Take voice of customer seriously to enhance customer experience and positively influence bottom line [ICMI]

Three questions to test if you offer good customer service [Forbes]

World Retail Banking survey indicates that global banks have a significant opportunity to close the customer sentiment gap and address the factors that matter most to them to increase loyalty including quality of service (53 percent) [Market Watch]

Buykeywordarticles.com, a leading content creation company, provides proactive live chat to increase customer support [SFGate]

Digital innovation is enabling customers to act smarter than the firms that wish to serve them. Is your customer service ready? [Huffington Post]

It’s become trite to describe the world we live in as ‘fast-paced’ or ‘mobile-enabled’, but when you really think about it, we don’t wait for much these days. Want to read a book?—You can have it in seconds on your Kindle. Looking to catch the latest movie?—Buy it instantly with one click and stream it from your computer to your TV. There’s even a restaurant that offers customers a wireless magnet designed to let them order a pizza with a simple push. (If that isn’t instant gratification, I don’t know what is!)

And while all of this is amazing, convenient, and productivity-enabling, it sure makes getting used to anything that’s NOT instant that much harder. So it stands to reason that customers—used to having everything near-instantaneously—aren’t willing to suddenly slow down the pace of their lives for a service interaction. The goal is clear, then: as customer service organizations, we’d better be fast enough in responding to customers or we’re going to pay the price.

But how fast is ‘fast enough’? Read More »

Recently, a pizzeria in Dubai released a refrigerator magnet for VIP customers that can place an order with the touch of a button. The pizzeria has the customer’s preferences and payment options saved in the computer, and the magnet is connected to the user’s cell phone via Bluetooth technology. With one simple push, the order is placed and confirmation text message is sent to the user’s cell phone.

This pizzeria has set up a simple and effective self- service channel for their top customers to use. Now, this may just be a fun and entertaining way to place a dinner order, but the general idea of offering customers an easy-to-use self-service channel is an important one.  Customer service preferences have been trending towards self service for a while. CCC research shows that customers prefer to use self service channels such as web increasingly over the phone.  Surprisingly though, a significant number of customers who do call, tried resolving their issue on the web prior to calling.

Read More »

A recent blog post on the Customer Service website fonolo.com shared 10 service trends that will emerge in 2012.

Now these “top trends” articles always get me thinking about the conversations that I’ve had, and will have, with service executives around the world.  What’s new? What’s different?

Well, many of the identified trends from this article are *surprise, surprise* technology-related like, the increased utilization of “the cloud” for service organizations and the use of video in providing service to customers.

Putting those trends aside, there were two trends from the post that I want to share with you—two trends that I believe you can hit the “pause” and “fast forward” buttons on, respectively.  Specifically, the use of social media in service and how to better leverage Voice of Customer insights. Read More »

With Facebook set to go public in the coming weeks, recent buzz about newcomer Pinterest, and continued momentum on Twitter, it’s pretty clear that social media isn’t going away anytime soon.

To answer some frequently asked social media questions, we recently revealed some surprising findings about customers’ actual service expectations on social media, and wrote about how to differentiate service strategies for social media and mobile apps.

So, now you know what customers expect on social media and you have a better strategy for serving them, but how do you know if it’s working? How do you measure success in social media? Read More »

Customer Service News

• Disney’s customer service consulting business ‘sharing the magic’ behind the experience [NY Times]
• Eight ways to improve your social media service. Step 1?…outsource [Mashable]
• Customer loyalty app Tagtile the latest Facebook acquisition leading up to IPO [IT Pro]
• And finally, a behind-the-scenes look at AMEX’s revamped customer service operation [CNN Money]

CCC first started talking about remote rep programs with our members back in 2004, when the concept was really beginning to pick up steam across the customer service and support industry.  In the intervening 8 years, there’s certainly been a lot of growth when it comes to the use of remote reps.  And the benefits are truly remarkable.

But, as the old adage goes, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.  And recently I’ve been wondering if that is going to be true for remote reps.  Will this honeymoon phase we’ve been enjoying come to a close?  And if we are destined to see that bubble burst, what will be the tipping point? Read More »

With President Obama’s health care law being challenged in the Supreme Court just this month, health care is an issue that is top-of-mind. Everyone, ranging from college grads to retired senior citizens, will interact with a health care provider at least once in their lives.

So what is the general opinion that Americans have about today’s health insurers? According to Peppers and Rogers healthcare webinar series, most customers described them as “uncaring” or “impersonal,” while all say their ideal insurer would be someone who is “understanding,” “sympathetic,” and “trustworthy.”

This can be bad news for any industry, but it can be devastating for healthcare. More than just good for business, established trust between customers and insurers means that customers will be more likely to follow advice from doctors, which leads to better health outcomes.

Read More »

Customer Service News

• Customer service metrics: smackdown between Net Promoter Score, Customer Satisfaction Score, and Customer Effort Score [mycustomer.com]
• Adding apps to your company’s Facebook page can help with customer engagement [ZDNet]
• The role of “extreme kindness” in customer service [CBS Money Watch]
• The pros and cons of scripting contact center conversations [1to1Media]

The latest trend in management?  Giving staff the tools to optimize their own productivity.

A number of companies are now investing in self-monitoring applications and tools to help staff gauge exactly how much time they spend perusing Facebook while on the clock, how much pesky chats from chatty colleagues interrupt their workflow, and identify what the most productive time of the day is for an individual.  (Read The Wall Street Journal article to learn more about the specific technologies and tactics like gamification and knowledge workload tracking.)

These efforts are another tactic to help staff optimize their own productivity.  No longer are companies simply relying on supervisors to manage, but really giving staff greater ownership to figure out ways to increase their own performance.

The new emphasis follows an interesting logic path: Staff want to take ownership and improve themselves but lack the ability (and tools) to do so today.

Read More »