Spoken Communications

Customer success: feeding, funding and figuring

We hear a lot about the importance of customer service. You know, that aspect of business that tends to the customer’s needs, resolves their issues quickly and efficiently and does it with a smile: that’s in essence basic customer service.

But what is customer success? It's a way of treating the customer like a prospect throughout the entire life cycle of the relationship. You know how attentive sales folks are when you are about to purchase? How accommodating and focused on your needs? It's applying that mindset and energy over time. And applying a customer success framework requires an investment of time, funding and buy-in throughout the organization.

The customer success life cycle

Judith Platz of TSIA research recently published an article on five questions to ask when considering funding for a customer success framework, which focused primarily on the three most neglected steps of the customer journey: adopt, expand and renew. Let's take a look:

Land: This is basically the process of convincing a prospect to invest in your technology, or “landing” a new client.

Adopt: This is the process by which we help the new customer use the product they’ve purchased to achieve their objectives, also sometimes referred to as training.

Expand: This is the point in the relationship where we help the customer find reasons to expand into using more products. An example might be an Amazon customer who purchased running shorts then purchasing running shoes. Or, in a more technical example, a Spoken Smart IVR customer expanding to use the Spoken Automated Call Distributor (ACD).

Renew:  Basically, this is renewing the contract with the new customer into what will hopefully be a long-term and successful relationship.

In the past, it’s been noted that technology companies tend to focus a bit more on the beginning of the customer life cycle, the landing phase, pouring energy and resources into building a customer base. However, as more technology market segments embrace technology-as-a-service models, the need to shift the thinking to a customer success model has become necessary in order to stay profitable.  Focusing on the areas of adoption and expansion have become critical to economic growth.

Top five questions to ask for funding

In order to implement a customer success framework, funding and buy-in is required from several different departments of your organization. For the best chance of success, Platz recommends answering these five questions before attempting to implement a customer success program:

1. What is the target financial model your company is attempting to achieve?
2. Will the customer success organization have responsibilities for traditional support activities?
3. Will the customer success organization be responsible for adoption?
4. Will the customer success organization be responsible for renewing the customer subscription?
5. Will the customer success organization be responsible for cross-selling and upselling existing customers?

Feeding the customer success life cycle

What are techniques for beefing up the adoption, expansion and renewal phases? A few ideas:

• Newsletter Maintain a client services newsletter to highlight new products, services and case studies
• Events Offer a user conference for clients to network, discover the entire product suite and share best practices
• Webinars Offer frequent webinars to showcase how new products align with tech trends
• White papers Offer technical white papers highlighting common tech challenges and best practices for addressing them
• Customer surveys Never forget to survey your customers and determine their top challenges and priorities you might be able to help solve

Figuring out results

With funding comes the responsibility of analyzing key metrics to determine the success of various campaigns. Newsletters can measure open rates, clickthroughs and landing page conversions; events can use a special offer to gauge interest in new products and free demos; webinars and white papers can institute follow up sales calls to measure interest in expansion and renewal.

However you slice it, customer success is the fine art of not neglecting customers after the sale in order to increase loyalty, retention and the bottom line. Do you have a success framework in place? How is it working for you?

Tell me something I don't know: four insights your call center analytics SHOULD reveal

Are you call center analytics telling you something you don't already know?

If you Google "call center data analytics," over 11 million results will promptly appear, many of which are promoting data analytics products for sale (naturally).

And it's a given that we need data analytics in the call center in order to improve customer service.

But what exactly is your current data telling you that you don't already know? Since the early days of Average Handle Time, call center operations have struggled with what we can measure versus what we should measure to improve the customer experience. So let's take a few minutes to review what, at a minimum, your data analytics application should be providing you.

1. Interactive Voice Response analytics

If your organization has an IVR, you should have at your fingertips a wealth of data that can help to streamline and improve the customer experience. Many organizations create an IVR and then just tack on new prompts as needed without any analysis as to how changes affect the quality of customer experience. But why do that when there is so much data available to help improve the IVR every day?

You'll want access to the following data:

• Reason for Call analysis: What reason for call did customers give and in what proportions? What percentage of each Reason for Call bucket was properly routed? Does the Reason for Call logic and routing need to change based on actual caller use?
• Caller Identification analysis: What percentage of callers were accurately identified? For the ones that weren't, why weren't they? What prompt should be changed or added to increase the identification match rate?
• Opt Out Rate: What percentage of callers opted out of the IVR call flow (by hitting zero to speak to an agent)? At which prompt did the largest percentage of callers do so? Can the prompt or call flow be rewritten to decrease opt-outs?
• Misroutes analysis: What percentage of callers ended up in the wrong queue and had to be transferred? What Reason for Call did those callers give? Can the Reason for Call prompt and routing logic need to be altered to decrease misroutes?
• Self-Services rates: What percentage of calls were handled exclusively within the IVR, without speaking to an agent? How were the quality of those calls rated in comparison to those handled by agents? Are there additional types of calls that would be good candidates for self-service?

