For example, a recent New York Times article positioned Siri as the latest public nuisance in the cell phone revolution.  It outlined several scenarios of people using Siri in less than desirable situations (e.g., public transportation) for things as mundane as sending an SMS message wishing a friend a happy birthday. 

One of the particular sticking points that many raise when complaining about Siri’s public presence is that users must speak punctuation and emoticons—along the lines of “happy birthday smiley face” or “how are you doing question mark.”  Certainly not what we are used to hearing on the street corner or subway.

What caught my eye, however, was this part of the article (emphasis is mine):

When talking to their cellphones, people sometimes start sounding like machines themselves. Jimmy Wong, 24, was at an after-hours diner with friends in Los Angeles recently when they found themselves next to a man ordering Siri to write memos and dictate e-mails. They found the man’s conversation with his phone “creepy,” without any of the natural pauses and voice inflections that occur in a discussion between two people.

The light bulb in my head said: “Eureka! It’s the same way customers often speak to speech recognition IVRs.”

Let me explain.

One of our member companies realized during the implementation of their speech recognition IVR system that customer-to-rep utterances are actually quite different from customer-to-machine utterances.  Most companies, however, often must use customer-to-rep utterances as a first step in launching their speech IVR, which will slowly ‘learn’ to get better as customers use it over time.

But here’s the catch: the company saw a “chicken and egg” problem…natural-language IVR improves with each customer interaction, but customers will not use the system unless it is already working well.

So to launch with a successful set of utterances, and thus successful first encounters with the system, this company had to understand how customers talk to machines—not reps.  CCC members, read more about how the company captured these specific utterances before launching—very successfully—the speech IVR.

Maybe Siri’s programmers should have tried this approach too?

This Siri story is just one of the new batch of Iconoculture insights recently posted to the CCC site.   You can also read about:

• A happy hour-finding app in France
• A television remote that is revolutionizing channel surfing
• A new e-book soundtrack service

1. Be Concise: This applies not only to your menu options, but also to things that I’ll call “filler language”.  Even by cutting out the “please” before each “please press X to do Y” will shave time off of the customer IVR experience.
2. Avoid “Our Menu Items Have Changed”: Unless a significant portion your customers call so frequently (I’m thinking weekly, maybe monthly) that they would absolutely notice a change, most customers will not know the difference.  Moreover, hearing that announcement will often times turn these customers off to the entire IVR experience, feeling as though they are being “tricked” into staying in the system.
3. Add basic “FAQ” type information to the IVR: When possible, migrate basic information to the IVR to deflect calls (look for situations where reps are reading from scripts or where the information/response does not change depending on the customer). Successful companies utilizing this practice will look for short responses that are requested with high frequency as a test group of call types to migrate to the IVR.
4. Post IVR guidance to the web: When possible, companies are finding success in giving guidance online for IVR usage.  In a touchtone system, this can take the shape of an actual IVR tree.  For a speech system, customer education might take the form of general guidance on what can or cannot be achieved in the system and general notes about how to interact with the speech system (e.g., speak naturally, feel free to interrupt if you know what you want to say).  In addition, speech system users might appreciate knowledge of universal commands posted online (e.g., “start over”, “go back”, “help”).  Because 57% of callers first go to a company’s web site—and more than 30% of those are only looking for phone contact information—there is a high likelihood that online IVR guidance would be used and appreciated. 
5. Frontload self-service options: If your current menu gives customers several options containing the phrase “speak to an agent” before the self-service options are mentioned, it’s time for a change.  To drive more traffic within your automated system:
   1. Place self-service options first, then present agent-assisted options.
   2. Remove the scripting “to speak with an agent” both to reduce word count and also to present all options on equal footing (i.e., some options might sound more appealing to customers if they know they will get to an agent even if the option is not their primary reason for calling).

What other advice would you give to the IVR owners of the industry?  We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Related CCC Resources

• Design an Easy-to-Use IVR
• Sample IVR Trees
• Drive IVR Utilization

In its flagship store, shop assistants are armed with iPads to help customers with all product inquiries from anywhere in the stores. In addition, shoppers can bypass the long cash register lines, and simply make their purchases directly from the iPads for home delivery. This service, only introduced a week ago, has made up 20% of all sales in that time. As a result, shoppers are able to avoid much of the stress that come with in-store shopping.

In the customer service world, we’re unfortunately no strangers to long queues. Peak times and holiday seasons indicate spikes in call volume and demand, and while call center reps can do much to enhance the customer experience, customer effort can begin much before they are even connected. So, what are some creative ways for organizations to manage lengthy queues and mitigate the ensuing customer effort?

