Thursday, January 11, 2018
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
"Follow the Leader", Featuring Jeannie Walters
Customers "kick the tires" of SaaS products in more customized ways. They want to see if they will really understand HOW the product will solve their specific, personalized challenges. They need to hear that others have gone through a similar journey and had good results. Because of this need to understand, supporting these customers in the sales process AND early on in their relationships is critical to a great experience. If onboarding is neglected, customers may simply feel they aren't understanding the product well and cancel. It's best when a SaaS journey is understood by the organization to the point of proactively initiating support at key moments in the experience.
That said, all journeys require a thorough understanding
of where each customer might require that proactive support. The only way to do that is to look at your
customers and their real lives. Pay attention to feedback before it becomes a
huge amount of data. Listen and learn from your customers each and every day!
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Monday, January 8, 2018
Don't Automate Dumbness
By Michele Crocker
First, let me say, automation and new cloud based technology can take your customer support and contact center to the next level. It can do things for your support experience that we "pink squishy humans" can't do. Automation allows you to provide a greater degree of customer responsiveness than a fully human process can do. The benefits of automation in your customer support operation include:
Our focus should always be on providing the best service and customer support experience possible. We should NOT use technology to avoid interacting with our customers but rather enhance our interactions so the modern customer can reach us on the device, channel and time of day of their choice!
However, when new technology is implemented in isolation of alignment with people and processes, the outcome for customers and internal operational efficiencies can be a disaster. I have seen technology thrown at problems without getting the people and operational processes/metrics right, this leads to frustration within your support team and potentially a dramatic decrease in the customer experience.
So please, before automating your customer support, take a step back and invest the time to think about how you can align your people and processes with the new technology to provide effortless and frictionless customer experiences. Today, top notch customer support is one of the strongest competitive edges for any company. TakE customers from loyalty to advocacy!
Michele Crocker has the proven expertise to improve the customer experience and significantly reduce costs at the same time. She helps organizations to generate an effortless, rewarding customer experience, dramatically lower the cost per call, improve retention, grow sales and attract higher talent. Michele has over twenty years of "hands on" and strategic leadership roles within multiple Fortune 500 companies.
Connect with Michele on LinkedIn.
First, let me say, automation and new cloud based technology can take your customer support and contact center to the next level. It can do things for your support experience that we "pink squishy humans" can't do. Automation allows you to provide a greater degree of customer responsiveness than a fully human process can do. The benefits of automation in your customer support operation include:
- Ensuring the right human is alerted of issues, to proactively prevent service failure.
- Improving sales conversion and customer retention, preemptively addressing customer concerns and problems, thus deflecting calls.
- Customer can self serve allowing them to get their issues resolved a quickly as possible
- Reduce the load on human resources by shifting the mundane, routine, transactional calls to self service allowing time to redirect your people to those valuable relationship and sales calls.
Our focus should always be on providing the best service and customer support experience possible. We should NOT use technology to avoid interacting with our customers but rather enhance our interactions so the modern customer can reach us on the device, channel and time of day of their choice!
However, when new technology is implemented in isolation of alignment with people and processes, the outcome for customers and internal operational efficiencies can be a disaster. I have seen technology thrown at problems without getting the people and operational processes/metrics right, this leads to frustration within your support team and potentially a dramatic decrease in the customer experience.
So please, before automating your customer support, take a step back and invest the time to think about how you can align your people and processes with the new technology to provide effortless and frictionless customer experiences. Today, top notch customer support is one of the strongest competitive edges for any company. TakE customers from loyalty to advocacy!
Editors note: This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.
Connect with Michele on LinkedIn.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Make Sure Your Learning and Knowledge Management Systems Really Work
By Cyndi Chadwik
Learning no longer requires participants, including an instructor, to be cloistered in one room at the same location. The development of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and associated Knowledge Management System (KMS) provide employers an opportunity to present information to staff that is consistent, easily digestible, and convenient.
However, the LMS/KMS is only as good as its accessibility, how searchable it is, and whether or not it returns accurate and useful information. “The things that happen in a learning management system are less than ten percent of the activities that real people pursue when they want to learn something,” says Tim Martin, a co-founder of Rustici Software. “If you want to learn something, you don’t go to an LMS, whether you have access to it or not—you usually go to Google or a co-worker.” Developing and maintaining systems that deliver useful materials to employees when they actually need it is imperative. Everyone must be actively engaged in ensuring the correct information is available at all times.
Organizational change is easier to track, than departmental. One small shift in procedure may seemingly only affect immediate members of a group, but if a KMS article outlining the procedure is linked to others in a way that does not enable trickle-down updates, the user is ultimately presented with conflicting and confusing information. Their confidence in the information wanes, and the potential for them to bypass the KB/LMS altogether for the alternative (Google or a co-worker) increases.
The key is remaining on top of change management, and making sure the content in your LMS/KMS always reflects current and useful information.
Cyndi Chadwik is creative and analytical. She has a proven track record of resourcefully meeting challenges to reach the best solutions.
A natural leader, Cyndi is unafraid to assume the role of to being the go-to person, yet knows the value of being a great team player to develop effective cross-functional processes.
Learning no longer requires participants, including an instructor, to be cloistered in one room at the same location. The development of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and associated Knowledge Management System (KMS) provide employers an opportunity to present information to staff that is consistent, easily digestible, and convenient.
However, the LMS/KMS is only as good as its accessibility, how searchable it is, and whether or not it returns accurate and useful information. “The things that happen in a learning management system are less than ten percent of the activities that real people pursue when they want to learn something,” says Tim Martin, a co-founder of Rustici Software. “If you want to learn something, you don’t go to an LMS, whether you have access to it or not—you usually go to Google or a co-worker.” Developing and maintaining systems that deliver useful materials to employees when they actually need it is imperative. Everyone must be actively engaged in ensuring the correct information is available at all times.
Organizational change is easier to track, than departmental. One small shift in procedure may seemingly only affect immediate members of a group, but if a KMS article outlining the procedure is linked to others in a way that does not enable trickle-down updates, the user is ultimately presented with conflicting and confusing information. Their confidence in the information wanes, and the potential for them to bypass the KB/LMS altogether for the alternative (Google or a co-worker) increases.
The key is remaining on top of change management, and making sure the content in your LMS/KMS always reflects current and useful information.
- Provide LMS/KMS that encourages and provides easy feedback mechanisms
- Engage those who can quickly validate content accuracy and identify related material for incorporation
- Ensure the content is easily editable and available for immediate publication
A natural leader, Cyndi is unafraid to assume the role of to being the go-to person, yet knows the value of being a great team player to develop effective cross-functional processes.
Connect with Cyndi on LinkedIn.
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