2. Speech analytics

"Speech analytics" is becoming the hot buzzword of the call center (and stay tuned for an exciting announcement from Spoken in this area). Whether performed on live calls or after the fact for quality and marketing analysis, speech analytics can provide valuable insights into the customer experience. So what exactly can this next generation of speech analytics provide to improve the customer experience?

In the past, speech analytics was limited to keyword search applied to recorded calls after the fact. However, in this exciting next generation of speech analytics, organizations will be able to analyze using the following tools:

• Real time keyword search Apply keyword searches to real-time transcriptions of live calls
• Real time sentiment analysis Apply sentiment analysis to real-time transcriptions of live calls
• Privacy redaction Redact private customer data such as credit card numbers from recorded calls
• Real time issue flagging Use machine learning to create algorithms that can flag live calls that are at risk

3. Agent evaluations

The workhorse of the call center has always been agent evaluations. Never quite a sexy as newer data analytics, agent evaluations often fall into the category of "should" and get dropped down in the priority list, behind newer and shinier quality applications. And in part, I believe that is because many of us believe that these evaluations are NOT going to tell us anything we don't already know.

However, that is exactly why it's essential to insist upon third-party evaluations of agent performance. Why third-party? Because most of us have our own personal biases, and it's nearly impossible not to let them affect  agent evaluations. For an accurate view, selecting a third-party vendor to conduct agent evaluations is a best practice. And that vendor should be able to provide:

• Form evaluation An evaluation of the quality form to ensure what is measured will accurately reflect agent success and improve the customer experience
• Attribute analysis Evaluation of each quality attribute, viewable by agent, score or coaching notes
• Calibration Several vendors offer online calibration, which saves a significant amount of supervisor time and energy
• Customized reporting Any evaluation service should provide the ability to customize and schedule reports and alerts

4. Real time and historical reporting

The beating heart of call center analytics is the dashboard showing both real-time and historical performance data. Can your reporting tell you which agent or line of business is in trouble right at this moment? What about which team has improved the most over the last month?

Daily reports and roll ups are a thing of the past; today is all about viewing performance data in context, both real-time and historical. Many vendors offer online reporting and dashboards that curate a variety of data feeds, including our own Spoken Engage advanced reporting:

• Automated data from the Automated Call Distributor (ACD), including agent ID, call length, and Average Handle Time (AHT)
• Silence An analysis of silence time on calls, usually a predictor of low quality
• Talkover An analysis of talkover time in which both parties were speaking at once, usually a predictor of low quality

And many tools offer the option to integrate with other third-party quality metrics, such as:

• CSat scores Customized customer satisfaction scores from past post-call surveys
• First Call Resolution scores Historical FCR scores

Conclusion

Analytics are abundant in today's modern call center. The key is to be able to glean insights from them to determine what you don't already know. When you select your analytics products, feel free to be a skeptic and ask, "What is this going to tell me that I don't already know?"

 

Budget slashed? Creating a cost-efficient IVR your customers will love

Can cost-effective automation really provide value over human agents?

Common wisdom in the contact center space is that human customer service is by its very nature better than automation. But is that always the case? What if you could create an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that your customers love while providing a better experience for both the caller and the agent?

Here's the dirty little secret in the human vs automation debate: what customers care about is getting their issue resolved quickly and accurately the first time. Most don't care about the method, as long as the brand is one they can rate as easy to do business with.

So how does a brand create an IVR that will leave a customer pleasantly surprised at the ease of doing business while leaving the call center manager happy at the cost savings of doing business? There are two key functions of the IVR that can be technologically addressed to accomplish those goals: knowing who the customer is and what she is trying to do, also known as caller identification and caller intent.

1. Caller identification

The first key to an easy customer experience is identifying the caller. The challenge is that every business has a different way of positively identifying the caller, a system we refer to as "matching," since the caller is being matched with a record in the organization's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Elements such as the ANI (the number the customer is dialing from), caller name, email address or member number are common identifiers for positively identifying a customer in the organization's CRM system.

• ANI lookup While it's easy to automatically look up the ANI, match rates for ANI-only lookups tend to be quite low for a number of reasons. The caller could be calling from a different phone, such as a VoIP phone or an office phone that doesn't happen to be the phone number listed in her customer record. So a second piece of information is typically required to positively match the caller with her record in the CRM database. But each additional piece of information has its difficulties in terms of IVR collection.
• Name First and last names can be difficult to hear and spell correctly via most speech recognition systems, leading to repeated questions, caller frustration and opt-outs
• Email address Email addresses are notoriously difficult to accurately collect via speech recognition systems, once again leading to repeated questions, caller frustration and opt-outs
• Member ID Numeric member numbers are ideal for IVR data collection. However, most customers do not have their number memorized, so they tend to skip this step or opt out.

