Category: Customer Experience

Have you heard a story about MYReanult, the app that was designed to balance customer needs, market conditions, and digital solutions? Axis Partners reveals how one website transformed into a highly engaging app to deliver a meaningful purpose and enhance brand loyalty. At Axis Partners, we are always happy to share real-world examples of innovation…
The post How the MYRenault app set on a journey to improve brand loyalty appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

The podcast market is rapidly booming. Listeners love to hear good storytelling and uncensored, spontaneous conversations. To stand out from the crowd, however, producers need to constantly deliver an exceptional podcast listener experience. The CXM team shares exciting industry news about the partnership between Alida, the world’s first CXM & Insights Platform, and PodPlays on…
The post PodPlays elevating podcast listener experience with Alida Touchpoint appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Call center managers and agents know that a high volume of inbound customer calls can make or break a business day. During pandemics and other moments of crisis, call center agents are inundated with overwhelming spikes in call volume. That’s why it’s become increasingly important for businesses to upgrade their call center technologies, processes, and staffing practices to get ahead of the call-spike curve — ideally without breaking the bank.
The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume
But how can a call center save money when all signs point to a) rising costs; and b) the need for increased support to handle excess inbound phone inquiries? The simple answer is to hire more agents, but as any experienced contact center manager will tell you, spending time and money on sourcing talent often leads to making a call center even more expensive.
Never fear: there are alternatives, many of them related to outsourcing, upgrading, and optimizing your call center for the 21st century.
7 Ways to Lower Your Call Center Spending
1. Add remote call center teams.
Extend your office beyond its four walls by outsourcing your call center agents, locally or offshore. Having a backup remote team when disaster strikes, or at least when unpredictable call volumes rear their heads, brings peace of mind to agents. They can also lower your customers’ frustration levels and time spent on hold.
Not convinced offshore outsourcing is the right move for your business No problem: many outsourced remote call center teams can provide their professional services right from the US or Canada.
2. Reduce telco costs by offering call-backs.
Too many calls and not enough time to answer them? Forcing customers to wait on hold for hours on end? You may be surprised to learn: there’s a better, cost-saving alternative to this scenario that can ultimately eliminate hold time for good.
By offering call-backs, customers are empowered to save their place in the phone queue, hang up, and receive a call-back when the next available agent is free. The business case for call-backs is clear: they smooth out call spikes, improve the customer experience, lower your telco costs, and reduce abandonment rates.
3. Save time and money with an overflow handling service.
Overflow handling services are cost-effective and ensure that agents are always prepared for call volume spikes, saving you customers you would have otherwise lost on abandoned calls. Overflow services also improve the customer experience and ultimately support your business’ bottom line. Plus, this type of outsourced call center support can positively impact on your CSat scores and your overall customer experience ratings.
What is Call Overflow Handling?
4. Modernize your existing phone system infrastructure.
Opting for time- and energy-saving phone system options is worth a budget-savvy call center manager’s time. These features can incorporate call routing, log calls more seamlessly, and improve multichannel responsiveness.
Choosing an automated technology that easily integrates with your current customer service infrastructure can help with voicemail, IVR, and other features. Plus, it will help you hold onto your hard-earned dollars and ensure that your call center is ready for what your work week has in store.
5. Work with what you have: invest in training-up your agents.
An informed and highly-trained call center team makes for a better operation. If you notice knowledge gaps and challenges in your agents’ ability to handle peak periods, it may be time for a training tune-up.
As an alternative to outsourcing, try reinvesting in your existing staff with a refresher on customer service technologies and processes, and incorporating gamification as part of that process. Or, you could source training organizations like CSPN to provide support. Regardless of your approach, it’s important to arm your staff with the tools and confidence needed to assist your customers.
6. Take advantage of AI to better predict call spikes.
Today’s contact center intelligence is more than equipped to anticipate call overflow periods. Automated call center AI now provides call centers with extremely accurate forecasting of call volume patterns, and are thus instrumental in helping call centers properly schedule their agents in advance of peak periods. Even better, these types of predictive technologies are far more affordable than ever before.
Top Contact Center Technology Trends in 2021
7. Offer self-service to your customers.
Lower the amount of time your contact center staff spends trying to scale a mountain of backed-up incoming calls. Customer self-service solutions like Bright Pattern can help by managing self-service features like calls, chats, emails, and SMS/text messages. By investing in omnichannel solutions, your contact center can save money on dropped calls and better serve customers on their preferred communication line.
Luckily, there are many options to help you avoid spending even more money on expensive call center operations. Smart phone systems, outsourcing services, call-backs, and call center technologies can better equip your busy customer support center for success while saving you time, money, and the headache of unsatisfied customers.The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

When a new medium shows up that allocates attention, someone comes out ahead.

