Category: Customer Experience

Your house contains products from hundreds of thousands of suppliers and craftspeople.

The food you eat comes to you from a very loosely coordinated (not organized, not controlled) network of millions of vendors and farmers.

To read this blog, you’re using software from hundreds (probably thousands) of companies, all barely connected in time and space.

In the Star Trek future, it’s all seamless, coherent and controlled.

In fact, the hodgepodge continues to get more chaotic, not less.

The work is to build and influence systems, not to seek to control it all.

It’s easy to imagine that they are, as it lets us off the hook as habits become negative, or even addictions.

If someone else is thriving without the habit we seem to need, then it’s likely a desire pretending to be a need.

For example: You can be a successful professional without spending time on social media.

Happy Friday! We’re bringing you the latest roundup of industry news. This week, we’re looking at Forsta’s predictive analytics, the eighth annual State of Marketing report, and a mass of new business updates caused by the cost-of-living crisis. This includes comments about Amazon’s Q3 results, what adverts Brits want to see this Christmas, and more. Key…
The post This week in CX: Twitter, Amazon, and cost-of-living business updates appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Whatever the size of your contact center, there will likely come a time when you notice your numbers slipping and employees losing steam while their productivity fizzles. In a world still managing pandemic burnout and fears around health and safety, it’s easy for processes to become disjointed and for management to stop pushing for growth. Sounds like a good time to shake things up!
Developing and executing a call center improvement strategy is no easy feat, but if you plan properly and get your employees excited about a change, your contact center will be back on track and producing even better results!
Start Creating a Call Center Improvement Strategy
Step one may seem overwhelming, but it’s absolutely essential. It’s time to dig into the current state of your contact center. When we say dig in, we really mean it. Don’t leave any stones unturned. The items below are key data points you should know about your contact center before getting started, but it’s not a comprehensive list. Feel free to add elements that fit your specific needs.
Gather Your Data:

Customer satisfaction score
Average handle time
Agent absenteeism rate
Agent engagement
Call quality
First call resolution rate
Occupancy rate
Agent churn
Call volume
Call abandonment rate
Employee happiness level
Net promoter score

TIP:
Conducting anonymous employee satisfaction surveys is a great way to determine how team members feel about their jobs. Ask questions about their level of engagement, what improvements they’d like to see, and whether they feel happy at work. Use these results as a baseline for achieving the more ambiguous goals of improved agent engagement and happiness levels.

Call Center Improvement in 5 Easy Steps
After finding your baselines, it’s time to start determining your next steps to contact center success. These five tips can help you overcome the obstacles preventing your contact center from reaching its full operating potential.
1. Set measurable goals and communicate them clearly.
 List out every single one of your key performance indicators (KPIs), noting where they’re at now, and where you’d like them to be. Set a specific date establishing when you’d like to achieve these goals. All your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relative, timely. Some examples include:

Increase CSat score from Y to Z by [this date].
Host three social events for contact center agents by [this date].
Add one new contact channel (like Twitter) to the customer journey by [this date].

Once you’ve established the goals you’d like to achieve for the call center, communicate them to your team members clearly and provide status updates along the way. Ensure everyone’s on the same page, working together to reach new heights.
How to Set Team Customer Service Goals
2. Make sure your call center agents are consistently engaged.
 It’s no surprise that consistent agent engagement leads to positive customer interactions and overall improved call center performance. As the saying goes: happiness is contagious. Customers can tell when an agent is excited about the work they do, leading to more trust and higher quality interactions.
According to HubSpot, 69% of employees say happiness is key to their ability to work efficiently. Engage your employees by offering on-going training, employee incentives, team bonding activities, and flexible scheduling. All of these activities contribute to a more engaged contact center workforce.
It’s no surprise that consistent #agent engagement leads to positive #customer interactions and overall improved #ContactCenterPerformance. As the saying goes: “Happiness is contagious!” #ContactCenterSuccessClick To Tweet
3. Find inefficiencies in your technology and determine how to correct them.
You could have the best agents in the world but if your technology doesn’t allow them to properly serve customers, their talents won’t get put to good use. Take stock of your technology and determine if it’s meeting your needs. Consider expanding or upgrading your tech to include these contact center staples:

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system that helps to direct customers in the queue to the right agents to meet their needs, improving KPIs like First Call Resolution and Average Hold Time.
Voice-Call Backs that smooth out call spikes and empower customers to request a call back when it’s their turn in the queue. We’re experts on this one!
Cloud-Hosted Security and Storage instead of hardware.
Customer Relationship Management software that tracks client history and data and allows for quick and easy access to all the information agents need in a matter of seconds.
Chatbots that manage smaller or faster online requests.