Addressing name and email address matching How can the challenges of name and email address matching be addressed? Our answer is through technological innovation. The Spoken Smart IVR adds a human in the background to make pinpointed corrections to traditionally difficult-to-understand caller utterances (such as name and email address). Through a patented software interface, corrections can be made on up to 10 simultaneous calls to caller utterances where needed. The human sits at a dashboard like the one below and only listens briefly when a tab flags red or yellow:

The result is a dramatic increase in the caller identification match rate, which is the cornerstone of a personalized caller experience and accurate call routing. And here's the proof for one customer:

• Average Handle Time was reduced by 12%, since the IVR was doing the heavy lifting of caller identification
• Self-service rates increased to 73%

Download the full case study for Neat here.

2. Call routing

The second half of the formula for an easy and elegant IVR interaction is accurate call routing. This is typically based on a combination of the caller identification and of the caller intent. The better the caller identification match rates, the higher the likelihood that the call will be routed to the right agent accurately, the first time.

Let's look at an example. A customer call in to an organization and asks for technical support. However, from a combination of the ANI match and the email address, the CRM record indicates that the caller isn't entitled to technical support over the phone. So instead of routing the caller to the technical support queue, forcing the agent to do a manual look up and having to deliver the unpleasant news that the caller isn't entitled to live technical support, a better solution would be to route the customer to either a Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) self-service queue to deal with a common question or to a sales queue so he can purchase the support he needs.

And voilà! Misrouted calls decrease dramatically. In the case of Neat:

• Misrouted calls were decreased by 30%

Conclusion

It isn't machine automation that is the enemy; it's poor IVR construction and poor speech recognition. And we believe that we've solved the issue of poor speech recognition with the Spoken Smart IVR: by adding the human in the background working on the software interface to make pinpointed corrections to caller utterances, the accuracy of caller identification match rate and caller intent will increase, resulting in cost savings all around.

Yet another reason to move your call center to the cloud: future-proofing

How well will your call center technology be serving you in five years? Or 10?

Frequently upgrading your call center technology can take a toll on your wallet, your productivity and your business continuity. To be truly effective, enterprise contact centers need a long-term solution that’s nimble and that can ebb and flow with the ever-changing technology trends of the telecommunications market. If you’ve ever invested in a costly on-premise solution only to discover a new, incompatible technology trend two years later, you’ll begin to understand the huge value of cloud in terms of future-proofing your call center technology.

And organizations are catching on to the value of the cloud for future-proofing: IDC’s latest report shows that U.S. spending on cloud contact center services is expected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2018; 77% of on-site contact centers are either already using cloud or evaluating transitioning to a cloud or hosted contact center.

The secret to a risk-free cloud transition: a single-application start

But let's face it: transitioning to cloud from an on-premise system, no matter how outdated, can be a hassle and can even threaten business continuity and the quality of customer service. So here's an approach to cloud that gives organizations the future-proofing organizations want without the unnecessary risks: do a quick start with a single application.

Let’s take a look at just two call center applications that can easily be a first step into to the future-proofed cloud: call recording and virtual agent desktop.

Call Recording

If you’ve ever tried to implement on-premise call recording, you’re already aware of the drawbacks. In addition to the time and expense of the implementation, selective call recording is clunky, and the addition of call analytics, while interesting, is no substitute for 100% call recording. The addition of media forking capabilities to IP phones and session border controllers has moved much of the on-premise recording profit margin to the equipment manufacturers, so providers end up passing on the complex implementation—and its costs—to the customer. And here is the recording industry's dirty little secret: the expense associated with on-premise server hardware, SAN/NAS storage, Microsoft Windows and SQL licensing, VMWare and other platform components are not typically included in the vendor’s pricing.

Cloud-based recording solutions, on the other hand, circumvent all of the aforementioned challenges and are just as easy to remove as they are to install—a boon for future-proofing. With a cloud call recording solution, gone are the days of selected recording, and gone is dependence on computer telephony integration (CTI).

For more information, download Why Cloud Call Recording? Cloud vs. On-Premise Technical Analysis white paper.

Agent Desktop

Likewise, if you’ve ever had to endure the hassle of installing a half-dozen software applications to each desktop at a brick-and-mortar call center or mailing remote agents CDs or USB sticks and walking them through the installation process, you probably already understand the future-proofing value of a virtual agent desktop application. A software-based tool—complete with an array of hosted applications—eradicates the need for on-premises hardware, enabling call center agents to work from home by way of an easy-to-use interface. It provides agents with the same capabilities—like security, CRM integration, chat tools and telephony controls—they have at their fingertips while at the office. Furthermore, the interface allows supervisors to contract with call center agents from external locations to handle high call volumes when they arise, thereby scaling up the workforce and increasing productivity. And the biggest benefit of all is that upgrades and application changes are all made uniformly from a centralized database, so the burden of changes is moved from the remote agents or the local IT team to the cloud service provider.

How does a cloud service such as a virtual agent desktop help to future-proof your call center? It’s just as easy to uninstall as it is to install. If your cloud provider isn’t keeping pace with technical innovations, it’s easy to switch providers, unencumbered by sunk costs or capital expenditures that still need to fully depreciate over time.

