Category: Customer Experience

We all know a company’s brand is about so much more than what is on the website. In reality, it’s about how customers experience the company within every interaction, both online and offline. While most of us are thinking of interactions in the world we see today, due to emerging technologies, a whole other universe…
The post Metaverse: the new CX universe appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

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Developing your customer experience (CX) could significantly affect your top and bottom lines. As a matter of fact, improving customer experience services produces a profit increment of $823 million, as per the Temkin Group. A CX investment by a firm can likewise lessen functional costs e.g., expense to serve, as per Harvard Business Review. Also, unsatisfied customers are costly, everybody knows that.
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Chain restaurants rarely use fresh herbs. They’re uneven, unreliable and expensive, and most diners have been conditioned to want food that’s more processed and bland.

The same is true for most of what we buy and sell. It’s becoming ever more predictable, pre-processed and cost-reduced.

The pressure tends to go in one direction–turn your work into a commodity, smooth over the edges and fit in all the way. That seems hard to argue with, particularly if you want to be popular and profitable.

But the restaurant that makes the best sabich in all of New York City takes a different approach. At Nana, in an obscure shopping mall on the outskirts of an outer borough, they’re serving memorable food that doesn’t match the prevailing industrial model. You can’t get something similar from your grocer’s freezer. It’s distinctive and probably a lot more difficult to produce on a regular basis.

The same could be true for what you choose to do. It might not get you a Fortune 500 company as a client, and probably won’t make you #1 on whatever bestseller list tracks the one that’s for everyone, but it might be exactly the work that you’re proud to do.

Thanks, Gina, for caring. And for anyone who goes out of their way to add fresh herbs when they don’t have to.

I’ve had the great honor of working with Southwest Airlines for many years and spent a lot of time talking to, not only Herb Kelleher, but Colleen Barrett who was the president (now president emerita). Once, I was talking to Colleen, and what she said was: Jeanne, at almost every board meeting, we have to fight to make sure that we don’t let those fees seep in, that we don’t start charging change fees or luggage fees, because that’s the foundation upon which people believe in us. And that’s our integrity. And so we got to keep watching that.
Especially those things you hold dear, hold on to them, honor them and have this lens. Part of what happens is that people will look at a spreadsheet and say, “We can get $50 million more out of customers if we do this little up-charge.”
Well, yeah, that may be good for today, but not for tomorrow’s customers who are going to potentially walk away from you.
I have clients who have lost $50 million customers for $200 change fees.
So sticking to your guns in your integrity, around your decision making really does bind you to customers.
Do the Customer Math
One of the things that we often do in this work is ask people how we’re doing and that’s our survey score. But honoring the customer as the asset also should come from measuring, “Are they responding with their feet, in terms of staying longer? Bringing more people?”
So one of the things I encourage you to do is customer math. Did we gain volume and value? Did we lose volume and value? And what’s our net customer asset growth? As a result of the experience we delivered? Did we earn the right to grow?
This is why I love the story of Bonobos. Bonobos is a really intriguing company; they actually create what they call “guide shops” where you go in and try on the stuff but it’s just for trying it on. But what they know is: to a specific degree, the lifetime value of their customers, because understanding that really helps you you know and honor them and take care of the life. But what they know for example is based on how many touch points, once a new bonobos customer either starts in a guide shop or places their first order online, the lifetime value in the growth of that customer.
So what I encourage you to do is, besides listening in terms of your voice of customer surveys, do the operational listening. Understand how many calls people make in, where they are waiting, what they’re working toward, and then look at the behavior of if they rise or fall in their asset growth with you.
Now, this is interesting, because this is an attitude shift. It’s not a dashboard, it puts you in a position to honor that your customers.
Prove Your Values Through Your Actions
Practicing leadership bravery really has to be done with these actions to think about.
How can you prove with actions? The key is to wire these into your DNA. I’ve interviewed lots of amazing people recently— Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, etc.—and our conversation is all around sustainability of these heroic actions.
Now that we found a way to be very human—we’re on zoom calls in our living rooms, we’re making very human actions and behaviors that kind of go out of the bounds of our normal norms of operating—how can we make sure we don’t lose that humanity? The next thing is really do that math, know your agent and customer value, and then use that in a way to let people make the call.
I used to fly millions and millions of miles. And I had, for example, 5 million miles with American Airlines. And one day, I lost my Admirals Club card.
And I went in and I asked the agent, “Could I have another Admirals Club card?”
And it wasn’t her fault, the agent was boxed in. She said to me, “That’ll be $250, please.”
You will send people packing. Customers will wonder, “Don’t you know how much I mean to you?”
Finally, build that proactive outreach. When we look at those operational metrics, make sure you’re not doing anything inadvertently that’s reducing the lifetime value of your customer. Our responsibility everybody really is simple: it is to improve lives.
Leadership Bravery earns and builds the kind of company that builds human and financial prosperity. And yes, growth.
How we choose to correct something that goes wrong—how steadfast we are, in delivering the goods, ensuring quality, and giving our people what they need—sends a signal to our customers, to our partners or employees in the marketplace, about who we are and about what we value.

