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)

To help you prepare for the year ahead, CCC’s research and advisory team is putting its heads together to give you some additional perspective on areas of opportunity we see across a variety of companies—fresh ideas on how to enhance the customer experience and improve operational performance.

The intent here is not to increase your workload, of course, but to give you additional perspective on continuing to improve your service and support operations in the year ahead.

So let me start here with the recommendation of a relatively simple tweak: Ensure that all staff know how to navigate your company’s website.

It is a basic idea, but conversations with numerous service and support organizations reveal that most companies—both B2C and B2B—have not properly taught staff to use their own websites.

And this is becoming an acute problem as forecasts indicate that self-service increasingly is a preferred channel of resolution (CCC research historically has found that the preference for self-service is equal to live service, if not higher).  And we’re continuing to work on new research on customer expectations for self-service, in which I would be highly surprised to find the trends reversing.

This change among customers—but lack of change among service and support organizations—inevitably leads to a well-intentioned but ultimately unhelpful customer interaction along the following:

Frontline Staff: “After next week you’ll be able to check your account online to make sure that the changes have been updated.”

Customer: “OK.  Thanks for the tip.  And where do I go online to find that?”

Frontline Staff: “You’ll need to log in and you’ll find it on your account page.”

Customer: “I’m looking at your web page now and don’t see that option.”

Frontline Staff: “Unfortunately I’m unable to pull the web page up, so I can’t give you any more information right now.”

Customer: “OK….  I guess I’ll just call back if I can’t find the information next week….”

So what can be done to avoid this all-too-common situation?  A few ideas, arranged from least investment required to most:

1. Ask supervisors to do a coaching session on website navigation—Put out a memo to supervisors and coaches and ask them to spend some time orienting frontline staff to your company’s website, particularly the service and support functionalities.  A general introduction can be helpful, but also navigate the site based on a few issues customers commonly call about.  At a minimum, supervisors should do this once a quarter either in team or 1:1 meetings.

2. Tweak new hire training to focus on navigation—An entirely new curriculum isn’t necessary, but even creating a short module orienting new hires (and tenured staff, too) to the website, basic navigation, and important functionality to know about is a good start.  Supervisors and coaches can supplement this on an ongoing basis.

3. Integrate self-service steps into the knowledge base—It is helpful to have training and coaching on discrete website functionalities, but to truly ensure frontline staff can effectively advise customers on what to do on the web, knowledge bases should incorporate this information.  CCC members, learn more about effective knowledge management design principles here.

4. If staff do not have access to the external Internet, at a minimum grant access to your organization’s website—All sorts of historical reasons exist why some frontline staff have no access to the Internet (if you missed it, CCC’s latest research explains why this isn’t such a wise idea from an employee performance and engagement perspective).  Given the trend toward more customers going online and the large number of customers calling because they can’t find information on the web, this would be a good issue to put on the agenda for your next leadership meeting.

In the coming weeks, stay tuned for additional 2012 Resolutions to consider from colleague Rick DeLisi on why using the term “THE CUSTOMER” is not a good idea, and from Brad Fager and Judy Wang as well.

Happy New Year.

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.

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

“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

That’s Apple’s new tagline for its natural language application, Siri, which is available on its new iOS.  If you haven’t heard of Siri yet a quick Google search will reveal that early reviews are a mixed bag: some find it useful, others find it frustrating (mostly because of recent outages), and still others just find it comical!

My question is this: will this fun app resurrect customers’ willingness to use natural voice IVRs to resolve issues?

CCC has studied Interactive Voice Response (IVR) for years and while there are certainly benefits to having a solid IVR (such as reduced customer effort and decreased customer disloyalty) I’ve never viewed it as a growth channel for self-service.  In fact, of customers who used the company IVR to resolve an issue only 29% used it for self-service, and less than half of those customers were able to fully resolve their issue.  Plus, more than 37% of those who failed in the IVR were unable to resolve their issue because of voice recognition failure.  All this data (plus the fact that I’m a visual learner) led me to believe that increased IVR utilization, especially via voice recognition, was a thing of the past.