-          Communicate and manage customers’ expectations. One of the more frustrating aspects of waiting is just simply not knowing how long the wait is. As my colleague blogged earlier, transparency is key; customers want to know how long they are being made to wait. As a result, organizations should actively communicate this information with their customers in the queues. Steps like telling customers how long their estimated wait time will be, or telling customers they will be next in line, can do much to reduce customer effort in the queues.

-          Take advantage of the wait time. While it’s never a good idea to make customers wait intentionally, organizations should use this time wisely. Instead of playing repeat music clips—which can quickly get annoying for customers—companies can play messages or alerts that help communicate effort-saving information for customers. For example, take this opportunity to introduce new company services, or proactively alert your customers about upcoming changes. But be careful: don’t make these messages repetitive to customers—find out how long the average wait is, and play each announcement only once in that time.

-          Utilize virtual queue technology. Virtual queuing makes waiting even easier for customers—companies can give customers an option to wait for a callback when the wait is over. This shifts the wait obligation over to the companies, but the downside is that customers may view the callback as intrusive to their schedule.

What do you think? What are some things your company is doing to manage queues and reduce customer effort?

Other Recently Posted Insights from Iconoculture

UK Shoppers Cut Queue

Kindles Now Rent Books

Gap Shoppers Choose Songs

Holiday Shopping Up a Bit

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

The focus of the first installment of this series is the IVR channel.  Here’s a sample “by the numbers” look at how customers describe their IVR experience:

73%
Only use the IVR as a routing tool

29%
Say their issue was too complex to resolve in the IVR

When used effectively, the IVR channel can function as a self-service solution, but what this data shows is that only 27% of customers are using it as such.  Of those customers, a large portion is failing to resolve their issues because they feel too complex.  The key, then, is to properly communicate the options available within the IVR (in customer language, not company-speak) so that customers know exactly what can or can’t be done—and where to go next.  This will help not only drive self-service utilization within the IVR, but also improve resolution rates.

CCC Members, more “by the numbers” IVR data can be accessed here, along with further IVR design and management tips.

Related Research:

• Manage Multichannel Contacts

• Getting Multi-Channel Right: Removing the IVR Stigma (featuring Intuit)

• Customer Channel Preferences Survey

In several recent commercials—click on the links below for YouTube clips—companies boast of exceptional customer service and customer centricity in creative (and hilarious) ways, encouraging prospective customers to switch or otherwise use their products.

Certainly some of the commercials are as clear and simple as highlighting Dish Network’s CEO citing customer satisfaction data, the highest of all competitors in a recent poll.  Others focus on communicating the low effort nature of their business, certainly a principle that CCC endorses.

But based on a review of a dozen or so commercials, two primary themes emerge in most advertising campaigns that reference customer service:

• We don’t make you endure a frustrating IVR experience—Reflecting on some customers’ ill will toward the IVR and GetHuman’s focus on abolishing the IVR as a service and support tool, companies such as TD Bank and Chase advertise the fact that a customer can pick up the phone and automatically speak with a live person.  These commercials feature two customers in disbelief that they actually speak with a live person as soon as they place a call and Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa gibing companies whose first face to customers is an IVR.
• We provide you superior onshore service—Numerous ads deride offshore service and support staff and feature staff with stereotypical accents working in antiquated and remote call centers.   The hilarious Peggy in Discover Financial’s advertisements highlight a Slavic language-speaking male pretending to be a rep named Peggy who hangs up on customers.  Companies such as Time Warner Cable, First Bank, and Citi all have similar commercials whose premise is that they provide onshore support, which is purportedly better than offshore alternatives.

The fact that these two themes emerge so clearly is quite interesting, though not particularly surprising given the public’s aversion to both.  I do wonder, however, whether companies are simply reinforcing stereotypes—or if customers do actually consider either of these themes key differentiators that affect their loyalty.

Certainly while CCC knows the jury is still out on onshore versus offshore service, we also know that companies can manage IVR and offshore experiences and still create a positive customer outcome.

But then again, isn’t truth in advertising a relative concept?

Tell us. Have you seen any other commercials that tout customer service as a differentiator?  And how is your company using service and support to brand itself?

CCC Members, If you’re not quite convinced that IVR necessitates a poor customer experience or the time for offshoring is over, review CCC’s resources on effective IVR design and offshore/outsource resource center.

What’s most surprising to me, though, is that many organizations are looking to invest significant money in a technology that has a small population of customers who like and use the IVR. 

