By Kirsten Robinson

(This post was originally written for the Sales Challenger blog, which focuses on critical topics for sales professionals.  We think, however, that there is relevance here for our B2B customer support readers, particularly on the topic of segmentation strategy.)

It’s hard to get key account programs right. First, companies must figure out which customers to elevate to key account status (a challenging task in and of itself)—but most organizations stop there. Key account selection is often a ‘once-and-done’ event, and customers that have been designated as key accounts remain in that position for years.

Despite changing markets and performance, most companies treat key accounts as tenured positions. There are a variety of reasons for this—a fear of jeopardizing relationships and revenue. Account Manager loyalty that skews their relationship assessment. The feeling that they just can’t “give up.”

The reality is that keeping low-performing customers in your key account program wastes more time and profit than it brings in.

What’s the solution? Firing, or de-selecting key accounts.

Though it sounds like a risky strategy, there are ways to accomplish key account de-selection without putting revenue at risk. Read More »

I recently read a forwarded e-mail titled, “Random Thoughts of the Day,” which was full of short reflections.  Some examples: “There is a great need for a sarcasm font,” and, “I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.” There were a few dozen more random thoughts, but there was one in particular that caught my eye because of its relevance to the work we do here at CCC:

“Do you remember when you were a kid playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it, and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There were no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.”

It’s remarkable to think about how kids around the world had the same process for fixing their Nintendo.  Either word of mouth is a very powerful tool or blowing into the Nintendo is really just a natural reaction for kids.  Regardless, we thankfully live in an era that has Internet, so we no longer have to rely solely on our close network of friends; rather you have the entire world at your fingertips. Read More »

• Best practices for engaging with customers through social media. [WSJ]
• How to serve customers across evolving digital mediums. [1to1 Media]
• Customers say they are willing to spend more with a company that provides good customer service, indicating a shift in priorities. [WSJ]
• 7 tips to mitigate the risk of cloud services failure. [ComputerWorld]
• Don’t believe ALL the reviews you read online…some are templates businesses don’t bother to delete. [NYTimes]
• AdAge on how CMOs should approach the loyalty question [AdAge]

By Matt Hoffman

CCC conducted a frontline staff skills survey as part of our major research initiative for this year.  As you can imagine, not every interesting data point makes its way into the final product.  Here’s a look at what was left on the “cutting room floor” in our second of three posts in this series (view post one).

When speaking with members about our new study “The Next Frontier of Rep Performance,” one question came up again and again:  “What does the rise of the Millennials mean for how we think about rep performance?”

The Millennials, the generation of people born between 1980 and 2000, are the newest, youngest employees in service organizations.  While Millennials are generally given credit for being tech-savvy, they are also typically portrayed as entitled, self-centered brats.  Consider some of these descriptions of Millennials from a 60 Minutes profile:

• “They grew up laden with trophies just for participating.”
• “This generation only takes yes for an answer”
• “Narcissistic praise hounds are taking over your office!”

Ouch.

The members that we spoke to about rep performance wondered what they needed to do to get the best performance out of this new generation.  If the stereotypes are true, then service organizations would need to reexamine how they hire, develop, and manage their frontline reps.

Read More »

As the father of three young children I often find myself asking my kids if they “need” a time out.  Now, this “ask” is usually preceded by some misbehavior, like painting the walls with glittery blue fingernail polish (true story!).  And the purpose of the time out is to give my child some time to think about what they’ve done, recognize that it was a bad choice, and, hopefully, not repeat it again.  In a nutshell, a time out is just that: Time. Out.

Truth be told, though, the idea of a time out actually sounds pretty good to me.  I mean, how many times have I wanted to take two or three minutes to just catch my breath, re-focus, and then get back into whatever I was working on before?

At this broad level, could you apply the concept of a time out to your frontline staff members? Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

It’s no secret that loyal customers are good for business—but is your company doing a good enough job securing their loyalty? In a previous blog post about working with the Customer Effort Score, we discussed the importance of reducing customer effort, and how using the tool can help your organization track areas of improvement and, ultimately, increase customer loyalty.

We recently spoke with Efrain Irizarry, Group Manager at Target, about how his organization has implemented Customer Effort Score—from buy-in, to success, to future plans.

CCC members, learn more about how Target implements CES by reading excerpts from our Q&A with Efrain Irizarry.

We’ve probably all had an idea or two on how an existing product could be improved. Maybe it’s as simple as a more convenient package, or an added feature that would make the product easier to use. I would bet that few of us, however, have taken the next step of contacting the company to share the idea—and if you have, you might have been taken aback by the polite rejection you received.

There are a few reasons why companies tend to not accept new product ideas and other types of unsolicited feedback from customers. For one, the volume of these suggestions can make it difficult to organize, process, and respond to every customer’s submission. CCC research found one company in the food and beverage industry that regularly receives five to ten customer ideas per day, which may not seem overwhelming until you consider the time and resources it would take to properly evaluate each one.

More significant, however, are the intellectual property issues and other legal concerns that have prompted some companies to adopt a strict policy of “we do not accept ideas from our customers”. Read More »

By Corey Stout

We are hearing about the use of wikis more and more at the Customer Contact Council – and it’s not because of Julian Assange and the infamous Wikileaks.

Rather, organizations are looking to leverage wikis to improve their business by fostering greater peer collaboration. (FYI:  Wikipedia’s comprehensive list of wiki software providers.)

And it makes sense. In general, people look to their peers to help address challenges since it’s often easier and faster and people really value and trust peers’ experience.  Thus, live communities, notably wikis, empower reps to provide insightful information about customers and collaborate to share best practices.

Wikis can usefully aggregate the information dispersed in the minds of different people. Just by clicking “Edit This Page,” peers can use wikis to pull together and build on information that can help them do their job – and do their job better. 

Generally speaking, we’ve found that wikis are more useful in larger organizations and in organizations that serve a variety of markets.  In these cases, the benefits of a wiki’s ability to pull in information from across the organization outweigh the costs of staff time needed to curate the wiki.  For smaller organizations or organizations with only a couple key markets, a wiki often isn’t worth the investment required. 

Nonetheless, while wikis can be an effective way to drive organic peer collaboration, they can also be more trouble than they are worth if companies do not use them correctly.

Here are three factors to consider before using wikis as a tool of peer collaboration:

  Read More »

Customer Service News

• As many companies look to limit their service options, Comcast launches fee-based tech support…for non-Comcast products! [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Twitter in talks to buy TweetDeck, the popular add-on program that helps users organize their tweets [Market Watch]

• Speaking of deals—to gain an edge over rival Groupon, LivingSocial looks to team up with loyalty program [WSJ Online]

• Find out why department store giant Macy’s new strategy involves a makeover in customer service  [WSJ Online]

• And finally: for our UK members, a few tips on how to stay productive as the Royal Wedding approaches [Director of Finance Online]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka “Obamacare”) was signed into law more than a year ago.  And although there were a few initial requirements that companies were expected to meet in 2010, the hard part is certainly yet to come. 

Or is it?

It’s honestly hard to say one way or the other.  I’m certainly not a legislative expert, but the single consensus that seems to exist in the media and across the health industry is that almost no one has a clue about what’s going to actually happen!  Read More »