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Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Connecting the dots between Marketing and the Delivered Customer Experience
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Connecting the dots between Marketing and the Delivered Customer Experience http://t.co/9ZPctjZy
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The Customer Mirror and Improving your Customer Experience
By Colin Taylor
I had a humbling experience the other day. I lost a sales opportunity because we failed to deliver the Customer Experience that a prospect expected to receive. In our marketing and advertising we portray the company as professional, responsive, easy to do business with and in our opinion most importantly expert at what we do. This is what I would describe as our brand promise. In this instance we delivered on part of this promise; the prospect went to the web, searched for companies that offer the services we offer (customer experience and contact center consulting) and we appeared on the top of the Google listing. The prospect navigated to our site and found the relevant content, case studies and testimonials that all reinforced the promise. They then navigated to the contact us page and picked up the phone. Here is where things went wrong. The prospect dialed the number and was greeted by an automated message, which though quite common today, the prospect felt wasn’t inline with the promise, but so be it. Not having noted the extension to enter that into the auto attendant the prospect elected to leave a message in our general mailbox. Now we go from bad to worse. I should tell you that all of our consultants employ direct lines when interacting with our clients, these are the same numbers that are accessed through our extension list. We do not get a large volume of calls on our number that go to the general mailbox and when we do the phone systems send us the message .wav file by email, so we can act on it. One small detail however, fell through the cracks, we allowed the mailbox to become full and it stopped accepting messages. Now we have a huge disconnect between our brand promise and brand image we worked so hard to create. Our prospects cannot even leave us a message to tell us they are interested in doing business with us. Oops doesn’t come close to describing my reaction, when the prospect shared this experience with me. Needless to say we emptied the general mailbox, changed the contact us page on the website to reflect direct numbers and apologized profusely to the prospect, but the damage was done.
This experience had me thinking about our customer experience and trotting out that familiar maxim I have heard myself and so many other consultants and marketers invoke, “if only we did what we advise our customers to do”. Of course this is a truism and invoking the ‘cobblers’ children who never had shoes’ mantra doesn’t fix the problem, but it did get me to revisit research we began in 2009 on how to deliver the desired customer experience.
The Desired Customer Experience
You may have noticed that I didn’t say how to provide an “excellent” or “superior” Customer Experience, but rather the ‘desired’ Customer Experience. Qualitative judgements are not in our purview as marketers, they and judgements that only a customer can make.
In business we often employ words and phrases loosely, informally and all too frequently, inaccurately. When a Mission Statement decrees that “we will deliver superior customer service”, what is it really saying? Superior to what? Superior to our service before we wrote the Mission Statement, or our service today? The service of our competitors? It is very ambiguous. This ambiguity and lack of definition allows brands and companies to make statements and even commitments that even they do not fully understand. Is it any wonder that some of the worst service is provided by companies whose Mission Statement call for ‘superior’, ‘world class’, or excellent service? It shouldn’t.
Naked Customer Experience
Specificity is important when defining what will be delivered. By defining a frame of reference and associated metrics it become possible to measure the success of the delivery. Every business has and needs customers, and to think that you can measure your success in delivering the service or the Customer Experience without including your customers is impossible. When you attempt this you become the emperor, from the H C Andersen fairytale, who sees himself in the mirror, dressed in the best finery, albeit invisible, when everyone else sees him as naked.
The key difference between to two definitions of course, is the insertion of ‘design’ into the concept. I propose that all customer experienced are designed. This isn’t to say that every company and brand as a designed, defined and documented ‘Customer Experience’, a ‘Customer Experience roadmap’ or documented ‘Customer Journey’, many, perhaps most brands don’t. We traditionally view the concept of design as proactive exercise specific to a narrowly defined subject. We need to expand our thinking. We design not only when we consciously make decisions, but also when we make alternate decisions or fail to make them at all. This Karmic view of decision making is much more aligned with what happens in business and reflects both the ‘sins of omission and sins of commission’.
The role of the ‘mirror’ in the Emperors new clothes, mentioned above is an apt analogy for many brands today. They see what they want to see or perhaps what they expect to see.
