Just about a year and a half ago, we shared the Customer Effort concept through the publication of our article entitled, “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” in the Harvard Business Review.

By Gauri Subramani

This post is the second in a two-part series on bill formatting and paper bills versus online billing.  Read part one here.

When we last left off with billing, we had considered the complexity of changing the format of a paper bill and steps companies can take to make the transition to a new bill layout painless for both customers and contact centers.

With the increasing popularity of self-service and adoption of online platforms for routine processes, many companies have reconsidered channels of bill distribution in addition to bill format and have moved from paper to e-bills.  After all, the Web is the first place that 56% of consumers look to find answers to their customer service questions, and as more people manage their bank accounts and credit cards online, the move from paper to online billing feels like a natural progression.

There are a number of benefits to switching from paper to e-billing.

• Improved cash flow: Electronic payments are faster and thus improve the company’s cash flows and net present value.
• Decreased call volume and improved customer service: Considering that billing questions can account for up to 70% of contact center calls, when customers are able to check their balances and do basic payment adjustments online, call volume drops and reps can spend their time with issues that require their expertise.
• Increased customer satisfaction:  Considering that Generation X and Y-ers think of the Internet as a one-stop shop and perceive paper bills to be relics from another era, online billing is more convenient for them.

The future of billing certainly appears to be online.  So how does your business get there?  Read More »

In unstable economic times, it has become especially important for financial services companies to focus more attention on serving their customers.

Given the unique issues that customer service professionals in the Financial Services industry face – including customer privacy and financial risk regulations – it can be difficult to know what CCC resources would be most helpful.

Wondering what others in your industry are reading? Here is a list of the CCC resources that your industry peers are downloading most often.

Top 3 CCC Resources for Financial Services Customer Service Professionals

1. Engineering a Low-Effort Customer Experience

What it is: A popular CCC download, this research outlines the most effective, up-to-date strategies for customer effort reduction.  In today’s competitive banking landscape, differentiating the customer experience may be a great way to win and retain customers.

Why your peers use it:

• To understand the sources of customer effort.
• To identify ways to reduce both the objective and subjective sides of effort.
• To coach frontline reps to employ techniques to reduce “in-the-moment” customer effort.

You might also be interested in: The Customer Effort Score – a customer experience metric that accounts for ease of customer interaction during a service request. CCC research has found that this is the most accurate measure of loyalty in a service organization.  Read More »

No one likes to wait, right?  While I’m pretty sure no one would say they like waiting, the truth is actually a little murkier than at first glance.

In one of my earlier blog posts, I dissected our finding that customers expect (or even prefer) to wait between 30 to 50 seconds before speaking to a live rep- and that these customers would trade off 30 seconds of wait time for a 1% better chance of getting their issue resolved.

My conclusion was two-fold:

-One, that a faster average speed of answer (ASA) is a minor consideration in the customer experience unless it goes past the 50-second mark and

-Two, customers care much more about what happens during phone conversations than how long they were on hold.

A recent article from HBR on customer experiences waiting online (you know, those progress bars that pop up when you are searching for flights or seeing if there are any iPads left in stock) adds to our initial findings and provides some interesting food for thought. Read More »

They are one of those things that companies often love to hate: customer complaints.

Complaints are an added hassle, typically creating additional and time-consuming work, both for service and support and for other parts of the business.

So it is no wonder that for a long time, many organizations have minimized their attention to the efficacy of the complaint handling process.

The result of this?  Complaint policies that require customers to call a specific phone number, repeat their issue to multiple tiers of staff, submit a written report, and provide intricate evidence of an issue.  (These are all examples surfaced from companies we work with.)

Certainly all of these policies are well-intentioned, but they often signal to the customer that companies do not actually want to hear about the issue.

Read More »

“I need a flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC on Monday morning.”

“I want to return this GPS unit.”

What do these customer requests have in common?  In both situations what the customer needs isn’t necessarily the flight or the product return.  In the first situation, the customer might need to fly to get to an important meeting…or to see his daughter’s dance recital.  And maybe the customer returning the electronic product needs something with more features – or international maps for an upcoming trip to Japan.

Either way, the customer isn’t just going to volunteer this additional info – which makes it hard for the rep to give the customer what they need if the Monday morning flight isn’t available or if the product is outside the window in which it can be returned with a full refund.

So, what to do?  When reps can’t give a customer what they want, they will often default to the first available alternative – or even present the customer with a variety of alternatives.  But, the customer always ends up feeling like the alternative is ‘second best’, often arguing and negotiating to get what they asked for because it is their ‘first choice’.

Fortunately, there is a way to make an alternative seem as good (or even better) as the customer’s ‘first choice.’ Read More »

When I get the chance to spend time with a member company, we usually end up talking about customer effort.  And while the customer effort data is always eye-opening, the crystallizing moment usually comes when I ask folks to:

“Take off your contact center leadership hat for a second and think about your past experiences as a consumer.  Tell me about a time when you had to call customer service that resulted in a high effort experience for you.”

Of course, every one of us is not just a customer service leader, but also a consumer.  Our experiences with our banks, telecom, and online retailer companies are all great fodder that helps us internalize what high effort means to our customers by putting context around the concept of customer effort.

So, I asked members of the CCC research team to talk about their recent high-effort experiences.  And, I not only got quite a response but started to see some interesting trends emerge. Read More »

The CCC research team mainly sits in our Arlington, VA offices, but recently we partnered with a few of our colleagues in our New Delhi, India office on an article in the Mint entitled “Rethinking Customer Loyalty.”  In the article, we dissect six commonly held myths about customer loyalty.  The article is part of a larger series that debunks top myths across other functions like marketing and sales.

 For those of you familiar with our loyalty work there are no real surprises here, and our work on customer effort and web self-service are prominently displayed.  The six big myths we debunk include: Read More »

By Matt Hoffman

A CCC member recently asked me whether his organization could eliminate too much customer effort.  According to this executive, a service experience is an important touchstone for customers.  If you eliminate customer effort, you might also eliminate a rare personal connection between a large company and its individual customers.

Our research has shown that, in general, reducing customer effort increases customer loyalty.  However, are there instances where a little bit of customer effort is a good thing?

Below, Rick Delisi and I offer our two cents on this question.  We’ll also explain why we put a photograph of eggs in a blog about customer effort.

Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

As the holiday season wraps up (no pun intended), we find ourselves sending off a multitude of “Thank You” notes to relatives, friends, whomever—for gifts they’ve so generously given us. Because, hey, who doesn’t enjoy being appreciated for a kind thought or gesture?

The same goes for your company and executives. When you work hard to help and please the public and consumers, it’s nice to be recognized for doing so. But, what do you do when your business receives a “Thank You” note? Put it on your fridge? Share it in your internal newsletter? Publish it in the media?  How will stakeholders perceive the publication of a “Thank You” note? Self-serving? Inauthentic? Positive? After having widespread negative media coverage? You want to communicate to the public any positive recognition—but is it appropriate to publish such notes in the media? Read More »