Now that we found a way to be very human—we’re on Zoom calls in our living rooms, we’re operating out of the bounds of our normal operations—how can we make sure we don’t lose that humanity?Click To Tweet

Choose Leadership Bravery
It’s about choosing and our collective choices. So choose. Choose to enable your people to thrive, to build the best version of themselves, and enable them to make these congruent decisions which you’re already doing. Just elevate it consistently on an ongoing basis across your organization.
Choose to make it easy to do business with you build in respect delivery.
Choose to help customers achieve their goal reorient the operation of your business around the customer’s life and their goals and redefine how you measure success.
And finally, choose to practice that leadership bravery that separates you from the pack and builds those stronger and deeper relationships with your customer.

Choose to enable your people to thrive, to build the best version of themselves, and enable them to make these congruent decisions which you’re already doing.Click To Tweet

The post Why We Must Do the Customer Math and Practice Leadership Bravery appeared first on Customer Bliss.

‘Ultimately, purpose is the engine of long-term profitability.’ Larry Fink, CEO, BlackRock Over the past two years, the CXM team was regularly reporting on the importance of purpose and value in business. The impact of trust-building in the CX industry finally came into the spotlight. However, closing the gap between company purpose and the actions…
The post Is there are a gap between your corporate purpose and action? appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

As the customer experience continues to be a top priority for contact centers, so should the technology they use. Contact centers are rich with customer data that often is not leveraged in a way to improve the customer experience. In order to meet the growing demand of customers, companies must look to leverage advanced, real-time applications in artificial intelligence, real time speech analytics, coaching guidance, biometrics, and more. However, it has traditionally been difficult integrating real-time applications into the contact center and rightfully so – that’s where Five9 VoiceStream comes into play to power such applications. Full article: https://www.five9.com/blog/reimagining-the-contact-center-experience-with-five9-voicestream
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Call center employees wear many hats! Agents are tasked with providing customer service, solving customer problems, and conducting research — all with a smile and a positive attitude.
While call center agents rely on hard skills — or technical skills — to handle contact center technology, call center soft skills are just as critical for success. Sometimes referred to as “transferrable skills”, these skills are made up of a person’s personality traits, habits, and behaviors.
Contact center agents develop soft skills through their own life experiences, and use them to provide a positive, customer experience. This type of skill-set is also necessary to foster a positive work environment.
How to Foster Agent Engagement in a Hybrid Contact Center
Many employers value soft skills over hard skills, since most hard skills can be acquired through call center training. After all, it’s easier to teach someone how to use a computer system — it’s much more difficult to help them empathize with a customer.
Let’s go through some essential soft skills for a contact center agent, and how they help assure a strong customer experience.
Active listening.
Communication doesn’t start without listening. Specifically, active listening entails a complete focus on the customer’s words, processing and understanding those words, resisting the urge to interrupt, and responding in a thoughtful, validating manner.
In a contact center, agents are faced with countless problems mentioned by customers. To fully grasp the customer’s issue and to find the relevant resource to help that customer, agents must engage in active listening. Moreover, active listening is essential in dealing with irritated customers
Communication skills.
Call center agents require strong communication skills to do their jobs. Agents should channel clarity and professionalism in the way they communicate with customers. Additionally, they should be able to transfer their knowledge of products and services into understandable, accessible communication to a customer. Clear communication promotes quicker resolution, while professionalism improves customer satisfaction.
