Customer Service Buzz

Customer Service News

• Will Nordstrom’s online, customer-facing integration of store and warehouse inventory pay off? Sources say yes. [New York Times]
• Facebook’s informal valuation is now as high as $33.7 billion [FT]
• EMarketer estimates that 28% of the American public will access the web from smartphones in 2010, up from 17% in 2008 [Adweek]
• Intuit will launch new credit card platform for iPhone [Mashable]                       
• …while Consumer Reports pushes for more fraud protection on mobile payments platforms [ReadWriteWeb]                                      
• Throwing cold water on the smartphone hype [Mashable]                                           
• An in-depth analysis of the spread of Twitter in the first few years of the service’s life [Hubspot]                                   
• Pew study finds that social media use has nearly doubled for internet users 55 and up [Mashable]               
• Only 1.2% of executives say it is important to use social media channels to offer customer service [Marketing Profs]                                 
• Are consumers becoming desensitized to product recalls? [AdAge]
• CFI report shows decline in offshore contact centers for the second year running [Business Wire] 

We are starting a new experiment on the blog today – aggregating the latest and best customer service news from around the Web on a regular basis, bringing you the freshest perspective on the customer service landscape.

Let us know if you like this approach, hate it, or other types of information you’d like to see in this aggregator.

Customer Service News

• The next big country to outsource your contact center to is…the United States? [NPR]
• American Express survey shows that customer service – or lack thereof – plays a large role in purchase decisions. We concur! [Brandweek, Customer Contact Council]
• New report: social media users expect requests for help (in emergency situations) to be answered within the hour [ReadWriteWeb]
• Wired’s Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff say the Web is dead, having been replaced by an ecosystem of semi-closed “apps” for mobile and desktop alike. Note that you are reading the article…in a web browser. [Wired]
• Taking self-service to the next level – a partnership between Bank of America and Visa will bring mobile payments to New York this fall [Mashable]
• Does more social media data mean more insights? Maybe, says Zach Hofer-Shall of Forrester [Forrester Research]
• Richard Branson’s first rule of customer service – and when to break it [LiveMint]
• A Boston hospital starts texting service for ER wait times (a twist on the web-based version we’ve blogged about) [The Boston Globe, Customer Contact Council]
• The Wall Street Journal takes on one source for continued innovation – your employees [WSJ]

Prank calling is one of those things we know is wrong, but it is hard not to laugh at a good prank call.  It’s a similar feeling to slapstick comedy—you’re indulging in somebody else’s misery.  Once upon a time, to enjoy a good prank call, you actually had to make the calls yourself.  Today, though, YouTube offers a seemingly endless supply of prank calls at your fingertips.  All of the laughs, and none of the guilt.

If you browse the prank calls posted on YouTube, you might find your company is on the wrong end of the joke.  These interactions are generally benign (aside from wasting your money), and your company likely won’t come away with a tarnished reputation (assuming that your rep handled it as a normal call or at least exited the conversation gracefully).  For now let’s entertain ourselves with perhaps the most adorable prank call ever, conducted by Little Becky (she’s a pro).

Read More »

I’m heading off on vacation shortly, and from the recent conversations I’ve had with members it sounds like I’m not alone in getting geared up for a summer getaway.  While I’m definitely taking a break from work (and away from my iPhone), I’m also planning on a lot of quality reading time on the beach. 

So, what’s in my beach bag?  I thought I’d share what I’m currently reading that’s related to customer service (some more directly than others, but all fuel my thinking in the space).  Read More »

What’s your favorite type of hold music?  Do you like some smooth jazz or light rock?  Or maybe you prefer silence while you wait?  Me personally, I like to listen to some classical music while I’m waiting to talk to a customer service rep.

Whether it’s the recommendation to use nature sounds instead of actual music, a ranking of the top worst hold music songs of all time, or the innovative use of your own staff to record hold music – seems like everyone has an opinion on the matter.  From everything about deciding on the music itself to inserting messaging throughout – I’ve even heard members talk about letting their customers choose which kind of hold music to listen to or let customers choose to wait in silence.

But, there may soon come a time when all of these questions are rendered irrelevant.