How cloud applications future-proof your call center

Cloud-based benefits such as these are inspiring more businesses to move to virtual technology. As a matter of fact, the Evolve IP and CCNG 2014 North American Call Center Survey revealed that 70 percent of respondents who currently use premise-based call center technology plan to move to the cloud. In addition, 61 percent of call centers employ agents who work in disparate locations. As such, you would be wise to keep pace with your competitors by deploying cost-efficient and flexible remote working software.

So, start thinking ahead for your call center and adopt a solution that you can depend on for the long haul. Here are the top ways cloud applications such as cloud-based call recording or virtual agent desktop could add value to your call center’s business venture:

• Increases security: With a variety of cloud vendors in the space, you are at liberty to select a provider with the highest level of cloud security and hack prevention. (We blogged about five cloud security measures you should always ask about here.) For virtual agent desktop, insist upon two-factor authentication to ensure that only the agent authorized to use a particular desktop can gain entry to it. In addition, look for vendors that offer end point scanning to assess potential vulnerabilities with each log in, so that your virtual desktop is regularly audited. For cloud call recording, look for a minimum of 256-bit AES encryption. Some providers also offer on-the-fly call encryption so that the live call isn’t vulnerable to hacking. Additionally, be sure that each call has a unique encryption key, so that hackers can’t decrypt one call and get access to the entire database. 
• Expands your recruitment pool: When your call center offers technology that employees can access away from your brick-and-mortar location, you entice more digitally savvy candidates to your hiring pool. For example, our virtual desktop solution comes complete with the cloud-based Citrix XenApp—a robust feature set of communications tools—that agents can use by simply logging onto their desktops no matter their geographical location. With a technological edge like this, call centers can recruit the best talent from around the globe.
• Reduces telecom spend: Hosted solutions enable call centers to avoid capital expenses associated with on-premises-based infrastructure. With our virtual desktop solution, you’ll only pay for the time your agents spend using the virtual service, without wasting a dime on licensing fees or unused equipment. What’s more, our virtual platform allows you to scale up and down as necessary without incurring additional fees, that is, you only pay for actual usage, nothing more.

While there may be some concerns that cloud is simply the next trend that will be replaced soon by 'The Next Big Thing', we’d argue that since the cloud is so flexible, it’s a valuable tool for future-proofing your contact center. In the absence of huge capital expenditures, it’s not only easy to select the right cloud provider for you; it’s also easy to evaluate security and recruitment performance and change providers much more easily than with an on-premise solution. There’s much to be said for living in the moment, but when it comes to your call center technology, keep the future top of mind. Find out more ways to future-proof your call center here.

Three tips for taming the complex call center cloud integration

For large enterprise with complex call center systems, transitioning to the cloud can seem like a nightmare

A vast majority of today’s call center IT professionals are either currently transitioning their on-premise infrastructure to cloud solutions or realizing that cloud integration will soon be a necessary element to remain on the cutting edge in the contact center space.

In fact, the cloud-based contact center market is maturing at a steady pace, according to DMG’s “2014-2015 Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report.” The number of cloud-based seats is expected to grow by 20% this year, another 18% in both 2016 and 2017, and by 16% in 2018. And while those percentages decrease slightly year by year, DMG reports that the actual number of cloud contact center seats is expected to grow yearly.

Barriers to cloud integration for the complex call center

However, many organizations with call centers considering the transition to cloud are often faced with considerable barriers to success. For instance:

• Quantity Numerous data centers throughout the country/world
• Diversity Disparate systems in each data center
• Incompatibility Incompatibilities known and unknown among the disparate systems
• Licenses Need to address existing on-premise licenses still under contract
• Consolidation/dispersal An initiative for either consolidation or dispersal of data centers

With such complex systems, the cloud provider must develop a minutely detailed methodical plan to account for hundreds of moving parts to ensure continuity of service. Without a provider that can guarantee a minutely orchestrated plan accounting for thousands of moving parts and 100% uptime during the transition, organizations stand to jeopardize their business continuity and potentially lose control over important internal data.

Indeed, a recent survey administered by CDW revealed that 59 percent of respondents (all of whom directly participate in IT decision making for their organizations) would make more use of the cloud if the complexity of migration and integration weren’t holding them back. What’s more, the same respondents also reported that, though inexpensive to buy, cloud infrastructure often proves expensive and difficult to implement and integrate with other resources.

