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Golden Nuggets, Takeaways, and Next Steps from Customer Contact 2010
September 24, 2010
During the most recent Frost & Sullivan Customer Contact East event in Florida on April 18-21, our roundtable discussion group was charged with collaborating on the Top 10 Best Practices to deliver superior customer interactions. First we explored several questions: Where does exceptional customer experience come from? How do we define an exceptional interaction? Why is customer experience at the top of most companies to do list?
We believe that your knowledge workers in your contact centers are without question the leverage point to exceptional interaction with your customers. That interaction will drive future business, extend the lifetime value of the customer, and in the social media world, that one exceptional OR disappointing interaction, could impact the future buying decisions. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, says that if you make a customer unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. But, if you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends. We believe you must take both an inside out and an outside in look at customer interaction. See what is working and what isn't. Fix what you can and leave the positives alone.
Studies by the TARP worldwide (www.tarp.com) have shown how the customer experience has a dramatic impact on loyalty and the likelihood to repurchase. According to the research, of the customers that rate experience a 9 or 10 out of 10, 86% would buy again. And those that rate only 7 or 8 out of ten, say only 34% of those would definitely buy again; same as those claiming to be neutral of dissatisfied, so you can see the marked drop off in terms of ratings.
Further research by this same group also reveals that 50% of customers don't ever tell you their complaint. And of those that do, less than 10% bring the complaint to a manager. Do you listen to the feedback your associates receive from your customers? Do you have a process in place to collect, analyze and respond to the concerns voiced to your front line? I hate to sound like the resident statistician here, but another study shows that the cost to acquire a new customer is 12 times that of retaining an existing customer.
A Harvard Business School study found that a 5% increase in customer retention activities can boost profits from to 25% to 85%. So what makes interaction superior from the customer eyes? Well, our group collaboratively came up with this following. The first one on the list was empathy. But this can't be false or scripted. It comes from genuine understanding or desire to understand the customer's situation.
The second is related to the first item by having first-hand knowledge, and I'll call this ?know your stuff?. Advice is better coming from someone who has experienced the product or service, rather than someone who is reading a manual. The next is courtesy, and I think that goes without saying. Next, we identified tailored to the customer. I call that 'know me' or the personalization of the interaction. Identify and find the problem before the customer knows it's a problem. I'll call that keep me informed. If a better deal becomes available, tell me about it! Upgrade my plan, reduce my service fees! Don't let me find out through social media that I am paying more that I should be paying. Next, I want my calls answered quickly and handled efficiently. I call that 'respect my time'. Don't make me repeat information or provide information that you should have or should know. Heaven forbid I should have to rekey my ID number, my group number and my user number and then when I get to a live agent and have to repeat it again. The last one is interesting and I love this. It's called expectation + 1. Do the expected but do one more. The example in the group that was shared was one of a valet that provided a bottle of water when they returned your car. Provide something extra, above and beyond what was being expected.
After defining what makes an interaction superior in the customer's eyes, we collaborated to create the following Top 10 Best Practices to deliver superior customer interactions that can be implemented today:
1. Arrange first-hand product experience for agents
2. Use agents as mystery shoppers, not to check on their peers, but to feel what their customers feel and build empathy
3. Program the IVR so the first option is to speak to a live agent OR enter the self-service channel
4. Route Calls via CTI rather than the ACD to build business intelligence into call routing. For example, give the repeat caller the option to speak to the same agent or escalate to a supervisor
5. Provide a mechanism for Agents to report the complaints and comments they receive from customers and close the loop with the agent when they are addressed
6. Provide a mechanism for Customers to contribute to product or service improvement and inform the customer when their suggestion is implemented
7. Meet the expectation and then take one step further develop an Expectation + 1 philosophy
8. Engage customers in the brand experience. Let them know what to expect and then manage to those expectations. Communicate brand philosophy and engage the customer in brand development.
9. Ask the customer, Yes/No, would they buy from you again, when it's appropriate
10. Find out what is being said about your brand and products behind your back in social networks and news media