And then along comes Siri.  This natural language beauty has the basics down pat (“What’s the weather going to be tomorrow?” and “I need directions from my house to the nearest pet supply store”), plus it can handle more advanced tasks, like setting reminders (“Don’t let me forget my son’s birthday”) & giving restaurant recommendations (“I’m going to be in Chicago tonight and I’m in the mood for Chinese food”).  And all based on your voice commands.

Oh, sure, Siri’s struggling a bit with accents and there are some other minor glitches, but all-in-all this app has restored my faith in voice recognition.  And that restored faith has me believing that, if positioned correctly, service organizations can do wonders with call containment in the IVR by enabling a speech recognition tool upfront.  There are a couple of keys to getting speech recognition right:

1)      Know how your customers ask for help.  One of my colleagues recently wrote a blog post describing how to match your IVR’s offerings to your customers needs.

2)      Know your limits.  IVRs will never handle everything that customers ask for and there are limits to what your customers want to do in the IVR.

That said, as Siri has shown in the few short weeks that she’s been available, the limits of natural language are being stretched every day.

CCC Resources

1)      Design an Easy-to-Use IVR – A customer-friendly IVR begins with good design. When callers enter the IVR, they should be presented with options that are well-organized, clearly stated, and representative of key customer interests.

2)      Drive IVR Utilization – From a company perspective, customers show little patience when it comes to the IVR. Cultivating customers’ patience with the IVR starts with strong communication. By preparing customers for what they will encounter in the IVR we can get them onboard and using it more effectively.

3)      Make Informed Technology Decisions – There are many decisions to make for IVR technology selection and subsequent management. Companies often have to address questions on multiple levels (such as—should I get speech or stay with touchtone, and if I have speech, should touchtone be offered as a back-up?), to finalize their choice of vendor and IVR technology.

Is the IVR channel worth investing in for the future? 

In other words, should companies invest in additional IVR functionality and enhanced technology moving forward?  Or should we leave it alone, assuming that it is not a “channel of the future”…that our customers will NEVER want to use the IVR en masse (as much as we’d like them to)?

It’s an interesting question.  The CCC research team discussed it recently and it sparked a really good conversation.  To share some of the debate, I’ve asked Matt Lind to spar with me here. 

Matt: Thanks, Lauren. From my perspective, the decision here is dependent on the future of the phone channel for customer service. If the phone is here to stay (and I’d argue that it is), then IVR will remain relevant. Looking at data from our study on Cost Savings Customers Want, we find that customers place roughly equal value on the phone and Web channels—and while this is possibly indicative of future growth in Web preferences, it’s hard for me to envision a service world where the phone is obsolete. There will always be customers who prefer to be served via phone—and as long as this is true, companies will continue to need a good IVR.

Lauren: While I agree that the phone channel is not likely to disappear, I’d argue that companies do not need to ADD functionality to their IVRs (assuming the current platform has basic routing and self-service).  When companies discuss with us their plans for dramatic IVR self-service with bells and whistles, I suggest that they rethink the depth of the investment…it simply isn’t the area where customers are looking to resolve most issues. 

Looking at the same research you cite above, Matt, we also know that more than half of callers have already gone to a company’s web site…meaning they’ve tried self-service and now simply want to talk to someone.  So why push self-service again in the IVR?

Matt: I’ll concede that the IVR is not suited to resolve all customer issues. However, when customers fail online, I tend to think it’s because they can’t find the information they’re looking for. The benefit of IVR as a self-service option is that it’s so structured, guiding customers to resolution in a straightforward, logical way.

If we agree that the phone is here to stay, then I think it makes sense for companies to take advantage of the latest advances in speech recognition and other technology to create a robust IVR. By investing here, customers will have a self-service option in the phone channel—and companies can deflect calls from live agents in the process.