Meet LucyPhone. Read More »

Needless to say (especially living in Washington, DC) it’s hard to find a conversation topic that elicits the same reaction from everyone.  But my experience working in customer service reveals one commonality across all ages, nationalities, races, and eye colors:  If you tell someone you work in customer service, they’ll tell you their latest call center catastrophe. Your former classmate was transferred four times before he found out why his computer screen went blue.  Your aunt could have swept the floors of Madison Square Garden in the time it took her cable company to pick up the phone.  And all your friend’s husband wants to know is what it takes to talk to a human being.  Like it or not, these stories reflexively pour out whenever we answer the inevitable question, “What do you do?”

Our industry certainly receives a disproportionate share of public scorn.  But thankfully, some comedians channel this frustration into something funnier than the typical cocktail party venting session.  Which brings me to my question: What’s the funniest customer service scene you’ve ever seen? (learn about my favorites after the jump)

Read More »

It’s college graduation time, and that means the inspirational commencement speeches will start to circulate in the press—providing tips on everything from wearing sunscreen to pursuing your passions.  Most college grads will, I’m sure, feel confident their four years of studies have prepared them well for whatever life offers them.  

On the flip side, what about the folks who shunned the classroom for a  “real world” education?  Turns out that some of them have been pretty successful too.

Time Magazine recently published a list of the Top 10 College Dropouts, pointing out that several wildly successful individuals never got their diplomas.  Some names on the list are predictable: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, to name two.  A few others were news to me: Tom Hanks left school to become a theater intern, and Harrison Ford abandoned his philosophy studies to try acting.

Certainly the reputations of these people makes one at least momentarily pause to reconsider the time and expense of higher education as a necessary component of success.  What is it about experiential, non-classroom learning that drives similar outcomes? Read More »

As a diehard men’s U.S. college basketball fan, the four-week period between “Selection Sunday” until a U.S. national champion is crowned, commonly referred to as March Madness, is one of the most intense and exciting months of the year.

Sixty-five teams will tip-off in mid-March, all vying for the crown of “Best College Basketball Team in the Country”.  And while all of the teams have talented athletes, and have achieved successful seasons to reach this stage, it’s their coaches that often deserve the most credit. 

Coaches recognize the strengths and opportunity areas of every player, and help guide each player individually to improvements that will ultimately boost the overall performance of the team.  You don’t find coaches telling players to simply “score more points”; they actually help them understand how to score more points.  And the best coaches emphasize “in-game coaching”, taking a few seconds during the game to guide the player to better performance, without taking him fully out of the game environment.

And while coaching in the contact center occurs almost as frequently as coaching on the court, not enough “in-game coaching” is happening in most contact centers today. Read More »

When you ask people what they dislike about customer service, what’s one of the first things they mention?

While some customers may mention the hold time or the length of the call with the customer service agent, more often than not people complain loudly about IVRs. They are viewed as a necessary evil for many customers and companies alike. Making the IVR an easier experience for the average person is a noble goal. But unfortunately, a negative IVR experience in the past can condition customers to the unfortunate habit of zeroing out at all costs (honestly, we’ve all done it before, pressing zero repeatedly to escape the touch-tones).

We’ve all heard of sites like GetHuman that help customers bypass IVRs by showing which numbers to hit to either:

1. get to any frontline staff as soon as possible or

2.  route to the correct department

Why are sites like these so popular? The reality is that most customers don’t always realise IVRs are for routing purposes, which actually benefit them.

Companies continually reinvest in getting IVRs right but how can we help customers with shortcuts? Or put another way, what if we brought an easier IVR experience to the customer?

Well, there’s an app for that. Read More »

Welcome to Customer Service Buzz, a blog from the Customer Contact Council (CCC).  We provide quantitatively-proven, rigorously vetted and unbiased insights on issues facing the world’s best network of customer service/support professionals. 

One of the best parts of our jobs are the ongoing conversations we have with the 500+ companies across our membership to understand their most pressing needs and their current approaches to solve problems facing their companies.  The CCC team is eager share our findings and start a conversation with those, like you, who want to get the pulse of customer service.

 So, what can you expect from the Customer Service Buzz?

• Views on emerging customer service issues and trends
• The latest updates on our ongoing research initiatives
• The inside scoop on what fellow customer service executives are talking about

We can’t promise you we’ll always have the answer, but we can promise thought-provoking and cutting edge commentary on the world of customer service.  We look forward to hearing from you too.