4. Forecast calls like a pro.
Keeping an eye on your call volume and establishing a call forecasting plan that makes the most of your staffing is an excellent way to tighten up on spending and improve call center efficiency. Analyze historical data around key dates like holidays or big sales (Black Friday, for example). Were they extra busy or extra quiet? See if you can spot patterns in your weeks and months. Are Mondays especially busy because your contact center is closed on the weekend? Do you always have services on sale at the same time every few months? Use this data to properly anticipate the staffing needs of the contact center.
The Best Tips for Forecasting Your Call Volumes Like a Pro
5. Get specific with agent productivity and performance.
Though having team goals is engaging, fun, and essential to contact center success, it’s also important to individualize your processes and training based on specific agents’ needs. Create comprehensive goal-setting plans with each individual agent so they’re always working towards something and are given the chance to improve on any mistakes they’ve previously made. Book monthly check-ins to ensure agents are still comfortable with these goals at work. Allow them space to make up their own goals as well.The post 5 Call Center Improvement Ideas to Boost Business first appeared on Fonolo.

Fair is often in the eye of the beholder. What you think is fair might depend on where you are in the transaction. Losers tend to think an outcome is more unfair than winners do.

But square?

The thing about square is that everyone can agree on that part.

If something is fair and square, then the losers can concur with the winners, because square isn’t relative.

The secret is simple: if the calculations look the same regardless of what you’re rooting for, then you’ve found the method. The outcome should be unrelated to the method.