Marketers project their brand and their company through their marketing and advertising activities. They project: what the brand means, what it is all about, what it represents and what it stands for. This projection is shared with their customers and prospects through marketing and advertising that communicates the attributes of the ‘brand’. Attributes in this parlance, refers to the adjectives, descriptions, emotions and values of the brand. If we think of Apple we conjure up attributes such as: fun, cool, hip, creative, visionary etc. These attributes would not describe Microsoft. Mercedes-Benz could be termed as: class, ambition, status, expensive, quality and reliable and while BMW share some of these attributes (class, ambition, status, expensive, quality) they would also add: fun, cool, exciting, thrilling to their own attributes list.
Brands strive to project their attributes in everything they do. It is these attributes that create the ‘Brand Promise’ and expectations of the brand in the minds of the consumer.
Customers weren’t always customers. At one point in time even the most loyal customers were once prospects. As prospects their perceptions of a brand or company was formed primarily from two sources: the brand itself projecting its attributes and benefits of joining ‘their club’ as a customer and by the opinions of the prospects peer and influence network. Prospects know little of a brands products or services beyond these two streams of communication.
In the diagram above (A Customers Progress) we can see the shift in understand and perception from being shaped predominantly by the brand promise that Marketing makes to being increasingly defined by the customers actual experience of the product or service.
Customers as a Mirror
Throughout this process the marketers continue to project the brand and its associated attributes. The customer experience is evidenced in what the customer reflect back to the brand. This ‘reflection’ is the key to developing a successful Customer Experience strategy. In the perfect world the marketer sees the customer reflection as identical to what they have projected. In the majority of organizations this is not the case. What the customer reflects is their experience of the brand and organization is quite different to what was projected by marketing.
This ignorance of the lack of connectedness unfortunately is all around us. At many points in the ‘Customer Journey’ we see disconnections from what we have been lead to expect, by marketing projections of the brand. We see advertising and marketing touting the benefits that will accrue to us as subscribers to a new plan with our wireless carrier, the images show happy and enthusiastic customers and staff, yet our experience of customers can be significantly different. Distracted, uninterested retail staff, long wait times in a call center queue, restrictive policies all serves to define a customer experience at odds with the projected message.
Projection & Reflection must be Connected
So where do we begin to correct this dichotomy? First we must understand and detail what are we as marketers projecting? What are the attributes of the brand that we are projecting and what is our customers’ experience? What are they reflecting? By identifying these two perspectives we are able to complete a ‘gap’ analysis and determine not only where the projection is degrading, but also the degree of degradation.
As marketers we project the brands attributes which informs the anticipated customer experience and the actual customer experience achieved shows us how well the contact center interaction has reflected these attributes.
To make the esoteric concept actionable we need to define and document both the projection and reflection in the same terms and employing the same lexicon.
The word cloud below shows brand attributes that can be identified in a marketing review of what is being projected
Projected
But when we audit the contact center we may find quite a different picture
Reflected
On the projection word cloud the words that jump out include: Status, Style, Fun, Glamorous, Cool, Daring Indie and Authentic. But on the reflection cloud we see: Arrogant, expensive, Glamorous, Difficult, Unfriendly, and Style. Glamorous is the only word that is popular in both views. Many of the projected attributes have been eroded and reduced due to the service delivered. Which word cloud would you prefer to see associated with your brand? Regardless of whether you spend a $100 thousand or $100 million to promote your brand, to the message twisted and changed, means that a significant portion of your spend is worthless or worse, actively damages the goodwill you are striving to create.
With the results of the gap analysis in hand we can begin to ask the question ‘why’. This diagnostic approach has to be the first step to plan corrective action. For many organizations this question of why leads them very quickly to focus on their contact center. Research from Perdue University found that 92% of consumers form their opinion of a brand based on their most recent interaction with that brands call center. This is staggering number and one that should give pause marketers everywhere as they realize that the tens of millions of dollars they are pouring into the brand maybe eroding almost as quickly through their underfunded and understaffed contact center.
