Voice of the Customer: Practical Steps to a Systematic Listening/Feedback System

Transcription

1 Welcome! Voice of the Customer: Practical Steps to a Systematic Listening/Feedback System Presented by: Maggie Klenke Sponsored by:

2 a word from our sponsor Your easiest path to world class contact centers George Despinic Senior Manager Contact Centers Contact us: (800)

3 our esteemed presenter Maggie Klenke is a Co-Founder of The Call Center School a Nashville, TN based company that specializes in professional development of call center professionals. Maggie heads up the company s consulting and professional service division, overseeing a wide range of projects related to call center operations and workforce planning. Maggie is a popular speaker at industry conferences and association meetings and she writes frequently for industry publications with articles and blogs appearing regularly across the industry. She is the author of Business School Essentials for Call Center Leaders. Along with Penny Reynolds, she has also coauthored the five textbooks used by the University of Phoenix call center management program, as well as the popular Call Center Staffing The Complete, Practical Guide to Workforce Management. Maggie has over 30 years experience in call center operations from the perspective of an end-user, vendor, consultant, and teacher. She was among the first in the industry to earn CIAC professional certification as a Certified Call Center Management Consultant.

4 Session Overview In this session, you will learn to: Identify benefits of a customer complaint and quantify the immediate and long-term value of a customer interaction Explore the opportunities to become a conduit for the voice of the customer to your entire enterprise Identify methods that will enable constructive feedback without finger pointing

5 Customer Service Revolution Business Fact: Today s customer is smarter and better informed Examples: Auto purchases Travel plans Prescriptions and medical treatment Key Question: Are we LISTENING to these customers the way we should?

6 Customer Relationship Management Strategy 1. Should be designed to gain insight into: Customer demographics, product & service interest, likes/dislikes, usage Market segments 2. Must balance desires for: Increased revenue through differentiated products Decreased cost of sales, marketing and service delivery Cost of service, enhanced customer experiences and loyalty

7 Customer Complaints When you get a complaint call, are you Capturing the reason? Sharing complaint with responsible department(s)? Do the other departments Find this feedback valuable? OR See you as tattle-tale or finger-pointer?

8 Customer Value How much difference can a single interaction make? A four-year customer cancels a $50 order due to poor service

9 Sample Calculation Lifetime Customer Value Value of call $ Number of calls/year 2 Value per year $ Years of past business 4 Customer value $ Value of future business???

10 TARP Study 20-Year Study Key Findings: Half of consumers complain to frontline staff but only 1-2% of complaints are passed on to other departments Complaint rates have fallen -- not due to better service, but because of customer cynicism» Twice as many customers tell others of a bad experience versus a good one Complainer who is satisfied is: 30% more loyal than one who doesn t complain 50% more loyal than a dissatisfied complainer

11 Complaint Call Is a Gift Customers have two options: 1. Complain 2. Go away They re giving you (agent, call center & company) the opportunity to: Make it right Salvage the relationship Learn something

12 Listening is Profitable Every company can afford to listen to their customers No huge technology investment required Basic change of focus from transactionbased to relationship-based interactions Simple tools and processes are a great first step Check out whitepaper: From Headset to New Mindset for step-by-step plans

13 Call Centers Rising to the Top Business Trends that Drive Contact Center Performance Call Centers are increasingly viewed as essential corporate players Customer churn plagues most industries (5% to 30% annually) and is a greater issue during recessionary times Social networking has given customers a vehicle for spreading good and bad news in the click of a mouse The contact center is becoming the primary source of enterprise customer analytics Source: DMG Consulting LLC

14 What Are Customers Saying? What can we learn from our customers? 1. Product wish list 2. Confusing instructions: product or billing 3. Competitor information 4. Feedback on advertising What else can we learn from our customers that would help our business?

15 What You Do With VOC Information Do Customer Desires Get Lost in Our Focus on Transactional Efficiency? Does the agent gather enough information about the desire to make it possible to pursue? Do you track customer comments for reporting? Does that request get recorded and passed along to other departments? Do you have a process in place for follow-up?

16 The Benefits Benefits of Feedback: Problems will be caught early and fixed before many customers are affected The company may get a jump on the competition by: Listening to what the competition is doing Hearing what customers want The reputation of the company will be enhanced by: Customers believing that their voice is taken seriously Action will demonstrate that commitment Marketing funds will be better spent

17 Conflicting Strategies for the Call Center We must reconcile strategies and operations to minimize conflicts between relationship building and information gathering and efficiency

18 Gathering Information Is Challenging The input from customer is unstructured data not numbers easily obtained The sheer volume of interactions makes gleaning the relevant data a massive task Senior management must see the benefit to expend the resources for this initiative you will have to prove the value first

19 Capturing Customer Input Train agents to really listen for input that would benefit the company Product development suggestions Competitive information Process improvement ideas Provide an easy way to capture feedback for later distribution Effective data capture tools Proper incentives Adjusted metrics (like AHT)

20 Analytics Automatically categorizes and pushes the most important contacts for evaluation Speech and Text Analytics Based on content of conversation, such as customer complaints, word spotting, emotion Screen Analytics Based on agent desktop activity, for example transactions over $1000 Data Analytics Based on ACD events: AHT, hold time, transfers

