make or destroy your business, so take it very seriously and manage it. 4. Share Customer Insights Share client remarks in your organization. Use the “What, So What and Now What” framework to share applicable and beneficial customer insights with different departments of your company. Depending on your enterprise’s size, right here are some departments you may want to talk with: Give the studies and development team a heads-up about product issues. Talk to your company’s legal group about possible lawsuits or the particular customers to watch out for. Share with the executive group any facts about marketplace positioning and competitor product announcements which is making social buzz. Conclusion Managing customer service on social channels can be hard. To be successful, you need to have a great customer support tactics at hand. Also, pay very close attention to community comments to guide your business goals from introducing new products based totally on consumer demand to developing a great brand notion. Since social media is now people’s number one platform of getting in touch with brands, it’s more essential than ever to be in total control of your social media presence. Customer experience is beneficial in improving customer satisfaction. Be nice to your customers, listen to them and they will become loyal to you and your call center.

5 Strategies to Help Improve Customer Experience With Speech Analytics

Call centers are constantly searching for new ways to boost their customer experience and customer service capabilities, and advanced technology, specifically speech analytics, can provide call centers more insight into their customers as well as their desires. Speech analytics is the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction. When used correctly, such analytics can give your call center a distinct advantage and make everyone’s job that much easier. Here are five effective strategies for boosting customer experience with powerful analytics. 1. Get to the Root of Customer Displeasure Sometimes when a customer contacts your contact center, he or she will tell you exactly what the issue is. Other times, the explanation might be vague or simply misunderstood by the employee taking the call. Analytics are designed to remove the confusion from the equation so you know exactly why a customer is unhappy. Speech analytics tools accomplish this by studying the caller’s voice to pinpoint language that indicates displeasure, raised tones and over talk. This enables employees to resolve issues faster and to the caller’s satisfaction. 2. Pinpoint and Resolve Issues That Lead to Inefficiency We live in a world where you have quick and easy access to products and services, which means that callers expect quick resolutions, which lead to better customer experience. Leaving someone on hold for a second longer than necessary could result in a disgruntled customer. Analytics is made to examine holds and long stretches of silence to determine what’s going wrong. Whatever the problem might be, it can be better resolved with the right analytics program. 3. Target Offers to the Right Caller and Customer One size does not fit all. Rather than taking the shotgun approach when it comes to suggesting offers to customers, speech analytics allows you to pinpoint customers who are more likely to respond favorably to specific offers. What happens is analytics can uncover purchasing habits and trends to determine which offers an individual person is most likely to respond to. Now you can better target your marketing and advertising efforts without wasting time, resources or energy. 4. Better Call Center Agents Make for Happier Customers Analytics is just as beneficial for call center agents as it is for callers. Managers are able to listen in on agents to see how well they adhere to any mandatory scripting, company policy or standards they should follow. The data gathered through analytics can be used to better train current as well as future call center agents, making them more effective and confident in their jobs. 5. Keep Customers Coming Back When customers feel they are not being well taken care of, they are likely to take their business elsewhere. The data gathered by analytics can be used to better satisfy customers and keep them coming back to your company, boosting overall loyalty. Something else to think about is the fact that satisfied customers are more likely to tell other people about your company, which can bring in new business and even more satisfied customers. Speech analytics can provide a huge boost to your business. Be sure you have a solid plan of action for your software and ensure you are using the tool to its full potential.