Call and contact centers represent the single most common point of interaction between customers and a brand or organization so beginning here can have the largest impact. The customers’ experience of many organizations contact center interaction is virtually interchangeable. The call to your wireless provider, local utility or favourite eCommerce retailers are often all but interchangeable. You may ask yourself why this is so. (I know I have) Why have so many organizations ‘dumbed down’ their contact centers so they appear no different than any other? The culprit here is costs: without being able to ‘join the dots’ between the marketing projection and the customer’s reflection, most organizations have viewed the contact center as a ‘cost’. In business, as we all know, when faced with costs the action plan is to reduce costs in any way possible: adhere to cost focused Key Performance Indicators (KPI”s) such as Average Handle Time, Service Levels and Average Speed of Answer, standardize processes, automate interactions, outsource and off-shore service delivery. All of these initiatives have been successful in reducing the cost of each interaction and reducing the overall spend, but none of these actions likely do anything to improve the customer experience. The result is the generic, plain vanilla feeling we get in so many contact center interactions.
Faced with the fact that in your largest customer interaction channel , the contact center , your service is indistinguishable not just from you competitors, but from centers serving entirely different customer segments and verticals should be a wake up call to brands and organizations. Faced with this realization many bright marketers feel lost as to where to actually start to correct this situation.
We have, by now conducted research to confirm the attribute and elements that describe and define the brand, the aspects if the brand that we project to our customers and prospects. We have also conducted research to determine what the customers are projecting back. The next step is to focus on the service delivery points like the call center or retail network and look at how well they support the elements and attributes of the brand that marketer’s project. Be prepared for a ‘blank stare’ when you ask this question. Contact center operations have focused for so long on cost containment and reduction that any other focus seems superfluous. Expect that most will not know what you speaking of and you will need to provide definitions and a lexicon in order to move this conversation forward constructively.
With some degree of common language and a shared understanding you can begin to examine how the contact center supports the brand today, which influences the customer reflection as the customer experience and perhaps more important you can begin to see how the center could support the desired experience.
The Drivers of Customer Experience in the Call Center
In order to gain a true understanding of what customer experience the contact center is reflecting, we need to view the customer experience in the context that the customer sees it. This insight is achieved by viewing the level of emotional connectedness, the rational effectiveness that is achieved and the effort the customer is required to put forward during the interaction. The emotional aspect of respect, empathy, listening and comprehension provide insights into the level of connection the customer feels related to the call or interaction. The rationale aspect focuses on resolution, clarity, knowledge and authority, defining how the agent was able to assist the customer. Customer Effort tells us how easy we really are to interact and communicate with.
The final element of assessing your customer experience is alignment.
Read more about Customer Experience here
via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2012/09/26/the-customer-mirror-and-improving-your-customer-experience/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-customer-mirror-and-improving-your-customer-experience
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The Art of Calibration
By John Cockerill,
Calibration is the art of being able to standardize the measurement of calls or transaction quality across and amongst those doing the work and those who review the work. Without calibration any program is open to cries of bias, unfair treatment, and the results can be inconsistent or ineffective. While this is nice to know, how and why Calibration should be done; what it consist of; and when to complete it are questions that are regularly raised by people in call and contact centres.
Why Calibrate?
Whether there is one assessor or many, a few agents or a lot, ensuring the expectations of stakeholders clear and well understood is always a challenge. It is a good practice is to develop a checklist with some form of scoring and recording the call or transaction scores. For many operations this is as far their quality monitoring program goes. This structure leads to an assessor(s) doing best efforts usually based on their own training and experience.
A superior approach is to ensure that all people involved understand, review, score and coach using the same standard; and to do so consistently regardless of the passage of time or changes to people involved. This is the purpose and role of calibration.
While the term “call” is most often used as what is being monitored, the same approach and method can be applied to any and all transaction types with a little modification. If the center has text, chat, emails, TTY or other media types the approach to calibration is the same and the same rationale to ensure accurate reporting of quality applies.
What to Calibrate?
Criterion and scoring models need to be developed before doing calibration. There are many approaches to establishing the criteria from the simple to the complex. One consideration in creating the criteria is that the simpler it is, the easier it will be to complete, explain, control and conduct. Identify the natural sections for your call types are. There maybe more or less sections. Here is a sample of sections.
