In fact, “80% of US households recently [invested] in some form of energy-related improvements for their home,” according to Stuart Sikes, President at international research firm Parks Associates.

Many are also interested in the potential cost savings of energy efficiency. Parks Associates research found that while “80% of customers don’t know the price they are paying for electricity, 62% strongly believe that saving energy and lowering their utility bills are desirable.”

So with national attention focused on the need to reduce energy consumption and budget-conscious consumers paying attention, what role can utilities’ service organizations play in engaging consumers in energy management?

Some strategies you might consider:

• Alert customers about their energy consumption. Many customers don’t know or keep track of their energy usage. In fact, customers are likely to call utilities providers when they receive their energy bill if they perceive the bill to be unexpectedly high. Prevent these unnecessary contacts by alerting customers when their energy use exceeds a certain benchmark, even if this happens before the end of a billing period.  CCC members, ensure customers are receptive to these alerts by selecting the most appropriate channels, scripting effective messages, and ensuring the right frequency of contact.

• Educate customers about energy-saving techniques and products. Teaching customers about energy efficiency will boost engagement and encourage customers to take steps to reduce energy usage.  This can also create cross-sell opportunities, as customers opt to buy related products or services offered by utility providers.  CCC members, learn how to leverage this type of contact in the most effective way.

• Rethink the way you design your billing statements. Customers often don’t know how much they are paying for energy, how much they saved from the previous month, or how much they could be saving. Bill layouts that present this information in a digestible, easy-to-read format will be effective at driving consumer awareness of energy use. Poorly-designed bills might confuse customers, resulting in unnecessary customer contacts. Since bill design falls under the customer service umbrella 83% of the time, getting this right is crucial to delivering a low-effort customer experience.

• Make it a game. In fall 2011, we wrote about a technique used by software company OPower. The company partners with utilities to send homeowners a report card that tracks their home energy use and compares it with that of 100 nearby households. This spurs a contest, as neighbors compete for energy efficiency.  It also raises awareness, since the report cards inform homeowners if their energy usage is below, at, or above neighborhood average. If it is above average, the card offers tips and tricks on how to reduce consumption.

How do you make your customers aware of energy-saving products and services that you offer?

Related CCC Resources

• Proactive Contact for Critical Issues
• Value-added Contact
• Customer Billing

How do you KNOW that customers PRERER to call you?

The fact that customers still call (indeed, even that they call after having visited the website) should not be seen as proof that the live phone is the preferred channel.  In all likelihood, the reason why many of your customers still call is because your website has failed them in some way.

The key, then, to understanding how customers prefer to interact with your company—online or in another channel—is to ask the customer directly rather than making assumptions based on customer behavior.  This sounds like an in-depth survey process (and certainly it could be), but there are shortcut ways that companies are unearthing channel switching root cause drivers in a low-cost way.

Specifically, Fidelity Investments discovered a low-tech, customer-friendly method to capture customers’ reasons for abandoning Web self-service for live channels.  They use inbound calls as opportunities to conduct two-question surveys to gather in-the-moment customer feedback about the company’s online self-service and customers’ reasons for switching to the phone.

In addition, Fidelity is very careful about phrasing the questions so that the survey does not come across as an attempt to push self-service but rather a learning exercise.  We believe this is a big part of the strategy’s success—customers are not made to feel as though the company doesn’t want them to call.  Instead, the company simply wants to know more about what customers want from them.

CCC members, learn more about Fidelity’s two-question framework in a new summary here.

Related CCC Resources:

1. Improving Web Self-Service with Customer Voice (Event Replay)
2. Full Case Study: Fidelity’s Channel-Switching VOC
3. Diagnosing Online Failures (Study Chapter)

Not surprisingly, one topic that remains popular in our Talent Management forum is training, and though we’ve done extensive research into contact center training at CCC, questions abound when it comes to the best way to train staff as organizations test new methods and leverage technology to assist in training sessions.