Selecting the right cloud vendor for your complex integration

So, how can you sidestep the pitfalls other organizations have experienced due to complex cloud integrations? Here are three tips for finding the right cloud vendor for your complex integration:

Demand a consultative approach Some cloud vendors only offer take-it-or-leave-it solutions that are easier to sell rather than taking the time to work to develop a customized plan with you and your legacy infrastructure. Accordingly, if the potential cloud providers you’ve researched only offer plans that restrict your decision making, move your search along. For example, if you want to dip your toe in the cloud pool before becoming fully submerge, why not try integrating one cloud-based feature at a time? A best-in-class cloud-based contact center provider will be able to provide features à la carte and integrate with your legacy systems along the way. This way you can make the transition gradual and seamless and not stymie business productivity. Be sure to specify your needs in terms of:

• Immediate needs to be addressed in a short time frame
• Legacy infrastructure to be retained
• Legacy licenses to be recycled
• Data center consolidation
• Telephony connectivity
• Timeline and training

Ask for a business continuity plan One of the greatest barriers to successful cloud integration for contact centers is preserving business continuity, as a loss of call volume or poor customer experience can be detrimental. As such, it’s important that contact centers find a cloud provider that is willing to gradually transition call volume. Specifically, cloud providers with this capability will begin by adopting a small portion of your organization’s call volume to detect any glitches within the new system. Once this pilot stage is completed, contact centers regain full control over call volume, enabling them to set their own pace for the move to the cloud.

Many of Spoken's clients desire a cloud transition but have incredibly complex systems that no other vendor can accommodate. It's common for clients to begin by addressing an immediate need with a single application.

For example, one client began with cloud call recording, since the previous on-premise solution was aging out. The other legacy systems remained in place, and the cloud call recording solution served as a proof of concept for the remainder of the cloud transition. After that integration, plans for a gradual transition incorporating legacy infrastructure and licenses was developed and implemented.

Ask about future-proofing A cloud-based contact center provider should position organizations to accommodate future growth, productivity and reliability. In this regard, contact center IT professionals should ensure their cloud provider is able to consistently update products and services in keeping with the nearly continuous advancements in the telecom and cloud markets. Contact centers must choose a provider that can guarantee end-to-end security so that safety concerns can never limit their companies’ productivity. Additionally, advanced technologies such as call recording, call reporting and remote working software enable contact centers to work at their highest efficiencies. Quality security measures as well as best-in-class technology mean that contact centers won’t need to replace their  technology so they can focus on improving the future of their businesses—rather than shelling out money on repairs and updates. 

Taming complexity

All clouds are not created equal. Finding a consultative cloud vendor to tackle and tame a complex call center integration is essential to a smooth and friction-free cloud transition. Choose a vendor that has an experienced management team that act as consultants for your complex integration so you can integrate at the pace that is best for your organization.

Spoken Communications eats complex integrations for breakfast. To find out how we can tame your complex integration, contact us.

Is Your IVR Killing Your Customer Experience?

Your IVR is the front line for customer experience. But is it killing your CSAT scores?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a consumer who doesn’t become flustered by a poorly designed interactive voice response (IVR) system. In fact, 42 percent of consumers polled in a recent survey said they’d take their business elsewhere after a frustrating experience with an IVR. And, with 48% of respondents in agreement that the telephone is their preferred method for contacting businesses for the first time, initial impressions over the phone are crucial.

Many contact centers, however, don’t thoroughly vet their IVR systems before putting them into action. In fact, unfortunately, for many organizations, the IVR is an afterthought, something constructed in a few days and never revisited, even as the organization grows and changes. And this is a fatal flaw when the IVR is often your customers’ first point of contact in their customer experience. If callers are asked to repeat their responses or if they aren’t offered personalized choices, they’re bound to become confused or annoyed.

And what's worse, they begin hitting zero in the desperate hope to get to agent faster--which, ironically, makes the interaction longer (due to misrouting) and even less satisfactory. In short, if your IVR is forcing your customers to opt out, your customer satisfaction scores will be directly affected.

Indeed, 77% of customers rank bad IVRs as the top contributor to a negative brand experience. And if you don’t employ technology that enables you to gain important metrics about your IVR system, you risk aggravating more than three-quarters of your customer base with your telephony services.

To reverse any possible harm being caused by your IVR, consider investing in innovative technology that affords end-to-end call recording, speech recognition and security, helping you to ensure that your consumers experience the most reliable and accommodating customer service.

Let’s have a deeper look at these innovative technologies that can help you create more positive customers interactions with your auto attendant and your brand:

• Call recording: Ensure your contact center software provider includes cradle-to-grave recording so that you can access your customers’ real-time interactions.This way, you can glean important insights about the efficiency of your IVR and engage in a practice of continual testing and improvement.
• Speech recognition: Choose a provider that utilizes grammar-based speech recognition compatible with a range of languages. This feature will boast increased convenience for your consumers as the IVR will recognize their language and respond accordingly. Even better, seek a provider that offers human-assisted speech recognition to improve completion rates and avoid the can-you-repeat-that cycle.
• Security: In addition to an efficient IVR, make certain your consumers feel safe in your hands. That is, ensure your IVR software provider complies with PCI regulations when obtaining consumer data—such as credit card information. Your IVR should be able to collect sensitive consumer data without the call center agent hearing, or gaining access to, it.

If you haven't reviewed your IVR lately, give it a call. Can you get to the right queue quickly and intuitively? Did you have to repeat yourself? Were you routed correctly the first time without transfers? If not, consider refreshing your IVR with speech recognition, human-assisted speech recognition or extra security measures.