They win a Google search, amass a ton of FB followers, hit the jackpot on Twitter or even Clubhouse.

“They picked me!” and the attention feels inevitable. Others see the pennies from heaven and rush in to follow, eager for their share of traffic.

But there is no “they” and you weren’t picked. The algorithm needs to send attention somewhere, and for a while, it sent it over there. But it almost certainly won’t last. Because the ecosystem is changing, all the time.

You can’t post on a same platform twice, because the second time, it’s not the same platform as it was last time.

We have a chance to do work we’re proud of, and to do it for people who care. And maybe we can do it in a way that will lead them to tell the others. Traffic from an algorithm isn’t the point, it’s a random bonus.

No sense being a puppet, especially if you can’t be sure who is pulling the strings or why.

Five9 IVA proved to be an ideal solution to help IQVIA provide a better customer experience. It was deployed for IQVIA as an auto attendant to allow customers to simply say what they were calling about. This flat menu significantly reduced the effort required from customers and resulted in a much higher percentage of correctly routed calls. In fact, with very little professional services training, the application was able to route 87% of callers correctly based on their first attempt and 93% after a re-prompt from the virtual agent. And in addition to improving the customers’ experience, the improved routing produced a 15% reduction in average handle time. Agents were able to help customers more effectively because they had the correct skills for the type of issue the customer was experiencing. This is a great example because it is a practical approach to the use of AI that has immediate and tangible benefits to the business. Full article: https://www.five9.com/blog/self-service-use-case-in-action-auto-attendant
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As customer demands grow, so does the need for customer experience operations to go beyond what’s known to be traditional customer service. There’s an expanding urgency for brands to offer a dynamic and highly personalized service and a need for a contact centre to evolve into more than just a complaints hotline. The industry is…
The post 3 ways gig customer service is shaping the CX industry appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

A “Deer Xing” sign isn’t there to tell the deer where to cross the road.

It’s there to let drivers know that this is the spot where deer often choose to cross the road.

Because deer can’t read signs, and even if they could, they probably wouldn’t bother to obey them. People, on the other hand, are far more likely to be killed by hitting a deer than they are by a shark bite.

A good signmaker is aware of “who’s it for” and “what’s it for.” In this case, the hope is that drivers will be more careful.

Too often, signs of all kinds (metaphorical signs, not just physical ones), are simply ALL CAPS YELLING about how the signmaker is frustrated about something they can’t control. If you can’t influence something, why are you yelling about it?

You can build a city below sea level, and it might work for a while, but sooner or later, the water will win.

Trends don’t determine whether we’ll be able to accomplish something tomorrow. But seeing and then understanding the trends allows us to work with the wind at our backs, instead of fighting it.

Consider demographics, technology and science. All three are inexorably moving, and while they can be ignored, sooner or later, they catch up with our project and push against it. We can deny the facts of the world around us, with passion or even vitriol, but trends compound.

When you can, focus on something tenable.

Innovators rarely have a competition problem. The challenge isn’t that your market is buying from an alternative provider–the challenge is that they’re buying from no one.

The work we do and the stories we tell when we seek to create activation are dramatically different from the mindset of competition, and yet the lessons from our culture (sports, mass merchants, politics) are all about competition.

“We’re better than them,” is a competition slogan.

That’s very different from, “things could be better,” or “you’re missing this new thing,” or, “people you admire are already using this.”

If you want to grow, you’ll need to get someone to not only decide that you’re worth their time and money, you’ll need to motivate them to act now instead of later.