A loyal customer is a satisfied customer. I know this very well as the core focus of my company is CX-aware solutions development. We use customer experience and customer satisfaction insights to inform our decisions for product designs. NPS, CSAT, and CES are the most commonly used customer satisfaction metrics. I’ll introduce you to each metric and show how they can help improve your business performance. CX metric #1: net promoter score (NPS) The Net Promoter Score measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products to others. It is used to identify the loyalty of customers to a company. How to measure customer experience with NPS? I usually measure NPS with a single question survey: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how are you likely to recommend company/brand/product X to a friend/colleague/relative?“ ​ https://preview.redd.it/bknuhd2krjx91.png?width=1249&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ca0089a7e0a0cefc3726d09e9c3ac865ddb3c2c Reading NPS CX metrics is easy. Here, 0 stands for not at all likely, and 10 is for extremely likely. Depending on the response, customers fall into one of three categories to establish an NPS score: ​ https://preview.redd.it/g9ruvzsipjx91.png?width=1249&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c71103cca2aaf7c59be0fb318888134cd9f83ea Consider implementing this CX metric into your customer experience strategy, as it can be used with industry NPS benchmarks to see how your product is doing compared to your competitors. The formula to calculate the NPS metric is simple. You have to subtract the percentage of customers who answer the question with a 6 or lower from the percentage of customers who answer with a 9 or 10. Customer satisfaction formula: NPS = % PROMOTERS – % DETRACTORS If you apply the NPS feedback correctly, you can adjust your business to meet customers’ needs without over-delivering in one area or under-delivering in another. CX metric #2: customer satisfaction score (CSAT) CSAT is a commonly-used key performance indicator for customer experience. I usually apply this metric to track how satisfied customers are with the product. CSAT surveys are one of the ways to measure customer experience in regard to a certain aspect of your product. For example, you’ve added a new feature and want to see how efficient and useful it is to the end users and if any improvements are necessary. ​ https://preview.redd.it/iicdip5srjx91.png?width=1250&format=png&auto=webp&s=13b80797e6ac91d27bc0851111e2ad51c873f5e7 Here’s an example of common CSAT questions: “How are you satisfied with our product?” or “How would you rate your overall satisfaction?” with the company, its product, or a certain interaction. A five-point customer experience scale is used, with the following options: 1) very unsatisfied, 2) unsatisfied, 3) neutral, 4) satisfied, and 5) very satisfied. Companies can calculate CSAT by using an average of 1-5 or focusing on the 4-5 responses. Customer satisfaction formula: (#) POSITIVE RESPONSES / (#) TOTAL RESPONSES X 100 = (%) CSAT To calculate the Customer Satisfaction Score, divide the number of “satisfied” or “very satisfied” respondents by the total number of respondents and multiply it by 100. This results in your CSAT percentage. CX metric #3: customer effort score (CES) With the CES experience metrics, we ask customers to score the amount of effort involved with a specific interaction. Using CES surveys, you can ask the question, “on a scale of ‘extremely easy’ to ‘extremely difficult, how easy was it to interact with .” ​ https://preview.redd.it/eurisgz0rjx91.png?width=1250&format=png&auto=webp&s=8fc4c4889fe9311dc4afa8c6cdfa66220bb0479a The idea is that customers are more loyal to a product that is easier to use. Customer churn is one of the main business drivers, and customer effort is a great indicator of loyalty. CES impacts your business outcomes and is ideal for tracking customer experience over time. To calculate the Customer Effort Score, determine the percentage of positive (easy and easy) and negative (complicated) responses to your CES survey. You can then subtract the number of negative responses from the positive responses. Customer satisfaction formula: CES = % EASY – % DIFFICULT If you get a high average, your company is making the experience convenient for customers. A low average indicates that there’s still work to be done in order to make the customer experience easier and more engaging. However, the drawback of CES is that it is more focused on evaluating a particular process of customer interaction, so it doesn’t give a broader understanding of the entire customer experience. For this reason, I apply CES together with Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction Score to get a better understanding of customer satisfaction. Other customer experience metrics Customer experience is multi-faceted. That’s why there’s no single CX KPI that would give you a straightforward answer as to whether the customer experience you provide is good or bad. To make sure you are guided by relevant data, you have to keep track of a variety of customer experience indicators. Although they do not point at customer experience flaws directly, they may well add context to the data you’ve already collected with the NPS, CSAT, and CES metrics. So, here are a few more KPIs to measure customer experience: Customer lifetime value (CLV) Customer health score (CHS) Customer retention rate Customer referral rate Customer churn rate Conversion rate Active users: daily (DAU), weekly (WAU), monthly (MAU) submitted by /u/joe_dojo [link] [comments]

It’s certainly a common excuse for being stuck.

In fact, there are more good ideas right now than ever before. That’s not the hard part.

Need a name for your project? This site will not only invent a thousand names, it will also generate a nearly infinite number of logos for you. Instantly. Surely, at least one of them is a “good idea.”

No, the hard part is choosing.

And the hard part is taking responsibility.

And the hard part is committing.

AI doesn’t help with these.

Brands are so afraid of returns, and often make the mistake of making them more difficult for customers. This is the most underrated area for CX teams to optimize in my opinion. It’s so helpful both for a customer who is still considering their purchase, and to retain and build long-term customers. Here’s why — ​ Reduce downside for the customer. This is the most obvious reason. Going beyond ‘30 day money back’ also goes a long way with customers. I recently bought something from Mr. Porter where they will have a concierge pick-up your unwanted purchase without me needing to do anything. ​ Build a better brand. you can price your products high, retaining an “elevated” brand image, while signaling to the customer that you’re so confident in your product that you’re willing to offer an insane returns (or warranty) policy. ​ Build better relationships and word-of-mouth. Let’s assume any given customer will return their item. You still have the checkout, post-purchase, shipment tracking, unboxing, and return process to “wow” them with your attention to detail and lack of friction — all of which create an actual relationship, and help inspire word-of-mouth. ​ Force better efficiencies on your back-end. You’ll be forced to protect your bottom line by working out the logistics first — if you dial in your returns workflow, you can become more efficient with the process, accounting for, and saving, many dollars rather than being stuck holding the bag when customers inevitably return. ​ Preserve revenue with a proactive process. By setting up a more thoughtful exchanges process with your customer support team, you can reduce unnecessary returns. Oftentimes returns are made because of size or color issues, or the customer just wanted to try two options, but would be happy to shop with you again if given store credit. ​ Brands that have excellent return policies: REI, Mr. Porter, Nordstrom, LL Bean, Patagonia, Zappos, and of course: Amazon. submitted by /u/jackson_corey [link] [comments]