And not only is the population of avid IVR users not growing, many of the customers who do use the IVR don’t like it and are very vocal about their displeasure.   I mean, what other technologies have spawned Web sites like www.gethuman.com, which provides consumers with step-by-step instructions on how to reach a live agent by circumventing the IVR, and was born out of the incredible frustration of using an IVR? 

And while IVRs provide companies with a sound method of routing and queuing customers, companies too often insert functionality that customers don’t want to use and it creates a lose-lose situation: the company wastes money and customers get irked by the clutter in the system. 

So what’s the right answer?  Follow these steps for a clean and smooth IVR experience for your customers:

1)      Know Your Limitations – The number one reason for customers failing out of the IVR (41% failure rate) is the transaction was too complex.  Solution? Identify the transactions and information that your customers most frequently seek in the IVR and move that to the front.  This will allow for a quick and easy interaction for your customers, which is what they’re looking for anyway.  The rest of the transaction options?  Either put them at the end of your menus or scrap ‘em altogether.  We’re just not seeing a migration of customers to the IVR, so why overinvest in something customers won’t use? 

2)      Give customers touch-tone – CCC data shows that over 37% of IVR failures occur because the voice recognition system failed.  Solution?  Even if you’ve already invested in speech recognition, let your customers opt out to touch-tone, especially when they fail in speech.

3)      Keep it simple, (silly)– Believe it or not, there are still IVRs with menus that stretch to seven or eight or more options in a single menu!  Solution?  Just create a four-by-four or five-by-five menu that allows your customers to achieve the resolution that s/he came looking for or get to a human being who can help.  This straightforward approach will boost the customer experience by giving customers what they want most: ease of doing business.  And for other “KISS” principles check out my colleague’s recent post on IVR pet peeves. 

Hopefully you don’t decide to invest in the seven- or eight-option IVR menus with clunky speech recognition, but if you do, will you at least refer customers to www.gethuman.com while they’re waiting?

CCC Members: Want to see our resource center dedicated to building and maintaining an easy-to-navigate IVR that provides an easy experience for your customers?  Click here.

ENOUGH AFTER-CALL SURVEYS!
“You call, say, an airline for a reservation, and after navigating the monkey bars that stand between you and a human being, a recording asks if you can stay on the line once the call is completed and take a brief survey about the experience.  The answer is no. If the point is for Company X to improve its customer rep system, it is probably recording and “monitoring” those conversations, as we are often reminded by the same automated voice. So the company should eavesdrop on its own time without asking to take up any more of ours.”

The experience described above represents an unfortunate, but common, sentiment that could be dismissed as simply a rant.  But, what I find interesting about the complaint above is it shows how customers don’t always appreciate the different purposes and value between the IVR for routing vs. the IVR for surveys. Of course, we know the importance of and difference between the two. IVR routing can either help a customer self-serve or get them to the appropriate rep, while IVR surveys are key to uncover cusotmer feedback for improvement areas beyond what internal monitoring can identify.  It’s not like either of these tasks are put in place simply to irritate customers, they both serve important purposes for both the customer and the company. 

It’s important, then, for us to make this trasparently obvious to the customer, because it’s all the same in their minds.  Here’s a couple of tips to breach this disconnect between customer viewpoint and company opinion of the IVR:

1. Make Your IVR Less Painful – Taken from Lauren’s earlier post, “the two statistically significant drivers of customers experience related to the IVR are speed and ease of use.  Customers are saying to you, ‘make it quick and painless, please!’  Just like our work on customer effort in the live phone channel – eliminating unnecessary effort is the key.”  Check out Lauren’s post for more tips on simplying your IVR routing.

2. Clearly Define Purpose of Surveys – Part of the frustration in the above example is simply from being asked to take a post-call survey, especially if the customer isn’t sure how (of even if) their feedback will be used.  A couple of ideas to mitigate this frustration:      

• Always ask yourself:  do we do anything with this customer feedback or is it just a big stockpile of data?  Make sure you have a tangible use for all of the data, and if not, consider shortening your survey to make it faster for the customer to complete.  Asking 5 questions you can take action on is better than asking 20 more questions that don’t provide much additional insight. 
• Make sure to position surveys as genuinely beneficial to the customer.  As an example,  one financial services company clearly states their feedback requests as a learning exercise: “We’re trying to learn more about how our customers prefer to resolve issues…”

So while the press may be giving customer service a bad rep (pun intended), I think this is a great opportunity to think about the experience from the customer’s point of view and work to bridge the gap between the customer and company.  What have been your experiences in mitigating customer complaints about your IVR?

CCC members, check out our futher work on customer effort that was mentioned in the post, or see how Fidelity positions post-call surveys as learning mechanisms.