By: Erica Strother
Search for “customer service” or “customer service fail” on Twitter. How many tweets appear in the feed? More than likely, the answer is thousands.
Now recall the last time you turned to social media to ask a support question, vent frustrations, or seek out product advice from your personal network. If you’ve done one of these things recently you’re not alone. It’s increasingly common for customers turn to social media as their first point of contact for support. This presents an enormous opportunity for service organizations, but is also quite risky for the companies that aren’t adequately prepared to handle this form of support.
For example, what happens when other customers notice tweets of frustration and chime in to add their negative experiences? Or, for better or worse, offer solutions to the problems being voiced?It’s now not unusual for other customers to respond to social media support requests before the contact center even has a chance. Peer-to-peer support is a growing trend, and one the contact center must embrace. But there are several things to consider:
- What happens when a peer jumps in with the wrong answer?
- Should the contact center track the product of support related conversations customers have their peers ? If so, how?
- How can companies best reward their loyal customers for taking part in support conversations?
Although the idea of peer-to-peer support is not new, social is the new online help page. When asked whether they’d prefer to seek support through an online forum, or via social media, nearly half of adults 18-49 said social media. And that number is only sure to grow in the coming years.
That’s exactly why Joshua march, CEO of Conversocial, says his company recently released a new app called CROWDS.
CROWDS gives companies the ability to moderate the peer-to-peer customer service interactions already happening on Twitter, increasing customer satisfaction, extending word of mouth, improving customer loyalty and reducing costs for effective customer service.
I had a chance to talk with March last week and he seems optimistic that this app will forever change the way businesses manage social media support.
“Customers today are more knowledgeable than ever, and have more platforms than ever to voice their opinions,” said March. “Empowering customers to join the support conversation is a win for everyone. While customers trust brands less than ever, they trust their peers more. Contact centers must use this to their advantage.”
CROWDS allows companies to just that, by rewarding the brand advocates who are already serving as a first point of contact. It also gives the contact center complete visibility, and the ability to respond in real-time.
Empowerment + structure + faster, improved service seems like a winning combination! What do you think?
How is your contact center currently managing peer-to-peer support? Are your support forums still active, or do you see more customers turning to Twitter and Facebook for help? Share your experiences in the comments!
Erica
is the Community Specialist at ICMI. With a background in marketing,
public relations, and social media, she brings more than six years of
community management experience to ICMI, and is particularly passionate
about the convergence of marketing and customer service.
Erica
graduated Cum Laude from Campbell University in North Carolina. In her
free time she enjoys traveling, watching sports, attending concerts,
and drinking coffee. She’s also a self-professed Twitter addict. Follow
her on Twitter: @ens0204.
By: Erica Strother
2015 is already shaping up to be a busy year for HR professionals. Recent reports indicate that 36% of employers plan to increase their full-time staff this year. That number is up 12% from last year!
Does your contact center have plans to staff up this year? Running a contact center comes with a number of challenges, and hiring and recruiting is at the top of the list. If you’d like to make the process less daunting, here are 3 tips for smarter hiring and recruiting in 2015.
1. Social Media is Your Friend.
In a recent #ICMIchat, Nate Brown (@CustomerIsFirst) put it this way: fish where the fish are.
Studies show that 14.4 million Americans have used social media to search for a job, with 29% citing social media as their primary tool for searching. If you don’t have a social media recruiting strategy in place you are missing out on some of the best and brightest talent.
Utilize Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more to post job openings, share successes, and let your company culture shine. Your potential employees are interviewing you, too. They are checking you out on social media, so make sure you’re not just there, but actively putting your best foot forward.
2. Don’t be Afraid to Try Video
Being on video can feel awkward, or even scary. Not everyone is comfortable in front of the camera, but sometime it’s good to step out of your comfort zone! If you don’t think video belongs in the hiring process, think again.
Video interviews are a great option for companies looking to hire remote employees, but videos are also a powerful tool in the recruiting process. What better way to demonstrate your company culture than through the use of stories?
YouTube reports 4 billion video views each day, so chances are great that your prospective hires are spending time there. You can ensure that they find you by including links to your YouTube videos on your career webpage and in job postings. It doesn’t hurt to share your videos on other social networks, either.
Be creative—show potential employees what it’s like in your office, tell them what your company values, and why it’s a great place to work. Looking for a little inspiration? Here’s a fun example from the folks at Shopify.