• Opening or greeting
• Understanding Call
• Solution
• Closing
Each of these sections then has points or attributes that are expected to happen to one degree or another. Be it the simple use of the callers name or proper identification or the correct diagnose and solution each is scored on some scale. Here are samples of attributes:
• Correct information provided
• Agent took correct steps in account
• Ticket created correctly and acted upon
• Applicable templates used
• Achieved FCR (first call resolution)
• Clarified customer questions and or paraphrased to ensure understanding
• Agent picked up nuances of complaint
• Repeated data gathered back to customer
Scoring models vary as well from the simple 0/1 for done or not done, with each attribute getting the same weighting to very complex models:. for example scoring calls out of 100 with differing weightings for each attribute or section. The proper diagnostic process could be scored on how well or close to the optimum it was done. A rule of practice is that the simpler the scoring for any point the better. A scoring model of 0 to 3 or 0 to 5 for any observation point seems to work well for many. Zero would be if the action or behaviour is absent, 1 or 2 if OK, 3 if stellar. Zero to five allows a bit more nuance and judgement. You need to be careful so as not to create too broad a scale where you could lose the specific granularity and the ability to effectively identify the variances between, say, a 7 versus and 8.
Weighting of either the individual attributes or sections is also a consideration. Do all sections get valued the same? Should they? Is calling the customer by name really all that important? Is using the customers name 15 times better than 1? Or is solving the callers problem quickly and effectively of greater value to the organization and the customer?
With these weightings decided, then a few more items are needed before starting a calibration session. Of these the most important is a range of sample calls from different agents and times. The nest step is to set the stage and expectations with whoever is to participate.
Who is involved?
Agents, supervisors or team leads, assessors or evaluators, managers and especially other key stakeholders. Key stakeholders can include: program managers, clients, and/or people from marketing and sales. This is especially important in the initial sessions or the roll-out of new programs where their voice at the table can ensure that what was designed is practicable and is put into practice.
Who participates in any calibration session is dependent upon the purpose of the session? If the purpose is to calibrate the assessors, especially if they are new to the work, then likely key stakeholders, marketing, sales, and or more experienced managers should attend. In General, try to keep each session to fewer then 10 people to allow all to participate; but more then 4 in order to surface differences of opinions, perceptions and points of view. If calibrating new or existing agents, be sure to include a manager or supervisor and at least one assessor. Again keep the number of participants to a size where all can get an opportunity to discuss the calls.
How to Calibrate?
Calibration sessions by their nature need to be both open and participatory. At the same time the sessions must be disciplined in order to get the work done in a frank manner and without rancor or blame. Start each session with a brief review of the purpose, criterion, scoring, and approach or behaviour during the session. is the meeting chair should refrain from providing the opinion about the calls reviewed. This provides the impression of objectivity and a degree of separation. The chair should engage where arbitration and a deciding authority is required in the case of disagreements that the participants themselves can’t resolve.
Provide each participant with enough scoring sheets, forms to evaluate all the calls involved. If your organization employs an application or system, be sure all bring laptops and/or tablets that can access the required documents. Ensure that there is a list of the calls with some form of unique call identification for each. Ask that there be no table discussion of the calls until the opinions are asked for. This silence is important if bias and fixed frames of reference are to be minimized.
Play the calls twice, or more if necessary. The first time through is to get a rough idea of the call, its purpose, flow and general impressions. The participants should score quickly their first impressions. Likely they will not catch all the call or have time to listen or score for all the individual attributes. Second time through the call can be stopped at any point to allow scoring or repeat listen to be done. Gather the scores for each call. Then ask each participant to express their opinion and why they scored the call the way they did.
When asking for the opinions ensure that the moderator asks the participants in reverse order of importance. In other words hear from the person with the least experience to the most experience or authority. This is very important. It ensures that each person expresses their opinion with less reservation and without jumping to whatever they think opinion of the group or most senior person.
Then look at the scores and points of similarity and differences. Ask those people with outlying scores to explain; and those who differ to provide their views. Where possible encourage a consensus decision on how to score particular points and sections. Keep the discussion on point and focused. Replay and review calls as required. Focus on the work and calls, not on the people in the samples chosen.
