When you rub elbows with customer service execs from 400 different companies every day you hear a lot of issues and challenges that group together into common themes.  Some of the most common:

• How can we reduce our costs, without damaging the customer experience?
• Is there a way to create a consistent customer experience across multiple channels?
• What’s the best way to create customer loyalty?

There are a few different ways to word these questions — i.e, loyalty, satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth. However, there’s one group of questions that inevitably start with the same exact words:

How can we get our employees…

(to create a better service experience?) (become more engaged?) (be more efficient?) (go the extra mile for customers?)

Of all those words, the one that jumps out is “get.” How can we GET our employees…?

Here’s the thing. I’ve been doing a lot of work this past year in the areas of human behavioral reinforcement and employee psychology, and what I’ve been learning is that…

…you…can’t. You (as a leader) can’t GET anyone to do anything that they don’t want to do. Read More »

“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: Read More »

When I have a question about the best way to do something, more often than not my first step is to ask a peer for help. Not only are my peers the most likely people to know what I’m going through and have the right answer, but they’re also the most convenient, comfortable source of knowledge to which I have access.

Unlike me, though, the typical rep in today’s service organization doesn’t have too many opportunities to learn from his or her peers; in fact, given the time constraints and scheduled nature of the call center, peer-to-peer learning—when it happens at all—tends to occur in an informal, ad hoc fashion. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it highlights an opportunity to introduce some more structure to the peer support that’s already taking place. And with more structured support, we can not only help avoid some of the potentially negative effects of unstructured peer support (for example, reps unknowingly sharing bad information with one another), but also:

1)      Decrease the burden on supervisors, who reps most frequently turn to for support in the absence of a helpful, accessible peer.

2)      Tap into an existing need for reps to connect with and support their peers.

3)      Develop coaching skills in reps, preparing them to fill future supervisor, coach, and leadership positions.

In short—there are some BIG benefits to be realized by creating the right conditions for effective peer-to-peer support in today’s service organization. Read More »

I’m not ashamed to admit it (although I probably should be!) — during my school-age years, whenever I was forced to read some piece of classic literature, my first thought was always, “Lemme see if there’s a movie based on this book, cause I’d rather watch THAT instead of reading some stupid book.”

While that may have seemed like a clever strategy at age 12, as I reflect back today at age (insert higher number here) it’s obvious that as Mrs. Bierbauer often said, it turns out “I was only cheating myself.”

And so, while I may never fully appreciate the subtleties and nuances of Madame Bovary and Pride and Prejudice I do at least remember one story from the movie version of Tom Sawyer that keeps coming back to me as a lesson we should all apply in managing big Customer Service teams:

The best ideas are the ones that people come up with themselves — although sometimes we have to create the occasion FOR them to come up with those ideas. Read More »

There are many things about which B2B service and support organizations can be proud: order processing errors have decreased over the past several years, customers increasingly use self-service and self-help, and CRM utilization is up at many organizations.  With all of this progress, however, it is rare to find a B2B organization that is satisfied with its current level of frontline performance.

Certainly performance is adequate, if not quite decent.  But faced with mandates to decrease service and support costs while at the same time improve the customer experience, B2B service and support organizations are increasingly searching for the next opportunity to drive progress.

Which is why CCC’s latest research on frontline performance, The Next Frontier of Rep Performance, has resonated so well with B2B organizations, order management and technical support alike.

Read More »

What profession(s) can help those of us in Customer Service learn the most about how to improve our performance?  Who should we be observing and modeling ourselves after?

Of course, we should always be looking at other people in customer service — in different fields and business models — and see how they do what they do.

(I worked in the airline business for many years, and was always astounded at how little interest there was in ever comparing our service model with other customer service industries like hospitality, food-and-beverage or retail — no wonder the airline business is in such horrible shape — most airlines only benchmark against other airlines!)

But is there anything can we learn from other professions?  I mean, if you’re not in the business of serving customers, then whadda we in CS care what you do?