21 Speech & Text Analytics Process Dispatch did not show up Large sample of customer interactions Customer complaints new product offering Comments about competition Received wrong order Billing error Offer confusing customers Product does not work well Product is too expensive Perceived as better value Product quality driving churn Price attracting customers

22 Call Routing Strategies Better understand customer needs and desires Route calls to best agent to handle Reduce AHT, errors and improve FCR Skills-based routing options Improves efficiency and customer satisfaction Works for calls and non-call media Agents workload variety Blending of inbound and outbound activity Some may focus on written interactions ( , chat, web) Some can intermingle phone and other media Managing social media requires special skills

23 Post-Contact Surveys Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Primarily used for customer satisfaction survey Utilizes IVR or web-based technologies Benefits: Immediate feedback avoids recall errors Automated collating of data/reports ID back to agent and supervisor Voice annotation of the why, not just the score ID and fix both training and process problems Questions can be changed as desired

24 IVR Survey Method Customer calls Your Call Center IVR prompts: Are you willing to take a survey? No Post-Call Yes Customer enters callback number and/or ANI is transferred Call terminated. Customer record sent to the dialer for Outbound survey call Pre-Call Results are posted to agent desktop for immediate feedback Survey results posted to customer survey reporting

25 Instant Results to Your Agents Each agent has a unique username/password and can only access their own results Agent Scorecard 26/04/2012 This agent knows that in the past 30 days, 42% of her customers are very satisfied and 73% of her calls are being resolved on the 1 st call This agent can then access specific information by clicking on any of these surveys

26 Where do Your Opportunities Reside? Jesse could use immediate coaching Tyson is leading the pack in creating very satisfied customers

27 Customer Recovery Process Customer Survey Dissatisfied & Non-resolved Customer Recovery Team Was there an issue to be fixed? CONTACT CUSTOMER (phone, ) ROOT CAUSE CLASSIFICATION (Business Metrics) FIX ISSUE AND PROVIDE COACHING ROOT CAUSE The Personal Touch Help identify the ROOT CAUSE of a problem Determine the relationship between different root causes of a problem Resolve customer issue and create loyalty TOP SURVEY ESCALATION ISSUES CUSTOMER NOTES SUPERVISOR AGENT DATE

28 Reviewing Customer Feedback Developing a Feedback Team Work with other departments to form a cross-functional team to review input from customers regularly Identify what actions are needed to address customer issues/opportunities Ensure that coding of contacts accurately reflects the customer s true issue Ask departments what additional information from customers would be helpful

29 Reviewing Customer Feedback Review Team Pointers: Invite feedback review team members to listen to calls (live or recorded) on a regular basis Invite agents who have dealt with specific customer issues to present to the team from the customer s perspective Ensure that the contact center takes responsibility for its own issues to minimize the potential perception of finger-pointing

30 Example: Feedback Turned into Action Japanese camera maker with North America call center/customers Scenario: Call center received many questions on a new menu option in camera Anecdotal feedback to Japanese developers not credible enough to force change Call center gathered specific comments, volume of contacts, and actual QM recordings for developers Solutions: 1. Developers then accepted the problem and worked for a specific solution 2. Call center developed training to improve efficiency 3. Website FAQs developed and URL given to callers on hold

31 Another Example Customer Case Study Assumptions and Recommendations: Call center was understaffed with high ASA Call center management was frustrated with service level and quality Consultant was hired to prove the need for more call center staff to management Over 60% of calls were driven by billing errors or bill format questions Recommendation: No staff needed for call center. Focus on accounting department to resolve issues there. Call volume dropped as billing problems were resolved In 60 days, call workload dropped, service goals met, and customer satisfaction improved dramatically

32 Another Feedback Option Proactive Customer Contact Proactively contacting customers at appropriate points in the relationship lifecycle will: 1. Increase customer loyalty 2. Reduce customer need to call 3. Utilize media customers choose 4. More effectively use agent resources

33 Sharing the VOC Data Customer Event Customer Database Proactive Contact Trigger Proactive Contact Phone call Chat Social Media Online purchase Installation Logs all customer events Add notes to each event Disposition code Gauge customer sentiment Log suggestions Reason for the contact Negative sentiment Low rating Keyword search Phone call - Live agent - IVR Text msg. Social Media Mailer Support Dept. Need better self-service tools Need better staff coverage Need more training Shipping Dept. Need a more reliable courier Need better tracking Need better packaging Product Management Need feature xyz Need higher reliability Need better user experience

34 Sharing VOC-Driven Improvements Communicating Results Contribution to the company o Sales growth and profit o Customer lifetime value lift o Employee retention and development o How improved processes and technologies optimize customer relationships o Improvements in competitive position Connection to enterprise mission and vision

35 Bottom Line Think of your contact center as a: Customer relationship center Protector of the customer base Revenue enhancer or producer Strategic weapon against the competition It is not a cost center but a strategic resource for the success of your company!!

36 Quick Ways to Get Started 1. Mine your contact center data 2. Extract the customer nuggets 3. Act to produce gold results

37 Session Overview In this session, you learned to: Identify benefits of a customer complaint and quantify the immediate and long-term value of a customer interaction Explore the opportunities to become a conduit for the voice of the customer to your entire enterprise Identify methods that will enable constructive feedback without finger pointing

38 Thank You! Thank you for your participation today George Despinic Senior Manager Contact Centers (800) The slides from today s webcast along with the whitepaper will be sent to all participants