Does your company have a recruiting video? I’d love to see it, so please share in the comments.
3. Make Employee Engagement a Priority
Social media and video are both great recruiting tools, but the most valuable tool you have is your current employees. Be honest. How many of your employees would recommend your workplace to a friend?
Creating brand ambassadors starts with engagement. Show your employees how important they are to the team. Solicit their feedback and ideas, then listen and act on them. Be transparent, and respectful. Trust your employees to do great work, and nine times out ten they will.
Empower your team with the tools and resources they need to be company advocates, and encourage them to share job opportunities with their personal and professional networks. Make it easy! Provide sample tweets, emails, and videos they can use when sharing job openings.
Bonus: studies show that employee referrals have greater job satisfaction and stay longer at companies.
Does your contact center have a plan in place to recruit the best talent in 2015? For more tips and ideas, check out these articles and infographics on successful hiring in the contact center.
Erica
is the Community Specialist at ICMI. With a background in marketing,
public relations, and social media, she brings more than six years of
community management experience to ICMI, and is particularly passionate
about the convergence of marketing and customer service.
Erica
graduated Cum Laude from Campbell University in North Carolina. In her
free time she enjoys traveling, watching sports, attending concerts,
and drinking coffee. She’s also a self-professed Twitter addict. Follow
her on Twitter: @ens0204.
Over the weekend, I had a very bad customer experience with a very large retail company. This was not the first time. In fact, I had grown accustomed to the bad service. In some way, I have accepted it in exchange for their low prices. This experience caused me to put on my customer service hat even as I waited in line for service. After fifteen minutes of waiting, I was not upset. Instead, I was inspired to offer some advice to the manager in the hopes of preventing future customer service failures.
My advice was simple: “Get back to the basics.” So often, we outsmart ourselves in an effort to be innovative or on the cutting edge of industry. As it relates to customer service, I am all for innovation, growth, and change. However, this should not erode the foundation of quality service. I often hear a local radio advertisement for a home improvement company in which the owner says, “We shall do quality work; at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always quality work.”
In customer service, I believe there are six basic requirements that must be met with each interaction. When these are met, customers will not merely be satisfied, but they will also be delighted. Together, these form the cornerstone to a successful customer service strategy.
- Know your product
- Know your customer
- Be accessible
- Resolve problems quickly and accurately
- Solicit (and implement) feedback
- Serve with empathy
Yeah, I know, this isn’t rocket science. That is exactly the point. While the method of customer service has changed over the years, the message is still the same. It doesn’t take data, charts and in-depth surveys to give customers our reasonable service. It takes desire!
Sean
is a Contact Center manager with over 13 years of experience. He has a
terrific pulse on incorporating innovation into the contact center. He's
implemented social, outsourcing partners, new technology, and new
products, while maintaining an award-winning contact center.
His contact center is a past winner of the ICMI "Global Call Center of the Year" award for Small to Medium-Sized Centers.
Follow on Twitter @SeanBHawkins
This article first appeared on ICMI
Over the years, I have interviewed many candidates for numerous roles. During this time, I have refined how I conduct interviews. This is in part due to my maturity, training, feedback and discussions with colleagues. During this time, I have learned is there is more than one way. There are different styles of interviews available during the hiring process. You must determine which works best for you based on the role you're trying to fill and it significance.
One of the best lessons I've learned is that the interview sets the expectation for potential candidates. This sounds cliche, I know. While the interview does help a candidate get a glimpse into the company, it also offers the hiring manager an opportunity to display their management style, demeanor and express their intentions. I am a firm believer that my performance in the interview will be matched by the candidate’s performance once hired. As such, the interview must not be taken highly, should not be rushed, and must give the interviewee every indication that their time was valued. This has point of view has contributed to my contact center’s ability to hire and retain exceptional talent.
When interviewing new agents, my process includes the hiring manager, team/technical leads and myself. Each of us brings unique insight based on our individual roles and the relationship we have as a management team. Including other colleagues also allows me the opportunity to coach and train newer members of leadership on the nuances of interviewing and hiring the ideal candidate. But more than that, these varied perspectives help ensure we have the best candidate, not the one we like the most.
The interview itself consists of four parts, each of great importance in determining the best available candidate.
Interview: The interview is two parts. The manager and team leads will initially look to gain insight into the candidate’s background while also evaluating their interpersonal skills.