Keep track of the scores for each call, sections and attributes. Expect that during the session scores and outliers will narrow to a tighter range. Some practitioners like to set a target of only a 5 to 10% variation of scores. This is doable but is dependent upon the people participating and the organizations overall experience.
The first few calls will go slow. They always do. As the participants learn to trust each other and gain understanding of what is being looked for the speed of each calls review will increase. Likely expect that a typical five minute call will take 15 to 20 minutes to review. This will reduce to about 10 to 15 minutes by the end of each session. Therefore expect to have 12 calls per session and likely to cover about 6 to 10 calls in depth.
When to Calibrate?
Calibration must be done regularly to prevent variance from creeping in and invalidating the process. A few of the considerations for timing:
• Frequency of change of call types or requirement
• New campaigns or events
• New agents or assessors
• General or specific scores, by agent, agent cohort, section or attribute that cause concern
• Seasoned agents on rotation to ensure attention
Calibration is an important tool in any center. Doing it well takes practice. This short guide will help. Repeated use will enable any center to improve the quality and reliability of call and transaction assessments. This improved reliability of the quality monitoring equips everyone in the center to understand how well the operation is performing in its efforts to meet it’s goals and objectives.
Read more on Quality Management in your call center here
via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2012/09/26/the-art-of-calibration/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-art-of-calibration
Great Post on #callcenter Quality The Art of Calibration http://t.co/wcD2jGto #custserv #cctr #callerDIY
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Canadians Fed Up with Poor Customer Service
Recent American Express Global Customer Service Barometer research has found that Canadians are fed up with poor Customer Service:
Of 1,003 Canadians 18+ who responded to a customer service survey:
32 per cent said customer service is getting worse.
39 per cent hung up the phone on a customer service representative.
21 per cent stormed out of a store.
12 per cent used profanity.
66 per cent insisted on speaking with a supervisor.
43 per cent threatened to switch to a competitor.
Source: The American Express Global Customer Service Barometer
via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2012/09/26/canadians-fed-up-with-poor-customer-service/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=canadians-fed-up-with-poor-customer-service
Canadians Fed Up with Poor Customer Service http://t.co/rGMcR68y #custserv #CEM #CX
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
A customer created success story is significantly more powerful than one told by the organization- more credible #custserv
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A9- without customer success you cannot have business success...for long #custserv
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The Customer Is the Brand---marketing just hasn't figured this out yet #custserv
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imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but plagerism is frowned upon #custserv
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A7- They will stay as long as they continue to be successful and don't see greater success elsewhere #custserv
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Marketing projects the brand attributes and the customer reflects what they experience- #custserv
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A6- a well designed cust exp will plan and be based upon customer success #custserv
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A6- does your marketing dept understand what a customer sucess would look like? #custserv
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2 ears 1 mouth - the ideal ratio to actually hear your customers #custserv
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A5- processes should trap failures even whe the cust don't tell us #custserv
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always make new mistakes - thats how you know you are learning #custserv
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A4- If your cust Experience is designed they will know your are vested in their success #custserv
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Pure NPS lacks granularity in terms of motivation and drivers #custserv
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A3- when in doubt- ask your customer how you and they are doing fromt he cust perspective #custserv
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staisfaction is what customers expect---its nothing special- #custserv
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success is journey, not a destination...you are never finished #custserv
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A1- customer success breeds loyalty, retention and positive word of mouth #custserv
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A1- without success - the satisfaction won't last #custserv #custserv
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Interesting interview with David Bardshaw a #custserv and #callcenter pro at ING Direct - http://t.co/lV6pP7nx
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Monday, September 24, 2012
Working on a call center Outsource RFP for one of our clients...busy, busy
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Sunday, September 23, 2012
At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @SquawkPoint
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Saturday, September 22, 2012
At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @GeorgeHollister @CEMdx
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Friday, September 21, 2012
#ff Check out ---> @WFM_Prophet @PutCustomers1st @michaelconti411 @thecustomerblog @royatkinson @karynDu
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Prof Outsourcing Mag (prof_outsource) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @ColinShaw_CX @JoannaMikhail @cbctom