Role play is a great form of call center agent training that helps agents learn how to listen, understand, and communicate.
How to Improve Contact Center Agent Performance
Adaptability.
Since call center agents deal with customers, who at the end of the day are human, an appetite for change is essential. As contact centers use call monitoring and other technology to measure progress, agents must be adaptable to new ways of doing business to ensure processes line up with customer needs.
Changes requiring adaptability might look like extra training or mentorship to adapt to changing customer needs, or new technology to improve efficiency.
Problem solving.
Many calls that an agent receives entail listening to a problem and then finding a solution. Agents must think fast and identify a customer’s problem, evaluate the customer’s needs, and then find a solution.
Problem-solving is a soft skill that requires a sense of initiative and autonomy, as well as adaptability to respond to new problems effectively. Effective problem-solving skills can improve average handle time and customer satisfaction.
Patience.
Customers are forced to be patient when calling call centers, even though most customers hate waiting. The least an agent can do is practice that same patience in taking care of a customer’s needs. Patience for an agent might look like waiting for a customer to finish sharing their story and experience, especially if the customer is confused or upset.
While some customers might not immediately acknowledge an agent’s patience, they will certainly notice an agent’s impatience. This is an important soft skill that is essential for customer loyalty and problem resolution.
Empathy.
Many callers to a call center have a problem they want to deal with. Some customers might feel confused, upset, and sometimes, downright angry! Empathy from an agent comforts worried customers and shows them that the call center values their experience. It’s important to make a customer feel supported and valued throughout a confusing or difficult time.
7 Call Center Empathy Phrases Every Agent Should Use With Their Customers
Conclusion.
Curious about your agents’ soft skills? Fonolo’s call monitoring and analytics help assess agents’ communication and problem-solving skills and offer the required data to improve customer experiences.The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

Actually, the sign will never be big enoughMake the announcement louder. Make the logo bigger. Yell. Call more people on the phone to sell them an extended warranty. Send more emails. Hustle harder.

None of it works.

The problem with the fountain isn’t that they didn’t make a big enough sign. The problem is that the fountain itself is poorly designed. It’s an attractive nuisance, a dangerous thing to put in the middle of a boring courtyard. The sides invite sitting and standing, and the height beckons people to walk in and around it. And the consistent cues of its design aren’t going to be undone by an ugly, intrusive sign, even one in red with ALL CAPS.

And louder and more persistent PA announcements aren’t going to help if the situation people are in has lulled them into not listening.

And a bigger logo isn’t going to get someone to care about your company if the product and your story don’t resonate with them.

Insisting on a bigger interruption is lazy. It’s lazy because if you really cared about solving the problem, you’d change the situation, not yell about it.

If you get the design right, you can whisper instead.

Whenever you see one of those popup windows come up on a website, you think “chatbot.” However, that’s not always the case. You could be interacting with a virtual agent rather than a chatbot. There’s a difference between the two types of technology. Chatbots and virtual agents are different, both can incorporate into your contact center to elevate the customer experience. Highlights:
Chatbots and virtual agents are similar; they’re both software, but there are important differences.
Chatbots are simpler and don’t use AI.
Virtual agents are more sophisticated, can offer better answers, and utilize AI to deliver the assistance customers need.
Full article: https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/virtual-agent-vs-chatbot/
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