It’s been just over a year since we brought you the “Funniest Customer Service Spoofs”, an entry that continues to rank among the most popular in the history of the Customer Service Buzz blog. And if we learned (or rather, confirmed) anything from this diversionary post, it’s that customer service professionals have a healthy sense of humor about themselves and their jobs—even though we seem to get more than our fair share of ridicule.

Let’s face it, though. Despite the fact that we all strive to eliminate poor experiences that are frustrating for customers, from an outsider’s perspective these situations can be…well…absolutely hilarious. And it’s not just standup comedians and sitcoms that are leveraging the comedic fodder to be had; on the contrary, more and more companies are pushing customer service to differentiate themselves—and using some spectacularly bad examples to illustrate their competitors’ allegedly inferior service.

With that in mind, we’ve dug up a few more customer service-related spoofs, pranks, and advertisements that are sure to keep you laughing…unless, of course, you’re that frustrated customer on the other end of the line:
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While you might be able to tell me who your most effective supervisors are, it’s probably much more difficult to say just what exactly makes them so good at what they do. Is it their personality? Communication skills? Their experience ? Something unique about the reps on their team? Is it their management style? The list of potential factors goes on and on…

When CCC set out to investigate what makes an effective supervisor, our first step was to try to make sense of all the above variables—and more. And while it’s true that no two supervisors are exactly alike, we’ve managed (with the aid of a few statistical tools) to simplify a seemingly infinite universe into five distinct supervisor personas based common characteristics. Here’s what we found: Read More »

At CCC, much of our research work involves studying and teaching best-in-class practices—in doing so, we help our member companies learn smart, innovative approaches to common challenges that service organizations face. It’s a simple but powerful model, and while many of the best practices we profile offer solutions for the organization, the concept works just as well at an individual level.

We’ve all been the beneficiary of a helpful tip or trick from a coworker, and while we may not think of an Excel shortcut, for example, as rising to the level of a “best practice”, in the service organization these are exactly the kind of useful pieces of advice that can add up to real savings. The biggest challenge is that it can be tough to identify—let alone replicate—these time-saving habits of high performers to improve performance among the entire front line.

To address this challenge, one financial services company we work with took a structured approach to learning from and sharing the collective wisdom of their frontline reps. While the full case is available on the CCC Web site, the key insights to help you uncover and teach time- and cost-saving tips and shortcuts are below: Read More »

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 »

Note: This post is the final installment in a four-part series based on CCC’s research, “Pillars of a Customer-Driven Collections Strategy”.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve offered our perspective on how to create a truly customer-oriented collections strategy—one that both leverages customer insight and motivates staff to exhibit customer-focused behaviors. In this final installment, I’ll discuss how tracking customer experience metrics for collections agents can motivate customer-focused behaviors that help preserve long-term relationships—a key challenge facing our membership given new enterprise standards for customer satisfaction and higher customer churn stemming from increased competition. Read More »

Note: This post is the first in a four-part series based on CCC’s research, “Pillars of a Customer-Driven Collections Strategy”. In this series, we’ll discuss the research findings and best practices that can help your organization adopt a more effective approach to debt collections—moving away from a pure quantity focus and toward a quality, customer-oriented collections strategy.

While we’re beginning to hear good news that the U.S. and global economies are poised to rebound, tough financial times—and the high delinquency volumes that accompany them—continue to have some big implications for collections in many organizations. To better understand this timely topic, CCC turned to our membership network, where conversations revealed not only a diverse set of challenges associated with the collections function, but also highlighted a wide range of strategies that companies pursue when it comes to collections.

In terms of strategy, most companies realize the insufficiency of a pure quantity-based approach that stresses “more calls, more dollars”—and often neglects the cost side of the equation. Such an unfocused model inevitably leads to poor decision-making and misallocation of resources, giving a “one-size-fits-all” treatment to all accounts, even those that will eventually self-cure. Read More »

If you happened to pick up the paper, access the internet, or turn on your TV last week, chances are you heard about the epic matchup that took place on Jeopardy! And if you’re anything like me, you watched with increasing horror as IBM’s Watson supercomputer brutally dispensed with the best opponents mankind had to offer.

When the trivia bloodbath was all over, however, we were left thinking one thing: what does this technology mean for our future—and, in particular, the future of customer service?

It seems the folks at IBM have, not surprisingly, already put some thought into this—and one of the most promising applications they see for the future of this technology is in the call center.

The question certainly raised debate among the research staff here at CCC as to the potential for the technology that’s behind Watson to fundamentally change the role of the call center and the Customer Service Representative. The conversation in our office devolved into “a battle of the Matts”, and below are our brief thoughts:

Question: Does Watson signal a shift in the role of the CSR? Read More »

As a research analyst at CCC, one of my favorite areas to explore is the impact that technology has on the customer experience. It goes without saying that technology—everything from CRM to the latest IVR strategies—has played a major role in transforming how businesses serve their customers over the last decade. To help CCC members navigate this (nearly) limitless technology universe, we offer the Technology Decision Support Center—a one-stop shop for helpful resources on purchasing and implementing a variety of call center technologies.

One technology that is front of mind for many of our members is speech analytics. For those who may be unfamiliar, speech analytics is a software application that mines recorded customer interactions for specific words or phrases, call elements, or trends that can be used in a wide range of ways to improve operations and inform strategy decisions.

The real value of speech analytics lies in the technology’s ability to capture, organize, and analyze Voice of the Customer data more efficiently than the hit-or-miss approach that characterizes most manual VOC efforts. The downside, however, is one we see all too often: companies view technology as a quick fix, but without a strong plan and processes in place they fail to realize returns. This is especially true of speech analytics, as this versatile technology can sometimes lead companies to be overly ambitious.

To help members confront these challenges, CCC is offering two upcoming webinars featuring a panel of representatives from EarthLink, U.S. Cellular, and InterContinental Hotels Group that will discuss their experiences with speech analytics technology. Read More »

I recently came across an article on “Ten Tips for Making Websites Stickier”—a timely topic, as our data shows more and more customers prefer the Web channel as a means of self-serving. Unfortunately, data from the very same study on Cost Savings Customers Want underscores the truth about these customers—oftentimes, they don’t stay in the channel very long.

One sentence from the article in particular stood out:

“The key to keeping customers on your website and helping them to complete their tasks begins with understanding what caused them to abandon and then taking actionable steps to improve the customer experience.”

I couldn’t agree more with this statement, but all too often companies take the wrong approach to diagnosing the causes of Web site abandonment. Many run immediately to technology but limit themselves to analyzing metrics such as page visits, click-through rates, and Web CSAT. While this approach is useful in identifying the upside (where your website is doing well), it fails to consider the downside and pinpoint the causes for confusion, failure, and ultimately abandonment. The simpler, more effective means of determining these causes is one that companies often miss: ask the customer. Read More »

Customer Service News

• “Designing the Soft Side of Customer Service”—closely related to CCC’s work on low effort and the importance of the customer’s subjective impression, an interesting look at how emotions, trust, and control impact the service experience [Forbes]
• New call center leader The Philippines looks to add 70,000 jobs in 2011 [Manila Standard Today]
• Travelers vote TSA the worst customer service provider in the industry—but most point to policies and procedures (not service) as the actual source of headaches [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
• Customer activism to the extreme: sure, a few hundred angry customers can put a dent in your brand…but a few angry hackers can bring your whole business to a screeching halt [AdAge]