Working in a call center can be extremely rewarding, especially for those who enjoy customer service and sales. But it’s up to management to promote call center motivation and create a work environment where their agents can gain a sense of satisfaction from their work.
It’s easy to say, “I’ll just hire someone who is self-motivated.” But even agents with strong work ethics are susceptible to burnout over time. If you plan to keep your team together for the long haul, you’ll want to make sure there are structures in place to support agent engagement efforts.
But which tactics are the right ones for your call center? To help you navigate this process, we’ll break down the different types of motivators and highlight proven tactics to help you and your call center team get on the right path.
The Contact Center Playbook for Improving Customer Satisfaction
Types of Motivators (And Why it Matters)
Selecting the right tactics to motivate your call center team can be overwhelming at first. A quick Google search will bring up a ton of tips and tricks, but it can be difficult to know which ones will work for you.
Most of these tips will fall into one of two categories: intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Let’s break down what they mean:
Extrinsic Motivators
Extrinsic motivators are perhaps the most common type of motivator associated with the call center. These involve offering external or material rewards for achieving goals, such as prizes, cash bonuses, or recognition.
Here’s the kicker: while extrinsic motivators drive behavior, they can lower motivation in your employees. These often remind agents of their obligation to work and can reduce the likelihood they’ll go “above and beyond” in their role.
You can still use extrinsic motivators in the call center, but they shouldn’t be your primary tool for leading your team. Ideally, intrinsic motivators will make up the foundation of your agent engagement strategy.
Intrinsic Motivators
Intrinsic motivators, as you may have guessed, nurture agents from an internal perspective. These techniques focus on investing in your agents, developing their skill sets, and encouraging their professional growth and development.
To understand why intrinsic motivators are so effective, we need to consider basic human needs. Agents who feel supported, well-compensated, and happy at work will be better motivated to perform their daily tasks.
Once these basic needs are met, the next stage involves appealing to your employees’ sense of autonomy at work, helping them understand how their daily work contributes to the overall business and guiding them in becoming experts in their role.

TIP:
While call center metrics like AHT and FCR are great benchmarks for performance, they aren’t great motivators. Prioritizing agent satisfaction and efficiency is the most effective way to achieve results!

10 Ways to Keep Call Center Agents Motivated
Now comes the part you’ve been waiting for: our comprehensive list of motivational techniques for the call center. The methods below are all intrinsic motivators, making them all great additions to your agent engagement strategy.
1. Create a positive work environment.
Whether you work in an office or remotely, it’s important to foster a work culture that makes agents feel safe, supported, and cared for.
Agents should be able to keep a good work-life balance and shouldn’t hesitate to take paid leave as they need to. Flexible hours and schedules are also important parts of a successful work environment. In short, your agents should enjoy their time at work, and feel in control of their personal and professional commitments.
2. Start with management and leadership.
Remember the phrase, “do as I say, not as I do”? This line encapsulates what NOT to do when working to build agent engagement and motivation.
Leading by example is the best way to ensure your team emulates the culture and values you want to see in your contact center. Prioritize training your management and leadership teams and hold them to those best practices.
3. Set clear and attainable goals.
There are few things more demoralizing than unachievable goals. While managers may see high targets as inspirational, agents will rarely view it the same way.
It’s important to be realistic when setting targets with your agents and to make sure they are comfortable rising to the challenge. Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) goals will help you achieve this.
4. Give them the right tools and technology.
No job is perfect, and call center work is no exception. At some point, every agent has been bogged down with processes and tasks that get in the way of completing their work. Fortunately, there’s excellent call center software that can automate the drab parts of the job, so your agents can spend more time supporting your callers.
High call volumes are the bane of every call center agent’s work. Long hold times make for unhappy callers, making phone conversations challenging right off the bat. By offering a call-back solution as an alternative to waiting on hold, agents can spend more time solving customer problems instead of managing their frustration.

