3 Reasons why Innovating and Re-tooling your Contact Center now is an absolute must

By Michele Crocker

I had the opportunity to be a speaker at SOCAP's (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals) annual conference in San Diego. The theme of the event was the "speed of innovation". One thing really stuck in my mind after leaving this conference - "The value of innovation melts away the longer we wait".


As customer support leaders we must innovate and retool our contact centers in order to provide effortless, seamless employee and customer experiences. Today, we have the biggest pallet of technology so the key question is what innovative idea can you implement to improve your customer experience? Don't wait to invest in in your customer support operation... it's too late when you are losing. Re-tool your people, processes, technology and metrics to improve your customer relationships.

3 Reasons to Innovate and Re-Tool your Customer Contact Center Now....

1. Our customer are ahead of us- Your customers are using the latest technologies everyday and we need to have conversations with them on the device, channel and time of day of their choice. - Digital personal assistants such as Alexa and Siri using conversational AI. What will your customer care support look like from these devices? How will you give them a seamless and frictionless customer experience across all channels?
2. Disconnect on how to engage employees- overall employee engagement overall is low in contact centers and attrition is the number one problem facing contact center leaders, According to a recent Gallup survey only 51% of employees are engaged. There is a new workforce today...the Millennial's and by 2025 they will make up 75% of the US workforce. We must take a different leadership approach to the millennial mindset and what matters most to them. Throw away those old fashioned "call center metrics" and start looking at ways to measure engagement, loyalty and a sense of belonging. How do you blend the digital employee with the human employee?
3. Timing- this is everything.... the problem today is that technology and people are changing at such a rapid speed, I have personally seem more changes impacting contact centers in the last 5 years compared to the total 25 years of working in contact centers. Don't wait to invest in your contact center, when you are losing it's too late.

Good News....The value of innovating and re-tooling your contact center is tremendous:

• Cloud Computing provides rapid scaling and seamless customer experiences with wider reach
• Blending digital employee with the human employee helps to lower costs, improve customer experience and employee morale
• Changing people processes that enables you to attract, develop and retain top talent will provide a huge "lift off"

So, final question.... what stops you from being innovative and re-tooling your contact center? Please reach out to me, I would love to help!

Editors note: This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.

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.

#CustServ #QOTD

"Follow the Leader", Featuring Erica Marois

How can digital content be used to enhance customer experience?

According to Wikipedia, digital content (also known as digital media), is stored on digital or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally broadcast, streamed, or contained in computer files.

So, what does digital content have to do with customer service? While marketing teams most often “own” a brand’s digital content, customer service needs to have a stake, too. We already know that customer experience is now the #1 competitive differentiator, but I believe brands that work across departments to deliver useful digital content will have the greatest opportunity to retain existing customers and attract new ones in 2018.

The possibilities are endless, but here are three ways to use digital content to enhance the customer experience:

1. Social media Whether you offer formal social media customer care or not, you can use social platforms to educate your customers. For example, Dore Juvenile, winner of the ICMI Global Contact Center Award for Best Social Media Customer Care, uses Facebook live videos to teach their customers how to properly install car seats. (And if Facebook’s not your thing, YouTube works!) Think about your products and services. How could you use social media to share quick tips and tricks that would improve the customer experience, and potentially reduce related call volume?
2. Blogging The contact center communicates with customers all day long—via phone, email, chat, etc. The data from those interactions is invaluable and can easily translate to powerful online content. Analyze the top three or four questions your contact center receives each month, and then work with marketing to answer those questions in a blog post. (Make sure the post is easy to search and find, and make sure it’s in brand voice. Disjointed customer experiences are sooo 2012.)
3. Email Yes, I said email. No, email’s not dead. The key to effective email messaging: be concise and add value. Here a few ways you could use email to improve the customer experience:

o   Birthday cards with a special gift or discount code

o   Shipping notifications & updates (Be proactive! Don’t make customers wonder or force them to call you for an update)

o   Education: send a quick tip each Tuesday (Help your customers help themselves!)