How to Improve Customer Experience Through Effective Quality Monitoring

Companies are always looking for effective and cost-efficient ways to improve their bottom line, and one of the best ways to do that is by improving the customer experience. After all, it does not make much sense to offer the best products or services in your industry if your customers are not happy. Focusing more on quality assurance through quality monitoring can both help improve your customer experience and gather feedback to improve your products and services. The Facts Let’s look at some of the facts and figures associated with the current state of customer service. Research has shown that roughly 20 percent of consumers place price over customer service, nearly 40 percent of consumers do not reach out to the companies they do business with, and customers who do reach out don’t do so very often. What this data shows is that a majority of shoppers are willing to pay more for a product if the company is known for having great customer service. This means that a company should make sure their customer service is of the same caliber as the prices they’re asking for their services or products. If customers spend top dollar on an expensive product but have trouble getting in touch with someone who can answer a simple question, they’re unlikely to continue to do business with that company. Moreover, those individuals are likely to leave bad reviews and share their experiences on social media, which can cost the company future business. When consumers are not reaching out to companies, part of the reason might be that they have had poor customer service experiences in the past. Companies have an opportunity to set the bar for customer service and change consumers’ minds about what excellent customer service is, which can make customers more willing to reach out to them in the future if they ever have questions or concerns. In order to understand what works with their customers, companies need to assume a proactive role in discovering what their customers are saying by monitoring those interactions for quality assurance. How Monitoring Solutions Work The central purpose of quality assurance is to gauge representative performance and determine Key Performance Indicator (KPI) or Key Success Indicators (KSI) metrics. These metrics help companies develop their definition of success and keep track of the behaviors that support that definition. One of the most essential things to bear in mind when it comes to KPI and KSI is that the metrics differ from company to company. When cultivating indicator measurements, the monitoring solution gathers information such as the following: How many calls the customer service team or call center receives. The length of time it takes for representatives to answer calls. The number of customers pleased with the services they received. Even though customer service agents can potentially gather this information on their own, companies might prefer to implement software instead. The results are more accurate, easier to organize, more complete and free of personal opinion, which can skew the results. The results provided by software let companies know where they’re doing well in terms of customer services, which areas need improvement and whether there are potential opportunities of which they may not be aware. Properly Utilizing KPI and KSI Metrics To leverage the data generated by quality monitoring solutions, it’s not enough that you simply gather information; you have to know how to effectively use the data and engage your company hierarchy in the process. In addition to sharing data with managers and department heads, front-line employees should also be included. Customer service agents are critical to the customer experience, so they need to understand the rationale behind putting new technology in place. Knowing you’re taking steps to make their jobs easier and giving them the tools they need can enhance their employee satisfaction levels and they may also have suggestions of their own about improving customer service. Share the results of metrics both on an individual customer service agent level and on a team level. You can also use the results of the metrics and monitoring solution in future company decisions. For instance, the gathered data can help you decide which changes to your customer service department will be the most effective, and the metrics may even help with your next marketing campaign. Additional Steps for Effective Customer Service Improvement While using monitoring solutions is a great first step in making your customer service capabilities stronger, it’s only part of the equation. As you’re gathering, sharing and implementing data, be sure you ask customers and callers how they feel about your company’s customer service capabilities and alignment with promises made in your marketing or advertising. You might already know how difficult it can be to keep callers on the line, so give them a good reason to stick around such as a discount or a free service or product in exchange for their participation. In addition to monitoring phone calls, it’s also best to monitor all other forms of customer communication. This is an especially good idea since a majority of today’s consumers prefer not to communicate over the phone. Gather data from live chat and email correspondences to discover valuable information, such as customer pain points. These pain points indicate the issues customers have with your products, services and your company in general. Customers may not call or communicate with you to specifically discuss these pain points but they can be elicited naturally in a conversation and rather than brush the matter off, you can use it as an opportunity to make your company and customer service better. Customers will appreciate the fact that you actually listen to them, and your customer service representatives will be pleased that the issues are being resolved such that they will not have to hear the same pain point over and over. There are always opportunities for your customer service agents to improve, and KPI metrics create an excellent baseline. You can look at