That seems like a logical position.  Or at least I thought so, until CCC uncovered some surprising research as part of our new study, “The Next Frontier of Rep Performance.” What we’ve been learning is that one HUGE key to customer service performance is for reps to have the ability to bounce back from a negative or emotionally-challenging experience with one customer, and then be able to start fresh (just seconds later) with the next customer.

Most reps tend to carry the negative “baggage” of a bad experience with them — either right into the next call with the next customer, or for that baggage to eventually wear them down, creating a sense of burnout that degrades performance.

So, how could a rep learn to “fully engage” with one customer, but to cleanly “disengage” after a bad experience?  The answer lies by looking outside our own profession — and to learn from people who have to deal with VERY challenging emotional issues every day.

Nurses. Read More »

By Corey Stout

A CCC member—let’s call him John—recently shared an interesting observation with our team: 

We are seeing that the Customer Effort Score (CES) is worse in our chat channel than in our phone channel, but our chat beats the phone in terms of CSAT.

John’s survey results sparked some rich discussion among our team about the correlation of CES and CSAT across different channels.

Read More »

It’s no secret that today’s workplace environment is very different than it was even a year ago—many staff are working in roles that are beneath their qualifications, many wages still have not recovered to previous levels, and many staff continue to defer retirement.

In fact the changes are so significant and long-lasting that companies that once saw these trends as temporary are now embracing these changes as permanent.  And of course service and support organizations have not been immune to these changes.

Among the most major changes is the new influx of younger generations into the workplace.  With them come different expectations, motivations, preferences, and styles, leaving many organizations at a loss for how to effectively manage and motivate these staff.

But given the economic climate, older demographics also have changed their perceptions and expectations of the workplace environment, creating a complex management situation for many organizations.

In fact, organizations today are not just coping with managing the demands of individual demographics, but how the demographics interact with each other, too.  Suddenly retention, engagement, and team dynamics are quite complex, calling into question tried and true engagement and management strategies.

Read More »

By Corey Stout

Although customer complaints about call centers reach the hundreds of millions each year, it turns out that reps should be the ones complaining.

According to a recent study by The Academy of Management Journal, less than 1% of calls result in some form of customer mistreatment (e.g., putting customers on hold unnecessarily or intentionally misleading them), while a staggering 20% to 25% of reps are subjected to negative customers.  

Although it is important to have complaint resolution methods in place as an outlet for frustrated callers, organizations must also ensure that they effectively protect reps from customer mistreatment as well. Without strategies in place to deal with abusive callers, organizations will have difficulty retaining, engaging, and even hiring employees. Reps need to feel like leadership is watching out for their best interest too.  

Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

“No” isn’t a word that many people like to hear. Think about what happens when someone tells you that they can’t help you or can’t give you what you want. Chances are, you think, “why not?” or, “well, then maybe someone else can do it for me.”

You don’t want frontline reps to elicit this type of negative response from customers. Why? Because your customers’ impression of how your rep made them feel—rather than what the rep made them do—has the greatest effect on their perceived effort.  And high perceived effort results in disloyalty.

But, reps can’t say “yes” to every request. The good news is reps can at least influence the way your customers feel. Using positive language eliminates the negative emotional reaction that occurs when people hear the word “no”—and significantly improves the customer experience.

Osram Sylvania, a global lighting manufacturer, recognized the impact that words have on customer interactions. The company provides frontline reps with predetermined language guidelines that make it easy for them to phrase negative situations in a way that creates the lowest-effort experience.

We had the opportunity to speak with Valerie Jones, VP of Customer Service and Inside Sales, and Sue King, Training and Quality Assurance Manager, both of Osram, who gave us insights to their company’s positive strategy. To help reps implement positive language, they:

1. Identify the most common negative language scenarios.

2. Teach reps how to positively frame customer interactions.

3. Reinforce continuity through monitoring and coaching conversations

CCC members, see Osram Sylvania’s top scenarios for positive language guidelines and read excerpts from our conversation with Valerie Jones and Sue King.