Lauren: I see the idea of trying to deflect live calls, but I think the opportunity is not about in keeping customers in the IVR—it should be about keeping them on the web site.  The IVR is just a band-aid…why not fix the actual issues that are driving customers from the web site to begin with?  As it stands, I think that the IVR’s past failures are engrained with customers.  With such a negative reputation, I think that companies will struggle to get customer adoption rates high enough with new technology to actually achieve ROI. 

Now—one area where I CAN see some investment related to IVR functionality would be enhanced CTI capabilities.  There are many systems in use that ask customers for account information or identification but then don’t transfer that information to a live rep if the customer fails in self-service.  We’ve all been there, and it’s not a pleasant experience.  That seems like a better investment than, for example, speech functionality.

————-

Ok, readers…which side of the argument are you on?  Vote below!

Related CCC Resources:

• IVR Topic Center
• Boosting Web Self-Service Stickiness
• Chnnel-Switching Voice of the Customer Approach

While most companies look to enhance their IVR systems through technology or sophisticated design, they fail to take care of a simple aspect—customer-friendly language.

Companies often design their IVR systems with an internal focus—resulting in company-specific jargon in the IVR script. This makes the system complex for customers who cannot relate to the terminology.  Hence, customers end up in misrouted calls leading to frustration and increased effort.

How do you ensure your IVR system says what you customers understand? Well, you talk to your customers and find out how they define the issues they call you up for.

Intuit did just that when it realized that 40% of its customers often ended up in misrouted calls.

To fix the problem, the company used a phased, live-testing approach that allowed Intuit to make tweaks to the script as often as needed.  Intuit achieved a 41% increase in routing effectiveness, saving an estimated $230,000.        

CCC Members: Learn about Intuit’s phased approach to incorporating customer feedback in a more detailed summary here. You can also listen to CCC’s presentation of the Intuit case by accessing the full Webinar replay here.

Related CCC Resources:

• Building an Effective IVR Resource Center
• Building an Effective IVR: Summary of Key Insights
• Design an Easy-to-Use IVR
• Top 10 IVR Mistakes

CCC has partnered with Iconoculture to bring you the latest in global consumer trends.  Below is our bi-weekly update featuring the latest Iconoculture insights available now on the CCC site.

NYU’s Langone Medical Center has started to use palm scanners to identify patients at check-in. This biometric technology uses near-infrared waves to take a photo of each patient’s unique palm vein configuration. As with fingerprints, no two patients have the same palm pattern. Results are then used to pull the patient’s medical records – leading to a more efficient check-in process and better data security.

You might be thinking: That’s interesting, but how does it apply to me? Bear with me here.

For hospitals, the system promotes patient safety. Studies have shown that hospital errors – including misidentification – account for almost 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

Yet patients also benefit, which is why only 1% have chosen to opt out of the system since its launch earlier this year. Advantages include:

• Quick check-in: Each palm scan takes just one minute.  Patients don’t have to waste time digging for insurance cards or filling out lengthy forms.

• Confidence in technology: Patients trust the system to make up for human error and they enjoy the convenience of a speedy check-in process.

Sure, this is a no-brainer for a hospital – where time and safety are paramount – but what about the broader implications of biometric tools such as palm, fingerprint, and iris scanners, as well as facial and voice recognition software?

A recent Unisys survey found that 70% of Americans trust biometric technologies for security. In the past few years, biometrics have been used to identify individuals at immigration checkpoints, banks, and even Walt Disney World, which started fingerprinting visitors to prevent ticket fraud. In Japan, more than half of the nation’s ATM machines have fingerprint readers to identify customers.

Given increasing confidence in biometrics, it is worth asking: can this work in a contact center?

It might.

In a recent CCC Discussions post, a member stated that biometric technology may have long-term potential to be an effective contact center authentication system.  Voice recognition, which identifies customers by the unique waves and rhythms of their voices, may one day complement (or even be an alternative to) Social Security, PIN, or Security Q&A verification systems.