Top 5 Benefits of Speech Analytics to Make Your Brand Shine

Understanding why customers call and continue to call is actionable intelligence. It identifies the reasons behind behavior, and enables managers to take action that improve first-time call resolution. The same principle applies to customer attrition. Actionable steps can anticipate the causes of customer abandonment and provide them with valid reasons to return. Call center speech analytics is a valuable tool that for boosting customer satisfaction rates and improving the contribution to the organization’s success. The top five benefits of speech analytics include: Improving the consumer experience. Enhancing the consumer experience is a primary reason companies use call center speech analytics. Speech analytics software mines and analyzes audio data to detect elements such as stress and emotion in a customer’s voice. It also helps determine the purpose of the call, the products discussed, and more. Users can identify the needs, wants, and expectations quickly and work with the customer to satisfy them. Reducing operating expenses and increasing profitability. Speech analytics pays for itself in as little as three to six months by reducing call center costs and detecting cost savings. The technique circumvents extra expenses while generating incremental income. However, it requires a significant investment in resources and time up front to calibrate a speech analytics application successfully for a particular site. Monitoring and coaching call center agents to increase service quality. Call center speech analytics software enables managers to monitor agents and customers simultaneously to ensure that the agents adhere to scripts and meet regulatory requirements. Speech analytics technology is also valuable for helping agents improve call resolutions and reduce call volume. Operational and performance issues can be addressed and handled, resulting in overall enhanced service quality. Decreasing customer attrition. Many businesses notice a decline in customer attrition rates after implementing speech analytics. It can help companies identify the reasons customers leave, providing opportunities to make the changes necessary to ensure customers return. For instance, enhanced service quality results in improved customer satisfaction and experiences, giving consumers less reasons to leave. Identifying up- and cross-sell opportunities to boost revenue. Sales organizations can also benefit from speech analytics technology through the identification of up- and cross-sell opportunities, resulting in increased sales conversation rates. Sales managers can also analyze the data to determine the impact of a particular up- or cross-sell on a customer’s level of satisfaction, and identify offer response rates across various customer demographics. Real-time speech analytics applications can create personalized up- and cross-sell opportunities to satisfy a consumer’s distinct requirements. They can also track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Call center speech analytics drive quality monitoring and provide a unique perspective of the effectiveness of internal processes. It is a valuable technique to produce key performance indicators for comparing how different agents deal with various call types, allowing managers to focus their coaching efforts on real-time insight. The result is increased productivity and alignment of skill sets to consumer needs. Overall, call center speech analytics enable businesses to manage marketing campaign planning and deployment with extensive customer insight to enhance the effectiveness of their bottom line. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Artificial Intelligence: Behind-the-scenes tool to improve Customer Experience

Since its initiation, Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown by leaps and bounds. From getting used to simply gather information and predict effects, it’s now being utilized by companies as a major technology to create present day solutions throughout a variety of services. There has been a consistent increment in the amount of ‘Robots’ that can mimic cognitive services of the human mind, corresponding to situation-solving and responding to normal languages. Powered by developed Artificial Intelligence (AI), these machines at the moment are going prevalent. To meet up with the technologically-driven industry landscape, ultra-modern corporations are looking to leverage them into more than a few productive roles, specifically to handle the customers’ queries. The large amount of data we generate is a compounds blessing. It offers us better insight into human habits, but it’s additionally a lot more stuff to sort. For assisting us sort through our data, and make best use of it, we’ll turn to AI (artificial intelligence) for things as challenging as navigating the call center to simply deciding what the doggone temperature is outside. Artificial intelligence in the call center has become much more important in the last few years, leveraging tremendous data sets and predictive analytics for computerized, personalized customer service and on-demand agent coaching based on reporting. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Leverage user models to create an extraordinary customer experience User models, analysed from customer metric data, provide a detailed window into the service you render. These models can be utilized to create private experiences for customers of a call center. First, call centers have to accumulate this information through an analytics tool. Development teams can send consumer habits data from Mixpanel through an API. As soon as information has been gathered, the data can be fed to an algorithm to discern patterns depending on time-of-day, rate-of-rise/decline, or how the information correlates with other behaviours on the platform. The output of the algorithms can additionally loop back into how pages are provided to customers. A call center could improve customer experience by means of analysing what questions and response customers give simply before they come to a decision. Artificial Intelligence streamlines the process Customer Interaction simply entails making knowledge available to customers at their fingertips without asking them to move through hoops or several steps. We base it on what we already know about customers, and just like that! They get the super-targeted info. Actually, it is just making information available to customers in new approaches, lowering the hurdles that customers have to go through to get to the information. It can be as easy as what we learn from you, but additionally the trends that we get from other buyers like you. This exponentially improves customer experience. Artificial Intelligence for Customer Interactions Artificial intelligence is an amazing tool, and it’s going to evolve with time. Nevertheless, exclusively relying on AI to manage crucial sections of a call center, like customer interactions, could spell catastrophe. With the advance of channels that create connectivity and openness, customers are important to call centers stability and thus must be handled as such. Call centers can’t afford to make errors when interacting with them. In order to avert customer frustration as a result of lack of ability to resolve a setback efficiently in a customer’s channel of alternative, automatic processes must consistently exist in collaboration with human interaction. Customers are far too valuable to be handled alone by totally automated systems. Let’s face it; even some people have a tough time interacting with other humans well, typically due to a lack of emotional intelligence. Due to all those reasons, it will be irrational to anticipate an artificial intelligence system to execute and handle a customer interaction at a 100% satisfaction phases. However, with continuous advancement on this area and with suitable utilization, AI could aid call centers enhance their relationship with customers and take it to a higher level. I’m certain that as millennials strive for intelligent self-service and call centers seek automation, AI will continue to create a buzz in scientific circles in the future years. Personalised strategies The intention of the continuous study in Artificial Intelligence is to incorporate the advanced aspects like reasoning, conversation, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. When consumers can communicate with those intelligent systems, the interactions would have a couple of different results. Utilizing the information amassed from such communications between their AI systems and customers, call centers can customize the customer experience for every user. A call center can use the data to investigate the unique perception of a user after which the results can be used to build personalised options around his/her preferences. When promoted with right illustration, the customer tends to go for them and it might also help the call center increase its customer experience. AI-assisted Speech Recognition AI-aided speech recognition helps enhance customer experience. Key phrases can be noticed to set off service enhancements. The word “supervisor,” for example, would alert a supervisor to join a call and alleviate any problems with a customer. Systems can also be programmed to pay attention for competitor mentions. Financial institutions are experiencing same growth. Take a customer who typically calls the bank every Fridays to know her account balance. Utilizing AI, the bank possesses the intelligence to send the customer an automated message with her bank balance before the customer picks up the cellphone. By spotting behaviours and interaction patterns, a call center can decide upon the best channel for relating with customers. Not every customer requires a prolonged and private telephone call. Contacting via email or leaving an automated voicemail can be just as efficient in terms of customer satisfaction and is way less expensive than a live agent telephone call. It merely requires a figuring out of what each client prefers based on gathered data and demographics.