Below we’ve highlighted some of the recent trends and insights shared by our members via Discussions on the topic of training:

Training Environments

As technology enables organizations to experiment with new training programs and methods, questions arise about the best environment to maximize training effectiveness.

Though it may seem beneficial to train staff in a live production environment, when polled our members overwhelmingly preferred a separate environment used solely for training. Many cited concerns about privacy and confidentiality as their rationale for holding separating training sessions that are removed from the contact center floor. With today’s technology, they found that it is easier than ever before to create separate training environments that replicate real working scenarios that staff can be expected to handle in the course of their jobs.

Training Hours

With many contact centers operating extended hours, there are practical questions concerning the most effective time to train staff—both new and existing. One concern is whether or not training sessions should align to the shifts that staff will eventually be working upon completion of their training.

Our member poll found that 65% of organizations do not align training sessions to shifts, often finding it more beneficial to hold training sessions during times when management can be present and involved. In addition, these members cited the their trainers’ availability as a primary concern in crafting training schedules.

In future installments, we’ll highlight more insights drawn from CCC’s Discussions Forums.

CCC Buzz readers—what other training secrets do you have?

As it turns out, the prophecy has somewhat come true.

In this case, though, it’s not people setting up their own DIY call centers, but instead service and support organizations increasingly catering to DIYers.

In an interesting recent Wall Street Journal article, vacuum cleaner, lawn mower, and snow blower companies all report that they have seen an uptick in call volume from customers who increasingly are self-troubleshooting but getting stuck mid-way and calling for help.

Apparently this is yet another indication that cash-strapped and budget-minded customers are trying to get a little more mileage out of their current products instead of running to an expensive repair shop or purchasing new products.

As a result of this influx of DIY-related call volume, a number of companies have indicated that they are hiring additional staff to support this demand.

Here are a few ideas to minimize the need for additional staffing and to help to DIYers help themselves further.

1. Publish help videos on YouTube. Companies such as Dell have some very helpful troubleshooting videos—nay, a troubleshooting channel—which can make technical support much easier in certain circumstances.  Putting videos on YouTube in addition to a company Web site increases the likely that a customer will come across the information when searching for a solution using a search engine.

2. Make it easy to understand warranty coverage.  This admittedly can require some technology investment if you need to build out in self-service channels.  Even if your site doesn’t allow customers to log in and find out their specific coverage, it should be readily apparent on the Web what is and isn’t covered under particular warranty policies and what the timeframe is for the warranties.

3. Path customers to the right place on the Web to find the technical support. CCC has a lot of research on the importance of guiding customers to the correct place for troubleshooting in self-service channels, including an interesting idea from a high tech company on designing the support page to guide particular customer segments.  We’re continuing to conduct new research on guided customer experiences, so if you’re interested in learning more about this, please let us know.

If these polls are any sort of window into the minds of our readers, then here is what we know about you:

1. You were torn on making a choice, but ultimately you think that social media is a viable, long-term option for service.
2. Indeed, you are tech-savvy…and would love to see QR codes become a new channel for service.
3. Forget the major IVR investments though!  You’re keeping it simple with low-cost fixes.
4. Everything to everyone—generalists are your employee of choice.
5. Keep it simple with those folks though…only 1-2 web chats at a time, please!
6. Your adherence policies do not give much leeway when it comes to reps taking a short “time out” after a difficult call.
7. Given a choice, you would like to see your staff receive many (yet brief) breaks during their shifts.
8. Breakfast is not a routine for you.
9. While you may need a cup of coffee or two—you do not rely on caffeine to get through the day.
10. You like voting…more than 600 of you participating in our polls in 2011, and we hope that you’ll continue to read and provide your opinion in 2012!

Here is the breakdown of results:

Just for Fun Questions
From “Staff Performance Data Series: Breakfast of Champions”
Do you eat a full breakfast?

• No (52%, 61 Votes)
• Yes (48%, 57 Votes)

Total Voters: 118

Do you rely on caffeine to get through the day?

• No (59%, 70 Votes)
• Yes (42%, 50 Votes)

Total Voters: 119

Talent Management Questions
From “Do Your Reps Need a Time Out?”
Does your company have a formal “time out” policy for reps?