Again, the key to success here is consistency. If your email voice doesn’t match your website voice, or the voice your agents use when communicating with customers, the experience will confuse your customers.

How do YOU use digital content to enhance the customer experience? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!

Erica Marois is the Content Manager at UBM plc. With a background in marketing, public relations, and social media, she brings more than eight years of community management experience to ICMI.

As ICMI's Content Manager, she oversees ICMI’s contributor network, designing ICMI’s community outreach programs at our events, managing ICMI’s weekly Twitter chat (#ICMIchat) and other social media strategies. Erica also serves as the product manager for ICMI’s Global Contact Center Awards.

Follow the leader: LinkedIn | Twitter

#CustServ #QOTD

#CustServ #QOTD

Friday Funny

Amazing Service Begins with Engaged Leaders

Editors note: This article was originally posted on eTouchPoint.

Providing service to customers is not as hard as some make it seem. It does take diligence and effort to do it exceptionally well. In its simplest form, it is about treating customers with courtesy and respect. Unfortunately, in the business world we often lose sight of that truth.

When doing business leads to unsatisfied customers, it is time to reevaluate how business is done. Companies are competing for the same customer, and if all things are equal, customer service is usually a deciding factor for the consumer.

How can you as a contact center leader help your agents to be successful in providing “amazing” service above and beyond?

Review Processes

Exceptional service allows agents to offer immediate solutions without getting bogged down in processes or policy. This leads to happy, loyal customers. In turn, your contact center will see an improvement with CSAT.

Removing barriers that prevent exceptional customer service will lead to a more engaged service center. I make it practice of regularly reviewing processes, policies and procedures impacting our customers and agents. As business needs change, policies should be reviewed and updated if necessary.

Listen to Agent Feedback

I’ve never met an agent who enjoys denying customer requests. On the contrary, they have a desire to satisfy them. Agents will often offer up ideas—or come up with creative suggestions to make customers happier if you ask them for feedback.

For example, my team members requested that they be allowed to offer a good will credit to customers. This request was due to their willingness go beyond good service to amazing service. They knew that random acts of kindness made customers happy.

What I learned is that listening to their feedback and ideas empowered agents and made them feel a part of the decision-making process. Upon implementation, we were able to see how this directly impacted customer and agent satisfaction.

Secure Manager Buy-in

I’ve always treated my team as customers. In my opinion, showing them what great service looks like is more impactful than telling them. When they see it alive in you, they will emulate it among one another and customers. Leadership must be committed to improving and should regularly attend training, seminars and conferences.

Frontline supervisors, leads, and managers are a great source for ideas. Allowing them freedom to develop CX initiatives will ensure they remain customer-focused and invested in organizational goals.

I also recommend that all leadership review customer feedback and CSAT performance as a team. Some of the benefits in doing so is keeping everyone is aware of department/team performance, so that problems can be identified and new ideas can be presented to the group.

Below are four simple and immediate steps you as a leader can implement on your journey to customer service excellence.

• Empower agents: accept feedback and include them in decision-making process
• Be transparent: use honest and effective communication internally & externally
• Be accessible: provide support in multiple channels, expand support hours
• Be attentive: your own active listening allows agents to better assist customer and anticipate future needs

As you can see, these suggestions can be easily implemented, are quick wins, and address core areas of customer experience. With consistency, effort, and diligence, I’m convinced these steps will set you on the right path and improve your service department.

Author: Sean B. Hawkins

Currently the Director, Contact Center and Customer Service at Framework Homeownership, Sean B. Hawkins has over 15 years of progressive call center leadership and experience in the public, private and government sectors.

He has led or consulted contact centers of various sizes across numerous industries and environments including sales, BPO, and SaaS to name a few. Additionally, he has implemented new technology and products, while maintaining award-winning contact centers.

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