Artificial Intelligence: A Boon to Improve Customer Experience

Artificial intelligence has been around for a while, and while some wholeheartedly embrace the idea, others are wary of using what is portrayed to be a “robot” in any customer experience. When many think of AI, they think of conversationalist robots, while the truth is that AI has evolved into software programs that can be seamlessly integrated into current programs and become a huge asset to their human colleagues. AI is more than just a programmed bot that can answer the same questions that are included on a company’s FAQ page, and actually has many valuable applications in the business world and more specifically, in the form of customer support. Once companies understand the basics behind artificial intelligence and the benefits of speech analytics, the investment is more attractive and practical to improve customer service in all areas. Why Is Customer Service Important? All companies recognize that good customer service is essential to staying in business, building a brand and gaining the trust of consumers that love your products and services, but many fail to understand WHY customer service is so important. It’s just an assumed fact, but doing the research into why it is so important can help us better understand how artificial intelligence and quality monitoring with speech analytics can improve the experience. Estimates suggest that poor customer service may cost companies in the United States up to 41 billion dollars in revenue each year. AI is intended as a solution to that problem and to give your business the cutting edge to stay ahead of the competition and to cut that revenue loss as much as possible. Studies show that almost 90% of customers become frustrated when they have to repeat their problems and issues to more than one representative. This number highlights the fact that good customer service is more than a bonus for your business. It’s a necessity. A poll completed in 2015 of over 2,000 adults in the United States showed that customers are willing to pay more for a product or service when the customer service experience is pleasant. Close to 86% of them said bad customer service encourages them to switch brands. This shows that good service is vital to consumers, and getting an edge on your competition with better service builds trust in your brand and products. Companies often struggle to find the line between being more efficient at answering calls and resolving problems and keeping customers happy. Consumer issues can take up quite a bit of time for an agent even as the company is pushing for faster resolutions that encourage agents to get off the call as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, your customers need to feel as if their opinions are the most valued thing in your company, and artificial intelligence can help. AI provides faster results and resolutions to issues that commonly plague customers. It can improve the efficiency of employees, create better outcomes customized to fit any client’s problem, reduce call center costs and perform large tasks that would be impossible for a human to complete in the same amount of time. AI is important for more than just chat, and can create a positive experience for every customer that works with your company. To put it in perspective, realize that most Americans currently use some form of artificial intelligence in their everyday lives. With smartphones and tablets, most turn to assistants like Cortana and Siri to get directions, ask questions and resolve problems. As AI becomes more integrated into our day to day lives, experts expect that in a short five years, customers will only interact with a human from a company 15% of the time. The other 85% of the experience will be done with some form of artificial intelligence. Recent Experiences With AI Developers work tirelessly to create an AI system that works with every company in a convenient way, with the ultimate goal being to make life and work easier for everyone. Examples of using AI include Google, who improved their voice recognition technology from 84% to 98% in just two years. IBM’s Watson was released in 2011, and is now 2400% smarter than it was at its release date. Tens of millions of online searches are done each month through voice recognition systems. Every advancement brings AI closer to being profitable and applicable to businesses of all sizes. Some companies have already invested in the technology and reaping the rewards for doing so. Digital Genius: Mikhail Naumov, the chief strategy officer of Digital Genius, says that the company better automates their chat software with a deep learning algorithm. This has been done in two different ways. Historical chats – AI systems are better trained with the help of historical chat logs. Benefits include more accurate responses and more time for customer service agents to handle complex issues that an AI is unable to solve. Naumov believes that because customer service is so repetitive, historical transcripts hold goldmines that are underused. Fact data – The nature of the industry Digital Genius functions in has solid parameters regarding the amount of solutions for a set amount of problems. This makes AI programs much easier for this type of business, rather than business development or marketing, where there are many paths and possibilities that lead to solutions. Inbenta – Inbenta approached AI from the direction that customer service questions come when customers can’t find answers to important questions on a website. Search engines can be mildly misleading and send the customer to a page with no valid information for them. This turns into a phone call to a customer service representative that takes up time and valuable resources. Natural language – To deal with this issue, the company developed “Natural Language Processing” that is a form of AI that focuses more on what the customers means in a query rather than exactly what they type. Bulk email response – Inbenta has also solved the problem of excessive emails that

Why Speech Analytics is a Revolutionary Factor for Contact Center Quality Monitoring