• No (90%, 52 Votes)
• Yes (10%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 58

Which type of break schedule do you think would be most effective for reducing rep stress?

• More frequent, but shorter, breaks (95%, 54 Votes)
• Fewer, but longer, breaks (5%, 3 Votes)

Total Voters: 57

From “The Great Debate: Generalists vs Specialists”
Which staffing model do you find to be more effective?

• Generalists (78%, 50 Votes)
• Specialists (22%, 14 Votes)

Total Voters: 64

Technology and Multichannel Questions
From “Social Media: Bright, Shiny Object? You Decide”
Which choice below best describes Social Media for customer service?

• A viable, long-term option (55%, 72 Votes)
• A bright, shiny object (45%, 58 Votes)

Total Voters: 130

From “QR Codes: Next Gen Service or Much Ado About Nothing?”
What do you think? Is there a future in service for QR codes?

• I love it! It’s another service channel for our customers & we’re all for it! (45%, 15 Votes)
• The jury is still out … but I’m anxiously awaiting a verdict. (33%, 11 Votes)
• It’s just another fad and, like acid-washed jeans, it will go away, too. (22%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 33

From “How Many Web Chats are Too Many?”
What number of chats do you allow or think is permissible for agents to handle concurrently?

• 1-2 (60%, 29 Votes)
• 3-4 (38%, 18 Votes)
• 5 or more (2%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 48

From “Is the IVR Worth New Investment?”
Companies should approach future IVR investments with the mindset of:

• Keep it simple with low-cost fixes (64%, 16 Votes)
• Bring on the bells and whistles! (36%, 9 Votes)

Total Voters: 25

Related CCC Resources:

• IVR Topic Center
• Social Media Topic Center
• Workforce Management Topic Center

membership.  After a bit more data analysis and conversations with a host of members, we’ve uncovered a core area of focus for service organizations in 2012: understanding—and then keeping up with—customer expectations  (especially in today’s multi-channel environment).

The Current State
It turns out that today’s customers seem to be more demanding about service – savvier than ever and wanting a personalized, tailored interaction.  We hear everything from “the customer wants us to do everything for them – including calling a third party on their behalf – to resolve their problem” to “customers ask for escalation even before they interact with a frontline rep.”

That feels like a very difficult place to be – customers are selectively using outlier service experiences with other companies to define their expectations of service with your company.

And, there is a huge stake in meeting customer expectations.  If service organizations consistently don’t meet, they will see increased churn and lower customer loyalty as customers defect to companies who do meet their expectations.

Give Customers What They Want (?)
In response, many do what seems to be most reasonable – give the customers what they want to meet their expectations. Many are doing this by enabling the customer to resolve any issue in any channel at any time.  To accomplish this goal, there tends to be a three-fold solution:

1. Build out new channels: Increasingly, customers are interacting with companies through more channels – including web chat, video, text messaging, Facebook, and Twitter…just to name a few.
   
   Our question is – which channels to prioritize and how do you build a strong business case for each channel?  Do customers really expect us to have a presence in all these channels, or are we actually teaching customers to expect more and more from us by merely operating in some of these channels?
2. Expand capabilities of current channels: Seems like every channel could be more robust – whether it is adding more functionality to the website or redesigning the IVR.  This makes it easier for a customer to resolve any issue in their channel of choice.
   
   Our question is – what functionalities do customers actually use and how do they use them?  How should companies design things like their service websites to make it easy for customer to resolve their issues without forcing the customer to take the path preferred by the company (not the customer)?
3. Integrate channels: Of course, with so many ways a customer can interact with us – it is crucial to make sure those channels ‘talk’ to each other so the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves every time they switch channels.  Many say that customers want a seamless experience through those channels.Our question is – how should you invest in the technology or other solutions to accomplish this seemingly humongous task?  Are there any low- tech ways to bridge these gaps?