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Great meetings in NYC - loved talking social with Frank Eliason and 311 call centers with Joe Morrisroe
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The right words and phrases to use on a sales call http://t.co/nINYaT5O via @jontypearce #cctr #cusserv #callcenter
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Forecasting in your #callcenter doesn't require a crystal ball http://t.co/ceTEfQCz #custserv #cctr #contactcenter
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Measuring #callcenter and #custserv quality http://t.co/LdJ9E6I9 #cctr #contactcenter
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Check out this Call Centre Director Role at Rivet in Toronto: http://t.co/8sdxiJk3
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Great meetings in NYC - loved talking social with Frank Eliason and 311 call centers with Joe Morrisroe
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West Kentucky Star - News http://t.co/UywbSmgu #callcenter #custserv #cctr
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @WiseCrow1
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Call Centre Focus (callcentrefocus) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Great meeting with @FrankEliason this am regarding the future of social- Thank Frank
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @funcustic @rodbutcher
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @verygoodservice
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Juan Antón de Salas (juananton) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Contrary to popular opinion, I appears that actually I am at the center of the universe :-) InMap
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Monday, September 17, 2012
Contrary to popular opinion, I appears that actually I am at the center of the universe :-) InMap http://t.co/PwnkkO64
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Social Media view (SocialMediaview) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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.@dmrestivo announced #Linkedin Board Connect helping #notforprofits helping NFP find board members
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At TCCPN about to listen to @dmrestivo on social media and #Callcenters - #custserv
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Sheriff Gbailey (SheriffGbailey) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @cbcErica
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Sunday, September 16, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Mediavine Marketing (MediavineMktg) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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In #custserv #callcenter Its what you don't know thats Dangeroius http://t.co/Pwcww5KC - #cctr #contactcenter #ce #cem
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @serviceplease20
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Friday, September 14, 2012
#FF @PretiumPress @WriteTheCompany @service20 @CCbelg @BradBennett @mmcomplaints @rtehrani
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the power of social media is underestimated by most customers and #custserv organizations- #custserv #cem
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Blanchard Media (Blanchard_Media) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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#callcenter Effectiveness indicators - Revenue Generation http://t.co/GuskBZ02 #custserv #contactcenter #cctr #cem
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @genesys_consult
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Thursday, September 13, 2012
Communicate Better (combetterblog) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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VoiceNation LIVE (VoiceNationLIVE) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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#callcenter effectiveness- How to measure customer satisfaction http://t.co/bFeg9ezu #custserv #cctr #contactcenter #cem
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @dannydevriendt @rodbutcher
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http://t.co/cbLdGwz9 (Idea2Result) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Preparing For An IPO, Online Customer Service Platform Zendesk Raises $60M http://t.co/xn3S4CDl #custserv
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Charities Deceive Donors Unaware Money Goes to a Telemarketer http://t.co/D2Eymji3 via @BloombergMrkts #telemarketing #cctr
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @Bob_Thompson
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Resolution and csat are all the really matters to customers- #custserv #cem #cx #cctr #csat #nps
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @mmcomplaints @Kossovan
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Monday, September 10, 2012
News Flash - Sales IS Good Service- Read all about it http://t.co/XFmhZNSM #custserv #callcenter #cctr #sales #service
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Good Post -> When Does the Customer Lifecycle Begin? by @annettefranz http://t.co/PoPQdF6b via @B2Community- #cem #custserv
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What Consumers Want: Major Customer Service Trends http://t.co/869hIRmv via @sohoos #custserv #cem
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Sunday, September 9, 2012
http://t.co/LlNbqqPH (Sociable360) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Over 500 lost jobs in a week – Evidence the Canadian dollar has Changed Call Center Location Math
Last week TeleTech announced they were laying off 216 people at its Halifax call centre, which received almost $12 million dollars in job creation grants a decade ago. Marriott also announced last week that they are closing their Fredericton NB centre, laying off 260 staff. Both of these announcements reflect the impact of the change in the strength of the Canaian dollar. a decade ago the Cdn $ was at $0.80 US and centres in Canada made great economic sense. Today with Cdn dollar at par these centres now cost more than US locations.