Objectivity Contact center reliability in terms of delivering the value promised to customers depends largely on the performance of individual employees. Thus, in order to ensure that optimal effort is given on each and every call, management teams are required to implement contact center quality monitoring (QM). In most cases, this task is performed by a dedicated QM staff whose goal it is to ensure that required procedures are met while also conveying the messages and tones unique to each client. While QM focuses on assessing and improving an employee’s individual skills, its general purpose is two-fold: to meet the performance demands of contact center clients while also ensuring that operations remain compliant with industry standards. Manual Monitoring – An Inherently Challenging Process Typically, the QM process at most call centers involves an individual agent (be it a manager, supervisor or dedicated QM analyst) listening to individual calls and grading out an employee’s performance. After each assessment the results must then be shared through the appropriate channels, beginning with supervisors or shift managers and then with the individual employees themselves. These individual one-on-one sessions between employee and analyst or supervisor and analyst are essential in order to identify areas that need improvement. Finally, follow-up evaluations are required in order to ensure that education has been effective at helping employees improve the customer experience on his or her calls. While QM efforts are vital for improving contact center performance, the aforementioned process carries with it a number of inherent inefficiencies. These include: Resource management: Managing QM can force executive teams to walk a tight line between meeting the demands of client output and improving processes and performance. When developing a QM strategy, many often first look to supervisors and managers to perform these tasks. While their familiarity with the skills and weaknesses of their individual team members may offer valuable information to this process, adding QM to their already full schedules often requires asking them to sacrifice time and effort being dedicated to other areas. Oddly enough, the net impact of having supervisors perform QM is often a decrease in overall performance due to less attention being paid to other vital areas of operation. The next solution would then seem to be to create a dedicated QM staff whose workflow would be centered on call evaluations and employee training. This eliminates the need for management to be extensively involved in the QM process and creates a team of subject matter experts that employees may be able to rely upon as a resource. However, it is important to keep in mind that creating such a resource would likely require pulling employees that have demonstrated the highest levels of performance off of the phones in order to effectively perform this function. While the anticipated payoff is that they would then be able to convey their skills on to other employees, the question becomes how long the center would be able to wait for the rest of its staff to replace the newly named QM analysts’ levels of performance? This leads to the final concern that manual QM presents in regards to resource management: time. If a team of supervisors or QM analysts is expected to turn the trends discovered during call evaluations into actionable information that helps employees improve customer engagement, then they need the time to both listen to calls and provide education. While the expectation is already in place, that call monitoring will be a primary function of a QM team, the amount of time needed to follow up with employees and managers if often not accounted for. Once evaluations have been done, the QM team must then pull supervisors away from their regular tasks to share results, and then pull employees off the phone to provide education. For contact centers already straining to deliver optimal output levels, such allocations of time may prove to be too great of a cost. Limited sample sizes: Because the QM process can be so expensive and does require so much time, managers or analysts can only afford to perform their assessments using small sample sizes. In many cases, the actual rate of assessed calls may often represent less than one percent of a contact center’s total output. One has to wonder if such a limited volume is able to produce an accurate depiction of overall employee performance. Employees may argue that judging their capabilities on the phone off of a small random sample of their calls puts them at an inherent disadvantage. Depending upon their specific roles and responsibilities, they may feel more comfortable in certain areas than in others. Thus, while evaluating a call for a client or product with whom they are unfamiliar may serve to highlight their weaknesses, it fails to identify those areas which they may view as their strengths. Along with offering a potentially unbalanced assessment of an employee’s skills (or lack thereof), random call monitoring also may fail to show if employee education has truly taken hold. For example, if an employee were marked for a reassessment after having received training and education, reviewing a call from the week following said training may not show what he or she has learned and implemented than one from two-three weeks later. The trouble is, when pulling random call samples, QM analysts often have little control over the time frames from which their calls come from. One might argue that the solution to the problem of limited sample sizes is simply to increase his or her QM staff. However, wouldn’t such action simply serve as an example of throwing more resources at a process that’s already been proven to be somewhat ineffective? Objectivity: The final challenge that comes with manual QM monitoring is delivering objective results. When preparing the criteria that will be used to assess employee performance, the question has to be asked as to the basis used to develop it. Is it being prepared by upper-level executives based solely off of perceived client expectations, or former

Four Things to Know Before Merging AI to CX

Before you make the switch to utilizing bots which can be more cost effective and less frustrating to deal with, it is vital to keep in mind that they are a means to an end. Implementing them into your current strategy can be advantageous, but keep the following things in mind before merging artificial intelligence in customer service to CX. Not all customers will be satisfied One thing to keep in mind is that introducing bots into your strategy is not for everyone. It is true that now is the time for implementation and some people are open to the idea of dealing with bots, however, not all people are not convinced. Some prefer to deal with humans and will not be satisfied solely communicating with robots. Keep in mind also that despite your belief that the customers will not be able to tell, this is not true and it is wise to have a human being ready to take over for a customer who is frustrated with a robot. It is crucial to script your bot correctly If the bots are not set up properly, the customers will more likely become frustrated. Bots run mainly on scripts because they are not as sophisticated as Al-driven machines. If the script of a bot takes a customer astray, they will become even more frustrated and this can have detrimental effects on your business and reputation. In some cases, customers may even start to migrate to alternative companies and spread the work that their experience on the phone was frustrating. Bots are an agent’s best friend When a bot is capable of taking care of part of the call such as confirming an order or resetting a password, this helps avoid wasting the agents time and keeps them available to answer more specific customer questions or concerns. Bots are not able to provide care to customers Despite common beliefs, it is not possible to form relationships with bots and customers may miss the experience of connecting with a human being on the phone. When there is only one person, the emotional element of the conversation is missing and this can affect the customer’s overall experience. It is undeniable that people appreciate the value of human interactions. Carefully implementing bots into your current strategy can be beneficial to both your profits and the company as a whole. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the value of human interactions is priceless and delivering a high quality customer experience should be a top priority.