TIP:
Call-backs are a call center’s best friend! Use them to lower abandonment rates, improve customer satisfaction (CSat), and much more. Learn more about call-backs here.

5. Encourage agent autonomy.
Your agents want to feel in control of their workdays, but that can be difficult to do if they don’t have the autonomy to do their work well. If they’re constantly waiting on approvals and escalations, it can hinder their overall performance.
By giving them the freedom to support their clients, you give them permission to go above and beyond in their work. Of course, you’ll need to invest in the proper training to make sure they’re up to the task. Trust us — it’s well worth the effort.
6. Assign special projects.
Call center work gets a bad rap for being repetitive and monotonous. Even the best call center agents will eventually tire of doing the same daily tasks over and over again.
This is where one-on-one meetings come in handy. Encourage call center managers to get to know their agents, their goals, and interests. Look out for special tasks and projects that you can entrust to your team members so they can expand their skill-sets while taking a much-deserved break from the phone lines.
7. Treat agents the way you treat your customers.
Did you know that agent satisfaction directly affects customer satisfaction? If agent engagement is low, you’ll start to see CSat dip as well. It’s one of many reasons why it’s important that your agents feel challenged, supported and engaged in their work.
Many of the tactics used in customer care can be applied to your employees. Focus on building strong relationships with them, and make sure you’re prioritizing their well-being. A workforce management tool can be helpful for tracking your progress as an organization.
3 Workforce Management Practices to Implement in Your Call Center
8. Offer feedback to your agents.
Your agents want to know where they stand with your organization, so offering feedback is key. By highlighting the positives of their work, you remind them that they’re valued. Don’t sit on your compliments — they are meant to be heard!
Constructive feedback is also an important part of keeping employees motivated. By challenging them to improve their skills and abilities, they will become more invested in their work and growth with the organization. Which brings us to our next point…
9. Highlight growth opportunities.
In an ideal world, the agents you hire will stay with your organization for years to come. Agents will be more inclined to act on constructive feedback if they know their efforts are helping them advance their career.
To help them envision a future with your business, you need to show them the possibilities for career progression. Create a career plan with each of your agents and touch base with them regularly to ensure they’re on a path that will bring them professional satisfaction and growth.
10. Listen to what your agents have to say.
Your agents are skilled professionals with the ability to improve your business — so let them! Listen to their ideas and offer pathways to implement great suggestions. If they feel heard and see management taking their feedback seriously, they’ll be more inclined to step up and do their best work.
Don’t make the mistake of taking your team’s feedback and not following through. If an agent offers a suggestion, the worst thing you can do is leave it on the backburner. Make sure you follow through on their comments and supply updates whenever possible, so they know their comments are making a difference.The post 10 Techniques to Motivate Call Center Agents first appeared on Fonolo.

Infinity is seductive.

1,000 emails take up just as much space (and cost just as much) as one. An online bookstore can carry every book ever published. And the long tail of music gives every single person a chance to share their work.

The simplest thing to do is “let the market sort itself out.” No judgment.

That’s what the algorithms of the tech world purport to do. No judgment about taste, quality or standards. Hands off about sources, repercussions or impact.

It’s easier. And at some level, it seems more fair.

Without the scarcity of limited shelf space, it’s easy to embrace infinity.

But no judgment is still a judgment in itself. When a site publishes every idea on its platform, promoting each based on a non-published formula, they’ve made a judgment about the power of ideas and the way a community can evolve. This is new. Libraries, bookstores, radio stations–all of the keepers of our culture–danced with scarcity and influence and responded with judgment. If you can’t carry or promote everything, then judgment is the obvious response. Because you have to pick something.

But when companies demur and refuse to make a judgment, infinity and scarcity collide. Institutional reputation and knowledge have value, and by ignoring them, the big tech companies are making a statement about that value. Each seems to be trying harder than the next to help users fail to understand what’s worth trusting.

The fracas that is kindergarten has a useful function. It helps kids grow up. But if you need surgery, I hope you’ll go to the hospital, not the local elementary school.