The second part of the interview includes me and the hiring manager. During this portion of the interview, it is my aim to drill down on their soft skills and technical skills. In addition, we view the candidate in light of department metrics. My desire it see how their background will aid them in working in an environment where metrics and performance management are used.
Testing: To ensure the proficiency of needed skill sets, candidates are given a test. However, a pass or fail criteria is not used. Rather, the aim is to gauge their troubleshooting style and their ability to solve complex problems.
Shadowing: In my opinion, it is wise to bring candidates to the contact center floor and allow them to shadow agents during calls or chats. This will provide them the ability to see the pace of work, the support volume, and the work environment.
Closing remarks: This allows the candidate an opportunity to ask questions, or seek clarification about the role or the company. When all things are equal, a candidate who is engaged, prepared and well informed about the position and company can distinguish themselves for the others.
While some may consider this process excessive for staffing contact center agents, it is also deliberate in that it identifies the best candidates. Not to mention, it shows the value we place on their role. Only the best are selected and they feel that when they come on board! Furthermore, applicants get to meet leadership team which establishes an early rapport and familiarity that lends itself well to agent engagement and trust.
Who should be included in the interview process? That depends on the results you desire.
Sean
is a Contact Center manager with over 13 years of experience. He has a
terrific pulse on incorporating innovation into the contact center. He's
implemented social, outsourcing partners, new technology, and new
products, while maintaining an award-winning contact center.
His contact center is a past winner of the ICMI "Global Call Center of the Year" award for Small to Medium-Sized Centers.
Follow on Twitter @SeanBHawkins
By: CJ Silva
It may be hard to believe, but 2015 is almost here. In anticipation of the New Year, many call centers have already begun implementing new policies and procedures that will maximize their performance for many years to come with the help of call center analytics.
As always, the focus is on improving customer satisfaction, increasing agent productivity and reducing overhead. However, in 2015, we’ll see contact centers place an increased emphasis on using technology to meet callers’ specific needs and preferences. This may sound easier said than done, but it is possible. To get the most out of your contact center, start incorporating these call center trends of 2015.
Striking a balance between phone calls and self-service systems. Automated services have become much more common over the years and it’s easy to see why. Callers can use the automated system to take care of common inquiries rather than waiting on hold for half an hour only to resolve their issue in five minutes. For this reason alone many people prefer to use automated services.
Contact centers also benefit from self-service systems. Because phone lines and agents are not tied up with simple, easy-to-fix issues, they can devote more time to complicated inquiries or particularly disgruntled callers. This improves customer satisfaction as well as agent productivity, a perfect two-birds-with-one-stone situation.
Communicating with callers across multiple platforms. Contact centers are not limited to phone calls to interact with callers nowadays. Chats, video calls, and mobile apps have all been shown to be effective ways to communicate with customers and resolve issues.
Multi-platform services give callers the freedom to use multiple avenues of communication to connect with contact centers. Not everyone likes being on the phone, and most people would rather not spend an unspecified amount of time on hold waiting for an available agent. Fortunately, with new technology, callers can reach your contact center at the time that works best for them over the medium they prefer. Multi-platform services also improve agent efficiency by reducing complaints and increasing customer satisfaction.
Increased use of cloud storage. In addition to making it easier than ever to share information with customers and other contact centers, cloud storage can also help reduce your overhead by eliminating the need for large IT departments and servers that require space and a constant supply of electricity. Cloud storage is particularly useful if you have more than one location or employ virtual agents.
Improved identification and verification processes. Many current I&V processes are estimated to make up nearly 20% of all call times. For example, in a twenty minute call, that mean would that four minutes were spent verifying a customer’s identity – far too long. To streamline your contact center, you want to make sure agents are making the most out of their calls without wasting valuable time on inefficient processes.
In 2015, we will see an increased use of biometric technology to identify and verify customers. Fingerprint scanners on mobile apps and voice identification on phone calls are two popular options that many companies are working towards implementing. Simplifying I&V procedures will allow agents to spend more of their time attending to customers’ inquiries without reducing the number of calls they take. It’s a win-win situation for both contact centers and their callers!
Greater reliance on real-time metrics and agent reports. It’s easier now than it has ever been to collect data about people’s likes, dislikes, habits, and relationships. As a result, advanced metrics are being used in everything from sports analysis to psychology.
