Tealeaf: Experience Your Customers

Gathering More Complete Feedback from the Customer

By Michael Smitheman, Product Manager —



"Voice of the customer" seems to be a term being adopted by many organizations today to describe the various tools and methodologies for surveying customers to get their feedback.

Historically, customers have either filled in a survey on the website, or placed a call into the contact center when they want to provide "feedback." Organizations would use this as a way of gauging the sentiment of their customer base. The problem with this approach is you are hearing only from customers who decide to give you feedback. What about all your other customers or prospects who decide not to get in touch? What was their feeling about the experience they had with your company?

I recently tried to order a service from a well known wireless provider. I placed the order online and it appeared to have not fulfilled the promotional offer in the confirmation email. I jumped online and started a chat session with them. After quizzing me on who I am and what I was trying to do for 15 minutes I was told they couldn't help me and instead was given a phone number. I proceeded to call the contact center for help. I answered all the same identification questions in an automated IVR process before finally speaking to a live representative...who asked me all the same questions again. I was put on hold for 20 minutes before being told my problem would have to be dealt with by another department. I hung up and cancelled the service there and then through the chat window! This is a true story. I never provided feedback to that organization, but I did moan about it on Facebook while I was going through the process.

Reality is, to obtain the true "voice of the customer," we need to gather direct feedback, but we should also be making use of all the other sources of information available to us.

Social media has obviously provided a high profile channel for customers to provide indirect feedback to organizations, but a lot of other sources exist within the contact center to help companies gather a more complete picture.

Voice analysis of call recordings, natural text analysis of chat and emails, mining of social media data and web interactions should all come together to give companies the true "voice of the customer," regardless of whether they filled in a survey on the website.

How do you gather feedback from your users?

Observations from Call Center World

By Michael Smitheman, Senior Product Manager —

I recently attended the Call Center World conference in Las Vegas, where contact center professionals from around the world gathered to share and discuss thoughts and ideas about the industry. It was an interesting conference format with many short presentations given by everyone from call center team leaders to company CEOs, delivering a wide breadth of opinion of the current state of the industry.

A number of things stuck in my mind...

The first was that leaders within the call center are continuing to try and change the perception of the industry—not just to their customers but also to the people that they have to go out and employ. The role of "Call Center Agent" is now being positioned as a legitimate stepping stone to serious career prospects and management teams are putting more emphasis on nurturing their agents to succeed.

In the world of Customer Experience Management this strikes me as a positive move. Historically, organizations have used the Marketing and Public Relations functions to try and convince customers that they are putting effort into improving customer service. Only rarely, though, did "the rubber meet the road" when it came to the ensuring the experience customers actually had when they called in to the contact center.

Myth Buster Series: The Call Center is a Cost Center

By Michael Smitheman, Sr. Product Manager —

Anyone who has been in or around the contact center industry for while has seen of the ongoing efforts of leaders in this discipline trying to change the perception of their operations—across both internal and external audiences. Their goal is to position their operations as a strategic asset for the organization, rather than a cost center. And it can be a valid point, given that, in a lot of cases, contact center reps are the ones on the front lines of customer service.

Image courtesy of C3connect.com
We've heard it time and again—if the organization puts less emphasis on cost metrics, the contact center can be much more effective at improving the customer experience, satisfaction and retention. That means they can generate more revenue and lower the longer term costs for the organization. The oft-heard refrain is, "If we spend more time on the call solving the customer issue we can improve first call resolution and customer satisfaction or even make that sale."

No one would dispute that if we are solely driven by say, the Average Handle Time (AHT), this is probably valid, but is that really the right way to look at it? Is it really necessary to sacrifice cost for better service? I'd argue that managing cost is part and parcel of providing a better customer experience. Think about it from the customer's perspective. As a customer calling into the contact center for help, I want to get off the phone (with my issue resolved), every bit as quickly as you want me off the phone!

Ultimately, I would agree that contact centers should not think of what they do—that is, providing service—as a cost to the organization. However, rather than sidelining cost, they should look at how cost metrics like Average Handle Time and Number of Escalations really effect the customer experience. Toward that goal, they should invest in tools and programs that will allow contact center agents to handle the call in the most efficient way.

How is your contact center viewed by the organization? How is its performance measured? What kind of tools do you have to help your agents be more efficient?

Call Center Myth Busting #3: How a Reliable Barista and a Prepared CSR Can Improve Your Online Business

By Janet Jaiswal, Sr. Director of Product Marketing —

A lot of jobs go underappreciated. Here's one—the barista that serves up my triple grande caramel macchiato with skim milk each morning. And while you might think the only thing a barista can grow is your waist line, I'm here to say that role makes a vital contribution to business productivity as well. That latte improves my mood and makes me a calmer person when dealing with fire drills at the office. It also gives me enough energy to get through a hectic morning.

My point is, the little things can make all the difference.

So if a barista can have such a dramatic effect on productivity, think about how much your call center agents can do for your online business if they're equipped with the right tools, training and knowledge.



Here's a scenario to illustrate the point.

Improve First-Call Resolution or Reduce Call Handle Times? Smart Contact Centers Are Choosing Both!

By Janet Jaiswal, Sr. Director, Product Marketing —

I don't think I'm alone in being more irked by financial services website failures than I am by failures on other online services. Maybe it's because there's more at stake. Worse still is the level of effort typically required to rectify the issue, since you usually have to go through multiple Customer Services Reps (CSRs). It's a common occurrence to be transferred to another agent—and often multiple agents as the issue is repeatedly escalated. Wouldn't it be better service if the first person you reach were able to take care of the issue? I know I'd switch to another bank in a heartbeat if I they were as good at this as, say, Zappos or Charles Schwab.



Of course, this issue plagues many companies across a variety of industries. And all those dissatisfied website customers take a toll. Not only do those companies lose business and customers, they also lose contact center staff—especially Level 1 CSRs, who are often on the receiving end of customer frustration.

Call Center Myth Busting: CSRs Aren't Capable of Using Real-Time Analytics or Behavior Analysis Tools

By Mike Smitheman, Senior Product Manager —

As an alternative to my day job, I spend time teaching kite surfing in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sport involves flying a large kite and using it to pull yourself across the water on a surfboard. We encourage students to be able to fly the kite blindfolded, with one hand behind their back, while performing some other random activity such as writing their name in the sand, as a way of getting comfortable with the actions required to effectively do the sport.

While such an approach works well for kite surfing, I feel like the same approach is often taken when dealing with Customer Service Reps (CSRs) in the contact center. They are often expected to be able to answer a call blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs. They have little or no visibility into what the customer has just gone through and are not given the tools to resolve the customer's issue...oh, and they are expected to handle the call as quickly as possible and keep the customer happy at the same time! A tall order, wouldn't you say?

No wonder CSR attrition rates often exceed 40% and that the contact center is seen as a cost drain since a large amount of money is spent replacing those CSRs. No matter our jobs and our roles—whether we're CSRs, managers or executives—the majority of us strive to do our jobs well and we should be given the tools and training to have the best opportunity to succeed.