National Australia Bank rolled out a biometric speech recognition system in June 2009 to its personal banking customers. By April 2011, the bank had recorded 130,000 voiceprints through customer self-enrollment.

To clarify, voice recognition is not the same as speech recognition. The latter recognizes what you say; the former identifies who you are. In an age where fraud is an important customer concern, and since many customers are uncomfortable stating their Social Security numbers on the phone and may have trouble remembering PINs, voice recognition could be a safe and convenient solution.

What do you think? Have you considered using biometric technology (such as voice recognition software) in the contact center? Do you think this is plausible now or in the future?

Leave your thoughts below!

Other Recently Posted Insights from Iconoculture:

• Young Latinos Seek Bicultural Content
• Dotcoms for Moms Curates Momcentric Web Shopping
• Beverage Companies are Watching their Water Footprint
• Australia’s Daily Deals Grab Consumers’ Attention

And that’s not all.

Banking customers can also use smartphones to pay bills, receive updates and take actions via text message, make transfers, and easily reach service reps.

And although the global mobile banking industry has doubled in recent years and is projected to reach 1.1 billion customers by 2015, sources point out that customers are still very reluctant to adopt mobile banking apps.

A Javelin Strategy & Research report outlines two specific reasons for this:

1. customers don’t see the full value in these apps and
2. they have concerns around information security.  (In fact, between 2009 and 2010, the number of customers who rated mobile banking apps as “unsafe” increased by 54%.)

Does this mean that mobile banking apps are doomed?  Not necessarily.  Banks just need to change the way they position apps to customers to ensure that they give customers what they want.  After all, it wasn’t so long ago that we doubted the staying power of online banking – but the 60% of consumers who now bank on the Web prove that self-service shifts are inevitable.

A few thoughts on how to engage customers in the shift to mobile banking:

• Emphasize the app as a differentiating service channel.  CCC’s study of customer channel preferences demonstrates a rapid shift to self-service:  across the last 3-5 years, the percent of customers who use self-service has grown from 10% to more than 40%. It makes sense that self-service follows technological trends: first e-mail, then Web, then social media, now smartphones.  While some banks may wait for customers to gain confidence in mobile apps, true differentiators will proactively drive that confidence.
• Target tech-savvy customers first. A recent McKinsey study found that consumers can be characterized into groups based on the types of digital experiences they prefer. “Digital media junkies” (mostly younger men) are 3 times more likely than their peers to embrace new technologies across digital channels.  Pointing these customers in the direction of the mobile app may therefore be a smart move.  CCC members, learn how Cisco used segmentation to align different customer types with distinct channels.
• Proactively guide customers to the app. Customers may not realize how much value they can get from mobile app functionality.  To encourage use, guide customers to the app using e-mail messaging, targeted Web site language, or proactive mention by reps.  CCC members, read about best practices on guiding the customer experience in self-service channels.
• Address customers’ privacy concerns.  Read Corey’s three recommendations on how to ensure information privacy in service interactions. Be transparent with customers. Provide clear information on how customer data is protected on smartphones and be proactive in addressing threats.
• Allow customers to “experiment” with mobile banking before committing. Customers might not be willing to take the full plunge into mobile banking, but companies can benefit from offering varied mobile services, such as proactive text and e-mail alerts (reminding customers, for instance, when their balance is low), maps (allowing users to find nearby branches or ATMs), or streamlined customer service functionality (providing easy access to reps via text message, social media, etc.).

Though customers still have doubts about mobile banking, I would argue that its future is clear. Sixty percent of customers now embrace online banking via PCs and, as smartphone functionality evolves, it is inevitable that mobile banking will follow.  Successful service organizations can differentiate and gain customer loyalty by being proactive in driving this movement, not reacting when it’s too late.

Related CCC Research:

• Segmentation to Passively Guide Customers (Cisco)
• Cost Savings Customers Want
• Topic Center: Migrate Customers to Self-Service