With these areas of focus – and questions – in mind, CCC is setting off to better understand customer expectations today, and how service organizations can consistently meeting expectations.  We have to wonder things like: are customer expectations set – or can we influence them?  Do customers prefer more choice or efficient issue resolution?  What experience best reduces customer effort?

Track our progress on this blog – plus our research updates that includes our latest hypotheses.  We’d love to hear from you – so let us know if you have any comments or want to get involved in the research.

Also, we’ll be releasing a Customer Expectations survey to test customer preferences for emerging channels and their expectations within each channel.  The survey is open to all members, so please let us know if you are interested in participating to get a custom cut of the data.

CCC Related Resources:

1. Shifting the Loyalty Curve
2. Boosting Web Self-Service Stickiness
3. Voice of the Customer

Senior executives in the service and support organization must be heeding the messages from these articles, as we are seeing renewed interest in our research and benchmarking related to organizational design.

This is particularly true for B2B support organizations that we work with, many of which are now reassessing the way their function has operated and organized for years.

A number of reasons for the renewed interest exist, but the most frequently verbalized is this: Faced with the realization that the days of basic order entry by humans are nearing a close as more and more customers prefer to self-serve and operating budgets shrink, more B2B organizations are seeking to innovate and optimize the service and order management function.

Interesting to note, however is that B2B organizations aren’t merely considering role and title changes, but in some cases actually shaking up the entire order management function and reorganizing to align differently to the business.

Here’s a look at some of the most interesting trends we are seeing today:

1. Creating business excellence centers—This is primarily occurring in organizations that seek to create greater collaboration between service and sales, going so far as to collocate service and sales staff in a single location.  Typically these business excellence centers are central hubs in a single region and are organized by product, industry, customer, or other major segmentation scheme.  The benefit of this model is both the savings generated by consolidating a service organization footprint but primarily the collaboration and account information sharing that is facilitated.

2. Redefinition of staff roles—Many B2B organizations are going through role and skill clarifying exercises, meaning that companies are taking a second look at the skills staff need to effectively serve in their roles.  Organizations are not firing staff per se, but they are clearly laying out precisely what skills staff need to be effective in their roles, in many cases creating competencies for the benefit of staff and managers.  Interviewing staff to place them in the right role has become a focus, as is increasing training to upskill staff appropriately.

Of course time will tell how successful these long-term strategies are.  But those organizations in the middle of the journey report positive preliminary indicators.

Interested to learn more from companies in the process of reorganizing—where else are you focused today?

CCC Related Resources:

Field Support Organizational Structures

B2B Key Account Rep Activity Audit

Deepening the Customer Relationship (B2B)

Boosting Self-Service “Stickiness”

“What is the future of the customer experience?”

Seems like the $64,000 question, right?

Well, I had the pleasure of attending a summit on this topic a couple of weeks ago.  Sitting in with customer service executives from around the globe and across many industries – like financial services, retail, and telecommunications – it was a great couple of days away from the office to give me time to think about the answer to that question.

We talked about everything from big data to integrating service into the customer’s more mobile lifestyle to expanding into new channels to using VOC to, of course, social media.  We discussed customer expectations today, and how to drive change throughout the organization.

And at the end of the day, after having a chance to reflect on all the rich conversations – I had a few takeaway thoughts I wanted to share with you:

Customer Expectations, Today

Seems like the relationship between customers and companies has changed in recent years.  Previously, customers were kept at arm’s length– and while we today likely don’t give full transparency into our internal processes, our investments in social media and our tailored conversations with customers had an impact.  The traditional walls between customer and company have been broken down – and as more data and information flows freely – customers can and do take advantage of that.

Customers get to see what it is like to get near instant gratification on Twitter, or receive a more complete and artfully framed explanation behind a policy from a frontline rep (as opposed to ‘it’s just the policy.’).  And – no surprise here – they like it.

But, do they need it?  Or are we setting customer expectations that we may not be able to consistently meet?

As one attendee put it – ‘are we the ones setting the expectations or is it the customer?’  I think it’s a worthy question to ask, because if we are – how do we know if we are creating a highly valuable experience or a bunch of costly ‘nice to haves’ that actually won’t matter to long-term customer loyalty at the end of the day?