4 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement and Productivity

Are you ready to increase productivity in your workplace?   

Every enterprise, from your local pet store to the Fortune 100, struggles with productivity on a daily basis. And in the contact center in particular, we apply a plethora of metrics with a razor sharp focus on maximizing agent productivity every day. But what happens when we take a step back from Average Handle Time, First Call Resolution and Net Promoter Score and look at the productivity big picture?   

 

 

INC. recently published an article with advice for increasing employee productivity. Having instituted most of these initiatives at Spoken, we can testify that these simple (but not easy) tips do indeed improve employee engagement and productivity:

Have social outings: Yes!  Who doesn’t like a fun outing now and then?  There is nothing that breaks up the monotony of a work day quite like a fun outing with colleagues. One of the greatest benefits of the workday outing is the friendship and camaraderie it facilitates among the staff. As camaraderie builds, so does productivity. Social outings can be anything from a quick lunch to something a bit more elaborate, like a friendly competition. A couple of years ago, our CEO Howard Lee, felt that the staff here at Spoken needed to focus on our health a bit more. We were in a growth phase and working long hours, so Howard gave the entire company Nike Fuel bands to foster a little friendly competition and to keep us moving (we tend to sit a lot here!). The competition proved to be a great way to build camaraderie and break the monotony of sitting so much. People found that being encouraged to take physical “walk breaks” allowed for mind-clearing, which ultimately resulted in getting more done during the work day.

Allow working from home:  There was a time when working from home was a non-existent concept, but not anymore. In fact, working from home is as commonplace now as commuting into the office used to be. We recently posted a couple of blogs on the benefits of work-from-home agents. Bosses of a bygone era used to fear that an employee working from home would be easily distracted and bring productivity down, but with modern technological advances and quick, easy access to everything and everyone, that fear is no longer valid. In fact, the call center industry has led the way in providing work-from-home opportunities and found that productivity increases for agents working from home.

Institute flexible hours:  The old 9-to-5 is just that…..OLD! In today’s global marketplace, many businesses have to be available 24/7, which means providing staff 24/7. Additionally, as we’ve moved into a 24/7 workday, it has become obvious that some people tend to be more productive in the mornings, while others are more productive in the latter part of the day. Instituting flexible work hours communicates to employees that you believe productivity trumps rigidity and that you’re more concerned about getting the work done than getting it done in a prescribed way.  Offering flexible work hours can go a long way in protecting your work force; when people know they have flexible hours, they’re not inclined to want to give that up.

Get rid of meetings:  Can we say that again?  GET RID OF MEETINGS!!  In the Inc. article “7 Ways to Increase Productivity for Your Employees,” Jayson Demers eschews meetings:

“Meetings are productivity killers. While there are meetings that end up getting actual tasks completed, they are an exception to the rule. Most meetings are filled with updates, reiterations, and discussions, very few of which are used in any practical way. If you gather 12 employees together for a one-hour meeting, you're essentially wasting 12 hours of cumulative company time. If you have something urgent to tell your workers, email it or talk to them individually as appropriate. Don't waste time with overly formalized sit-downs; once you stop, you'll notice your productivity begin to rise.”

In short, the old-fashioned idea of the 9-to-5 employee sitting in an office and attending meetings all day is the biggest productivity-killer of all. Giving team members the flexibility to choose their hours, workplace and even walk breaks while encouraging social interactions is the new approach to productivity that is proving effective, time and time again.

But these tips are just a start--what do YOU do to increase productivity in your workplace?         

 

Do you know where your customer service reviews are?

How customer service reviews affect purchasing decisions

Most of us, at one time or another, have taken the time to review a product before we purchase it, especially if that product is a big-ticket item, like an appliance that we rely on daily to make our lives easier. Before you drop a big chunk of change on an item, it’s nice to have a sense that you’re making a good purchase based on the reviews you’ve read on that product, but what happens when that product doesn’t live up to its name and you’re forced to repair or replace it? Hmmm… but where are the reviews on the manufacturer’s customer service? Good question!

Where are the customer service reviews?

I recently came across the New York Times article “Relying on Product Reviews? Knowing How a Company Treats Its Customers Is Just as Valuable,” by Brian X. Chen, in which he discusses this very issue. The author shared his story of a purchasing an appliance that proved to be defective after just a few months. However, what was most surprising to him was the lack of information available about the manufacturer’s customer service. Where were the customer service reviews?  The product reviews were plentiful, but what about the customer service reviews?  The article went on to detail his long and frustrating journey of trying to get the appliance replaced as well as to repair the damage that was done to his home by this faulty appliance.

What he discovered was that the organizations that provide product reviews usually separate the product reviews from the customer service reviews. Consumer Reports, for example, provides excellent reviews and ratings on hundreds of products; however, when it comes to measuring the quality of customer service, that information is completely separate from the product reviews. Often, the customer service ratings can be a little harder to come by. And in some cases, it’s not available at all!  