5 Effective Ways to Measure the Quality of Your Customer Service

As every modern business knows, there is a strong correlation between success and customer service quality. If you fail to make an authentic connection with your customers, they will simply take their business elsewhere. There are numerous, simple ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your customer service approach. If you are a business owner who is interested in customer service quality monitoring, the five following quality assurance techniques below may be able to provide you with guidance. Look for Flaws or Shortcomings in Your Operation : At times, the quality of your customer service can be linked to an unnoticed flaw or shortcoming in your daily business operations. For example, if you own a restaurant, and your patrons frequently complain about not receiving their dishes on time, the issue could be traced to an incompetent server or cook. In general, remaining aware of your own weaknesses can help you constantly improve your level of customer service. Evaluate the Supply and Demand of Your Products : Supply and demand are a major component of economics and business, but did you know that this concept can also be used to evaluate the quality of your customer service. Satisfied consumers tend to purchase more products from the same company. Simply put, if you are noticing a considerable number of repeat customers or clients on a regular basis, your customer service approach is probably working. Of course, outside economic factors can be major contributors to your data, so you may want to combine this method with others in order to get the most comprehensive snapshot of customer satisfaction. Research the Competition : Many business owners neglect to research their competitors’ approach to customer service. If your competitors have an immensely higher rate of customer satisfaction, you may be able to learn from their techniques. Simply visit or call your competitors’ establishment yourself, or send an employee to see how their approach to customer service differs from yours. If you want the most reliable data, ask your competitors’ customers what they like about the company. Examine the Number of Complaints You Receive : It is impossible to satisfy every single customer, but you can use the number of complaints you receive as a measuring tool. Some people assume that if the number of irate customers decreases it means that the quality of your customer service has increased. This is a common fallacy that causes many unknowing business owners to send their disgruntled customers to a competitor. For the most accurate data, combine this method with others. Ask Customers Directly : Have you ever considered asking your customers for their opinion directly? If not, you may be missing out an opportunity to compile a massive amount of reliable data. Some business owners prefer to ask customers directly, while others encourage them to fill out surveys. If neither of these tactics sounds appealing to you, follow-up phone calls can also help you better understand customer opinions. A Step in the Right Direction If you are truly interested in improving the quality of your customer service, the five tips listed above can point you in the right direction. If you follow them, you will expand your customer base, increase revenue and develop deeper connections with existing customers. This blog was first published on LinkedIn

Four Key Interaction Tips to Welcome Your Customers

If you run a business— no matter what the industry or service may be— you understand the importance of building strong relationships with customers. Giving customers a good experience will keep them coming back to you again and again. In turn, this means growth and stability for your business. However, creating this trust with customers isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It all starts at the beginning from the moment you meet a customer or potential customer. Customer greetings and initial interactions will go a long way in determining their level of satisfaction and whether you’ll see them again. Give Them a Warm Greeting and Welcome If you want to provide excellent customer service, start doing it from the minute your customer walks through your doors or calls you on the phone. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. How would you feel about the business if you weren’t greeted right away or if you didn’t almost immediately see someone smiling at you and asking what they can do for you? The greeting doesn’t have to be anything out-of-this world. Keep it simple but make it friendly. Find Out What They’re Looking For Depending on what your services are, the customer’s needs might not be obvious. Sometimes the customer will make this known, but often, you need to find out for yourself through thoughtful questions or observations. Simply ask how you can be of assistance or if they have any particular preferences that you can accommodate. Ask what you can do to help. Respond Appropriately This requires listening. Customer experience will not be positive if you can’t address needs and desires. When you ask what the person is looking for, be prepared to address those needs accordingly. If you are confused by anything they say or ask, get clarification. Also, where applicable and possible, give the customer a timeline of how long it will take for you to meet their requests. Check in and Follow Up When you go to a restaurant, you appreciate it when a server or manager comes to your table a few times during the meal to make sure everything is all right. The visit can and should be brief, but the follow-up is essential for good customer service. Once the customer has made his or her purchase and is leaving your establishment, ask if their needs were met and then invite them back. Customer experience will go a long way to determining the success of your business. Welcoming clients appropriately will lead to long-term, devoted customers.

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