So, that got me thinking about a few other topics –

1- Social Media: There is so much data to show the wide (and growing presence) of the world’s population on social media platforms.  But, it’s use for customer service?  Given the debate we had on this blog a few months ago – seems like the jury is still out.

2- Online Customer Experience: We know that the customer increasingly prefers to self-serve on the web rather than call.  But what kind of online experience do they expect and what ensures they can successfully resolve their issue on the web?  We’ve done a little work on this in the past, and will revisit this topic in more depth through our first half 2012 research initiative.

3- Customer Data and VOC: There is so much data and customer voice to collect, but it’s often like searching for a needle in a haystack to reap true insights.  We’ve discussed ways to prioritize and focus these efforts to yield more actionable data, and CCC’s latest venture – CCC Loyalty View – is a unique way to aggregate that data and provide both actionable insights and advisory services to target high-impact improvements.

4- The Frontline Rep Role: With the remaining live contact volume at higher complexity, seems like the frontline rep has to adjust.  No longer can they focus solely on issue resolution or soft skills, but also have to possess greater ownership over their customer interactions and use their knowledge to provide in-the-moment advice.  Most of you are familiar with our most recent work on the topic – looking at an emerging skill set that is increasingly important for reps to have in today’s world.

What about you, Customer Service Buzz readers?  What do you think the implications of customer expectations today are for your role and your organization over the next few years?

CCC Related Resources:

• Social Media Topic Center

• Boosting Web Self-Service Stickiness

• How to Narrow VOC Scope

• The Next Frontier of Rep Performance executive summary | full study

One option that promises to alleviate the frustration of customer holding is virtual hold. This technology allows customers to choose to receive a live callback when they reach the front of the queue, as opposed to waiting on hold to be connected to a representative. This added convenience has been met with open arms by most customers, who report lower-effort experiences as a result of using this option.

While the benefits of virtual hold are fairly straightforward, a recent question posed in CCC’s Discussions Forum highlighted an interesting debate when it comes to how companies measure customer experiences that include virtual hold. To paraphrase the issue at hand: should virtual hold time be counted as part of the traditional service level calculations (such as average speed of answer)—or should virtual hold time be excluded?

It’s an interesting facet of the technology to consider, and it comes at a time when the customer experience itself is undergoing constant, rapid change. We know the importance of measuring the customer experience, but we also know that our data is only as valuable as the inputs we use—so it’s crucial to capture inputs that best reflect the actual experience that customers have. Virtual hold, though, seems somewhat different from other factors that impact the customer experience in that choosing to virtually hold effectively ‘pauses’ the typical notion of the customer experience for the time being—so how, then, do we adjust our measurements to reflect this fact?

In talking to the CCC membership, it is clear that there is no one accepted answer; in fact, companies that have used virtual hold for several years have alternated between including and excluding the customer’s virtual hold time from service level calculations. However, many stress the importance of using two sets of metrics, each to address a specific purpose:

• Resource planning – to accurately capture call volume and traffic for planning purposes, it is essential that all hold time—virtual or otherwise—be included. Excluding virtual hold time in this case would give you an incomplete picture of your operation.
• Performance management – when it comes to tracking employee performance, it may be more appropriate to use a set of metrics that excludes virtual hold time from service level calculations. Doing so allows companies to isolate and evaluate the virtual hold experience (in terms of customer satisfaction, effort, or similar metrics) relative to experiences where customers do not choose the virtual hold option.

A broader lesson that can be learned from the discussion surrounding virtual hold is that as companies leverage technology to improve the customer experience, they must also be cognizant of the metrics used to measure that experience—and make the appropriate adjustments.

CCC Buzz readers—do you offer virtual hold as an option to your customers? If so, how have you approached measuring the customer experience in light of this new option?

Related CCC Resources

Measuring the Customer Experience

CCC Talent Management Forum

How to Measure the Modern Customer Experience (Work in Progress)