Dollar savings versus US locations can no longer be the driving force to build and retain call centres in Canada. The quality, customer satisfaction and service excellence is the key to future sustainability and growth in the Canadian Call Centre industry. Is the industry up to the challenge? Time will tell.
via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2012/09/09/over-500-lost-jobs-in-a-week-evidence-the-canadian-dollar-has-changed-call-center-location-math/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=over-500-lost-jobs-in-a-week-evidence-the-canadian-dollar-has-changed-call-center-location-math
C L E A R L Ycontent (BOSHnewmediaCom) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @GetCalCenteJobs
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Saturday, September 8, 2012
At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @DarnCustomers
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Friday, September 7, 2012
Completing review of Snapshotz call center audit results for client... tons of data and opportunity
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Customers want what they want and the delivery channel should be the one the customer has selected - #custserv #cem #cctr
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I gave @ABHuret +K about Customer Service on @klout. http://t.co/YLAghBpl
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Six ways mobile payments can increase customer loyalty http://t.co/PcevjLV5 via @retexperience #custserv #mobile #cctr
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The Rise of the New Contract Worker - @HarvardBiz http://t.co/cNfLZzSv #futureofwork
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Understanding the 'real' cost of turnover in your #callcenter http://t.co/EWcT9rzg #cctr #custserv #contactcenter
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Completing review of Snapshotz call center audit results for client... tons of data and opportunity
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Dyson to open Aurora call center, add 200 jobs http://t.co/HJaipk9D #cctr #custserv #callcenter
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @thannskincare @themanagr
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Procentus Consulting (QuoteLeadership) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Thursday, September 6, 2012
Ricardo Phillips (RicardoPhillip3) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Great Service will always Win - any questions? #custserv #ce #callcenter #cctr
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THANN (Fadi Ghaby) (thannskincare) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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TY- honored @ABHuret I added @colinsataylor as one of my influencers on @klout. http://t.co/eXUMV92j
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At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @rodbutcher
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Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Are Extroverts or Introverts better agents in your Call Center?
By: Colin Taylor
There has been a prevailing wisdom that extroverts make better call center agents for telemarketing or outbound calling. After all they have outgoing personalities, they are more easily motivated and get a rush from success. I have worked with many centers where despite this of the forgoing being true, extroverts don’t perform better.
My own experience is supported by research completed by Professor Adam M Grant from Wharton, who studied the personality traits of extraverts working in call centers. The expectation was as cited above that extroverts would be more successful than introverts at Telemarketing. But the research found that there was zero correlation between extroverts and cold calling success.
“Extroverts made wonderful calls”, says Grant, but they would soon get distracted and they would lose focus. The introverts however, “would talk very quietly, but boom, boom, boom, they were making calls. Introverts were more focused and disciplined.
The only extroverts who out performed introverts, were those who also scored very highly on the personality trait of Conscientiousness.
Read more on call center recruiting, retention and engagement here
via The Taylor Reach Group - Call Center Consultants http://thetaylorreachgroup.com/2012/09/05/are-extroverts-or-introverts-better-agents-in-your-call-center/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=are-extroverts-or-introverts-better-agents-in-your-call-center
Walmart tests iPhone self-checkout app http://t.co/bfJmS4XM via @retexperience #custserv #retail
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Mobile phone users lack loyalty but rely heavily on services http://t.co/t7hFSsNu #custserv #cem
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CallPoint New Europe (callpoint) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012
A9- increasing costs, declining CSAT and increasing turnover #custserv
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A7-Hire for skills , competencies and capabilities - attitude is usually in that group- train for all else #custserv
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#custserv training should not be a revolution, but instead an evolution
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Monday, September 3, 2012
Set a Remarkable Goal, Then Blow It Away http://t.co/zc97RSmZ via @Inc Rememer your BHAG
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Outsourcing Council (APoutsource) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Sunday, September 2, 2012
Harry Indenbirken (dogsloveshop) is now following me on Twitter! TY
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Saturday, September 1, 2012
At Your Service - #custserv #cctr is out! http://t.co/k6FHTmJL ▸ Top stories today via @BearskinNy @GetCalCenteJobs
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