Global Gurus’ list for World’s Top 30 Customer Service Professionals for 2021 came out recently, and I wanted to use it as an opportunity to highlight some of my friends and colleagues who are not only on the list, but who have shared their wisdom on my podcast. (And, of course, I appreciate Global Gurus for including me on the list once again!) 
Throughout my 35 years as a customer experience expert and speaker, I’ve seen that it’s vital to learn from others in the community. To become a successful professional, you need to be open to having new conversations, asking questions, and always being willing to learn more about the people around you. My gift to you is sharing conversations with these incredible colleagues through my podcast to help you further your career and develop your leadership skills.
1. Chip R. Bell tells us why truth is vital to trust
My friend Chip R. Bell needs no introduction in this industry; he’s authored numerous influential books and is a trusted speaker and consultant. In our conversation, Chip discusses the importance that truth and trust have in the relationship between an organization and its customers. Chip explained it in this way:

“I want to talk about trust. There’s a lot to trust. But the most part is about truth. What you find in environments where there’s a lot of innovation and ingenuity is an element of–absolutely–a truthful environment.
 
I’ve always been amazed how when we stand as witnesses, and we put our hand on the Bible, and we raise our hand, we say, ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God.’
 
Now, why do we go through all that rigmarole where we have to mention through trust three times the whole truth? Nothing. But the truth is because people oftentimes hold back little white lies, or because they don’t tell the whole thing. And so it’s creating an environment where you say, ‘Let’s put it all out there, no holds barred.’
 
We want to be diplomatic and fair. But we want also, we want total complete transparency. And when you have that environment, it’s one of safety.”

 
Listen to the full episode & read the show notes» 

2. Joseph Michelli explores how we can harness change
I’ve interviewed my friend Joseph Michelli, author, speaker, and organizational consultant, several times and we always have fascinating conversations. When we were speaking on change and its challenges, Joseph shared some insights from his conversations with leaders in a variety of industries during the pandemic:

Change is gonna happen whether you’re going to be in charge of it or you’re going to be waiting for it or you’re going to be resisting it. You get to cut some choices here. But the change you didn’t get to choose.
 
And so we saw, again, brands that were willing to know what was going on in the marketplace, they pivoted digital, which is necessary for functioning. But they also realized there was a change in people’s appetite for wanting to be with each other.
 
So while we were having business and commerce in ways we’ve never done before, thanks to technology, we were longing to be together. And so they were trying to find ways to put humans in places with this technology and I think leveraging change in harnessing change was a function of being human power and technology-aided.”

 
Listen to the full episode & read the show notes » 

3. Jay Baer explains why we must rethink how we treat customers based on loyalty
Jay Baer, the founder of Convince & Convert, a digital strategy consulting firm and author of Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers With Word of Mouth, joined me on my podcast to talk about his latest book. We spoke about why companies should implement change the way they approach customer loyalty:

The best way to upset customers is to treat them equitably. I feel like a lot of companies are looking this way because they are so addicted to tiered experiences: if you are a loyal customer you’re in the rewards club or whatever, you get this awesome CX. But if you are not, it doesn’t matter; you are not terribly important to us and we don’t care about your experience. I don’t think that is a great way to run a business.
 
This idea is about everybody having the same experience, that every customer has a crack at that ‘talk trigger.’”

 
Listen to the full episode & read the show notes »

4.  Adrian Swinscoe shares his views on leading effectively
Adrian Swinscoe, author of the book, Punk CX, and I spoke on my podcast about ways to push your leadership skills. In our conversation, he challenges you to roll up your sleeves and dig in:

“When was the last time that you served one of your customers? When was the last time you said hello to them on the phone or you shook their hand or helped them fulfill an order or you went to visit them?
 
It is a little bit like being the team captain or manager of a sports team: if you cannot get all the players to agree to a way to play together, then it’s not their fault, that is your fault because you are the one in charge, so sort it out. If someone is not willing to play ball, then bench them.”

 
Listen to the full episode & read the show notes » 

I want to encourage you all to check out the full versions of these podcasts for some great tips on moving forward in your customer experience journey. But these are just a few of the over 200 episodes of the podcast that we’ve published over the years. For more interviews with other leaders in our industry, be sure to subscribe to the show via email (below) or through iTunes or Google Play.

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The post 4 “Global Gurus” Share Their Advice for Customer Experience Leaders appeared first on Customer Bliss.