Incorporating advanced metrics into your contact center will give you greater insight into all of its moving parts in real-time, enabling call centers to direct specific calls and inquiries to the agents that are best-suited to handle them. This allows contact centers to utilize their agents’ specific skills to increase agent productivity while improving overall caller satisfaction. Advanced metrics can even be used to assess agents’ specific weak spots and re-train them accordingly rather than rehashing information with which they are already familiar.
With all of this in mind, perhaps you should consider implementing some of these practices at your call center. A new year is a great time for a fresh start, so start planning today!
CJ Silva is VP of Operations at KOVA Corporation.
By: Sean Hawkins
Much has been said recently about employee engagement. In fact, Aon Hewitt offers a report, 2014 Trends in Global Employee Engagement, which offers great insight on the topic. Rather than rehash what many have stated, I’d like to discuss a practical solution that has worked amazingly well for me.
For several years, my contact center has conducted employee reviews designed to get feedback on how best to engage them. While studies and data are great, a better way to determine what employees want is to ask them?
I have always been mindful of the stresses contact center agents are under. Not every interaction is pleasant, and at times, customers can be mean-spirited. This can certainly take a toll on anyone. Because of this, it is important for contact managers to know the agents. How are they feeling? What does their body language suggest? What does their tone of voice say about their mood? More importantly, a good call center manager should notice when agent burnout or fatigue sets in.
To avoid such burnout, which can certainly lead to attrition, perhaps it is best to engage the agent’s passions. What does this mean exactly? In simplest terms, find out what they like and let them do it.
Several years ago, we had many agents who were passionate about volunteering. Leadership wisely recognized this and implemented a volunteer initiative. It allowed agents 2 hours per month of paid time to volunteer to a cause of their choice. The results for so overwhelmingly positive, we spent time volunteering as a department during Customer Service Week.
This is just one example of identifying what agents want and incorporating it into the contact center. The point is this--employees will be fully invested in the company when it is reciprocated. There is a saying we have all heard that goes like this, “happy agents make happy customers.” Allow me to tweak that a bit. Happy employees create happy companies.
Sean
is a Contact Center manager with over 13 years of experience. He has a
terrific pulse on incorporating innovation into the contact center. He's
implemented social, outsourcing partners, new technology, and new
products, while maintaining an award-winning contact center.
His contact center is a past winner of the ICMI "Global Call Center of the Year" award for Small to Medium-Sized Centers.
Follow on Twitter @SeanBHawkins
By: Irene Martinez
In any business industry, products can be superb and highly state of the art. Sales professionals can have the most outstanding business relationships, but how is this of any value if the most important and critical part of the business “customer service” is not customer-oriented? As a customer, have you ever experienced “the representative was not knowledgeable as I expected and was rude”; “given the run around from associate to associate”; “my problem is unresolved and yet they were selling me more products”?
If you have answered yes to any of the above, then you can easily understand your customers’ level of frustration. The reason a business loses its customers is due to the lack of corporate responsiveness that caters to the customers’ needs which indeed impedes loyalty. It has taken the company weeks, months and even years to get to such a successful peak which was more than likely built not only on marketing but by references. Bill Gates once stated, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Think about it: without customers, we have NO business to begin with.
This is why it is essential to hear their concerns and have the department or company adopt a method that delivers satisfaction. As a business, you should see these complaints as a form of feedback, valuable feedback that is. This valuable feedback provides room for improvement (product or staff). Take it as a form of “free research” that has just been handed to you and your company. As part of the team, one must take ownership in the product you stand behind (walking it from beginning toend). However, naturally it is impossible to eat an elephant in one bite (so to speak), but what can be done is to have the team or department educate, train, “communicate” and most importantly, find methods that inspire staff to take ownership of the company product.
To conclude, what the business should be pursuing is filling the gaps impacting the customers. When customers lack a sense of security, they will walk away giving others the business you just lost. It is strongly advisable to motivate your teams by communicating and providing confidence through praises. Surprisingly, in no time, it will build stronger intrinsic motivation in individuals and teams, successfully leading them to satisfaction. Satisfaction that spreads to the customers. Now, it's time to take ownership. After all, you have customers to satisfy.
Irene Martinez has over 10 years experience in Project Coordinating, Quality Assurance, Quality Analysis, Auditing and Quality Control. This includes testing processes and procedures in the banking and financial industries and aligning compliance requirements to governmental guidelines.