This means that even if your organization has great customer service that might affect a consumer’s buying decision, the consumer will have to dig to find that information.

How customer service reviews affect buying decisions

Chen came to the conclusion that if customer service reviews had been more readily available for the brand he purchased, it likely may have altered his purchase decision. He cites a study that found “customers were four times as likely to become disloyal to a brand after any service interaction at all because so many service centers drag out people’s issues.”WOW!  That’s significant and something manufacturers would be wise to heed when it comes to developing their brand loyalty policies. It’s pretty simple, really: if a manufacturer provides excellent customer service when an item is not performing correctly, that customer is much more likely to give that brand another chance in the future.

These are the loyalty opportunities that can make or break a company. Why? Because people share these kinds of experiences. In fact, the Spoken 2015 Call Center Report reported the following:

• Good or bad, we tell a friend 78% of customers will share a positive experience with others, while 91% will share a negative one.
• Misery loves social company 50% will share a negative experience on social media, but only 32% will share a positive one.

It does make one wonder why we’re so much more eager to share a bad experience than a good one. Perhaps we need to vent about our bad experiences a bit; that always helps. Or perhaps it’s our human nature to help others learn from our mistakes and avoid our pain. Either way, the negative feedback will get out there much more readily than the positive.

When was the last time you evaluated your customer service quality?

Chen’s experience is a good reminder that organizations should not only keep a close eye on their customer service and loyalty programs but also on how their customers review them. A few tips:

• Review your metrics What metrics are you using to gauge customer service quality? If you’re just using Average Handle Time, you may not be getting the results you think you are. First Call Resolution, Net Promoter Score and a host of other metrics combine to give a better view of the customer experience.
• Review your quality form If you use a quality form to evaluate the recommended 10% of agent calls, when was the last time that form was updated? Compare the quality form to the negative customer feedback that your organization has received. Is there a gap in the form that needs to be addressed?
• Read and address your reviews Even if Chen couldn’t find customer service reviews, others can. Assemble a team and create a practice to bookmark review sites and go over your organizations’ customer service reviews on a monthly basis. Many sites allow the organization to provide feedback on positive or negative reviews, so be sure to respond promptly and publicly to negative reviews. Publicly resolving issues provides a surplus of goodwill for your organization.
• Consider a third-party contractor To be honest, much of the time well-meaning organizations simply get too busy to review their quality metrics, quality forms and feedback. While we all know that we’re supposed to listen to and or review at least 5-10% of customer interactions, other priorities often take over, and quality monitoring and evaluation slips. Consider using an unbiased, third-party service such as HyperQuality to not only conduct agent evaluations but also for special projects such as updating the quality form to reflect current standards.

Every organization receives negative customer feedback. It’s an organization’s responsibility to keep a consistent eye on its customer service to ensure it is continually improving and developing loyal customers. At HyperQuality, we call it the EvenBetter^® philosophy—we strive to help our clients get even better every day.

This article was written by Chrystal LeWark, Vice President of Sales at HyperQuality. If you would like to learn more about improving your customer service, contact HyperQuality at [email protected].

How the cloud contact center is opening doors for people with disabilities

How a cloud contact center is opening doors for people with disabilities

This month, some of the Spoken team had the honor of speaking at the SourceAmerica conference, an event devoted to pairing people with disabilities and veterans with work opportunities through the AbilityOne program. While some organizations had already made some headway into the contact center space, we ended up spending a lot of time covering the benefits of cloud technologies to enable work-from-home programs.

And the response was amazing! Contact Center as a Cloud (CCaas) technologies, such as a virtual Automated Call Distributor (ACD), call recording and virtual agent desktop and reporting, are ridiculously easy to translate directly to job opportunities for people with disabilities, veterans and military spouses. And we get really excited about supporting those who have served our country.

So how can starting a work-from-home program open doors for veterans and people with disabilities?

Fighting unemployment with technology

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ “2015 Veteran Economic Opportunity Report,” 53 percent of separating post-9/11 veterans will face a period of unemployment. What’s more, the duration of this unemployment lasts up to 22 weeks on average. In addition, the current unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 11.7 percent, compared to people without disabilities at 5.3%.

In some of these cases involving a disability, finding a job is hindered because commuting to work isn’t a viable option. While this is a significant hurdle, today’s modern contact center technology provides a way to streamline employment for people with disabilities. For example, Virtual Desktop software from Spoken Communications provides a simple, accessible way to work from home as a contact center agent for either an enterprise or an outsourcer supporting multiple enterprises.

A better-qualified workforce with higher retention rates

Having a work-from-home program in place can improve recruiting in several ways. First, because home-based work is in such high demand, contact centers with work-at-home opportunities are often able to attract a larger number of agent candidates and can be more selective than can centers that haven’t embraced remote work.

With a cloud solution, in fact, anyone--including highly qualified people with disabilities or frequently-moving military spouses that might otherwise be excluded from call center work--are now ripe for recruitment into contact centers that have embraced cloud technology. The lack of geographical hiring restrictions means that contact center managers can keep their best-trained staff and reduce churn. In the past, if a top agent had to move locations, that agent was lost forever and had to be replaced with a trainee. With virtual desktop and other cloud technologies, you need not lose your top performers due to a geographical change. For example, military spouses have proven to be excellent contact center agents with high retention rates when allowed to work from home.

And in fact, one study on contact center home agent staffing showed that nearly 93% of participants reported that their work-at-home initiative had a “very positive” or “positive” impact on employee retention (with most of them citing “very positive”). And a whopping 61% of employees who do not currently work from home say they would even be willing to give up some pay in exchange for a remote work opportunity!

What about security?

With any virtual desktop solution, call center agents log in to a secure agent desktop from their homes and simply log out when the work day is done. However, security concerns inevitably arise. And not all virtual desktops are created equal, so be sure to ask the following questions:

• Is two-factor authentication offered?
• Is end point scanning for updates and viruses offered?
• What encryption is used on call recordings?
• Is a solution offered to encrypt or hide sensitive customer data from agents?
• Can the agent keyboard be locked down to prevent harmful key combinations, such as Print Screen?
• Can the agent desktop be put into kiosk mode to limit external surfing?

How does remoting affect productivity and quality of service?

While the idea of agents working from home often brings with it concerns of reduced productivity, often the very opposite is true. In one study, three in four participants reported that the use of remote agents has had a “very positive” or “positive” impact on agent productivity, and two in three said their remote agent program has helped to elevate the quality of service provided to customers.

Getting started with work-from-home

Would you like to start up a work-from-home program and support wounded warriors and military spouses? For more information on the benefits of a remote agent program as well as a cloud checklist, download our free white paper, Harnessing the Power of Remote Agents. We had a great time at the SourceAmerica conference and want to support you however we can!

Making Call Recording Sexy Again

When was the last time you took a good, long look at your call recording?

Call recording technology has existed for nearly as long as call centers (decades), but functional advances have been made to its capabilities all along, so why are you not taking advantage of them by upgrading to today’s “sexier” high-tech systems? Stop using your call recording feature like you’re still in 1995 when you could be receiving a wealth of pertinent metrics—through a robust set of features—to help you power through to the 21^st century of contact center effectiveness.

So, how do you judge whether your call recording technology is up-to-date, i.e., sexy? Ask yourself: Does it provide data on agent interactions through a third-party evaluator? Does it guarantee real-time call encryption? Finally, does it provide well-rounded recording capabilities that include IVR interactions? If you answered no to any these questions, chances are you’re still using an archaic system that’s limiting your contact center’s performance and you need to step it up to keep pace with your competitors.

If you want to get the most out of your call recording, look to a modern provider, that can do the following for your business:

Show you the whole picture Are you getting the full picture of your contact center performance from your call recording, or is it still only showing you the agent conversations the same way it did a decade ago? If your current provider’s technological restrictions are limiting the quality of your contact center’s metrics, then you need a progressive alternative right away. Choose a provider that can offer cradle-to-grave and end-to-end call recording that includes a record of IVR interactions, hold times, transfers and post-call surveys to ensure you’re getting a 360-degree view of call center exchanges.

This fully-rounded view of call center communications offers important insights you need to improve your customer service measures. For instance, maybe your IVR needs to be revised to serve customers needs more efficiently. That old school, on-premise technology can only provide the agent’s part of the interaction, but hearing a recording of a customer’s honest reaction to IVR systems and hold times can provide actionable insights that contact centers need in order to provide best-in-class services moving forward.

Provide the highest level of security Does your current provider uniquely encrypt each live call made to your call center? Most providers don't; it's far more common to wait until the call is complete to initiate encryption and to leave the live call unencrypted. This leaves the live call vulnerable to hackers, so consider a solution that encrypts the live call.

Another security vulnerability is group encryption keys. These are hackers' paradise, since hacking one encryption key provides access to a batch of dozens, hundreds or thousands of calls and the related caller data. Consider using a provider that provides a unique encryption key for each call so that a hacker cannot collectively gain access to groups of call data. This way, if a hacker gains access to your call queue, only one call would be at risk rather than your entire customer database.

Provide unbiased feedback What about after the fact? Are we just promising we’ll call our “date” and never following up? While most call centers know the importance of conducting quality reviews of five percent of calls, but with all the responsibilities on a manager’s plate, finding the time to listen to and evaluate that volume of calls is easily pushed to the bottom of the priority stack.

Consider using an unbiased, third-party service to do the heavy lifting of randomly selecting, listening to and evaluating calls to make sure quality isn't an afterthought. A third party provider can devote time, focus and an unbiased eye to your quality evaluations and save your contact center manager’s time and resources. And while you're at it, keep in mind that most of these quality provider can also perform one-off projects to improve your quality processes for immediate results.

So, are you going to go for “sexy”—or “just good enough”—for your call recording technology? If you want to get a leg up on your competitors, now’s the time to address the shortcomings of your call recording technology and choose a provider with future-proof solutions!