This is the third in a series of blog posts focused on creating a customer service social media strategy. The first entry talked about the social media customer service experiment. The second post in the series provided detailed guidance on building a social media communications strategy for your organization and customer service or contact center. This post provides tactical guidance for integrating and managing social media in the contact center process flow.

This is the second post in the customer service/contact center social media blog series. This post is intended to provide guidance in building a social media communications strategy for your organization and customer service or contact center. An important aspect of rolling out social media is deciding which channels to use. Below is a list of the 10 leading business social media channels, along with guidance on when and how to use each of them. DMG cautions enterprises to carefully consider each channel before jumping in.   Read more»

This is the first in a three-part series on the changing needs and expectations for customer service. “Going social” is more than a way to share thoughts and ideas; it is a new way of communicating and interacting that is impacting and influencing all aspects of our lives. A majority of enterprises now accept that they need to “do social media,” but most are still not sure that this means. The most innovative organizations have re-engineered their organizations to incorporate information from social media throughout the customer lifecycle; in these rare situations, everyone from the CEO to product development to production and fulfillment is tied in and online. Examples of organizations like these are advertising firms that cannot afford to be behind the times; but such innovators are the exceptions.

Most organizations are still struggling to figure out what to do about social media. They know they have to incorporate it within their communications strategy and infrastructure, but have not figured out either how to do so cost effectively or how to get the most benefit from the feedback they receive from social media. And the area where they are struggling the most is customer service.    Read more»

Providing consistent support across all channels is not an option for enterprises; it’s a strategic imperative. Enterprises are fooling themselves if they believe that their customers are not aware of inconsistent policies and service levels in their different sales and service channels. Aggressive customers identify these weaknesses and figure out how to use them to their advantage. This has become a lucrative game for some customers, but it only happens because enterprises make it possible.   Read more»

The simple answer to this question is “Yes,” if you can figure out how to do it cost effectively and you can come up with service offerings that make it worthwhile. Value-based servicing is where an organization provides a differentiated level of customer service, service quality or service offerings based on the perceived value of each customer. While it would be wonderful to provide outstanding customer service for everyone, practical considerations and the need for profits make this next to impossible. As a matter of fact, most organizations struggle to provide even acceptable levels of customer service. 

The Formula for Value-Based Servicing

The three requirements for successfully providing value-based servicing are:   Read more»

In this era of commoditized products and services, price and customer service are the primary differentiators between otherwise similar offerings. If you’re not the lowest-cost provider, competing on price is a losing proposition, so customer service is the best opportunity for differentiation for most organizations. But great customer service is disappointingly rare.

It’s easy to identify examples of bad service. We see it every day when we go to the supermarket and stand on long lines to pay for our groceries; when we go to the doctor/dentist/hairdresser and sit in the waiting room long past the time of our appointment; when we go to the health club and have to wait for the treadmill, etc. But, waiting may turn out to be the best part of the customer experience. Anyone who’s flown on a commercial airline in the past few years knows the pleasure of spending a lot of money for a ticket only to be x-rayed, patted down, and then shoved into a seat next to someone with questionable hygiene (not to mention frequently having to wait for a late-arriving aircraft). Anyone who’s called a customer service department has experienced long wait times, uninformed, un-empowered, under-trained and often over-stressed agents who often think the best way to resolve an inquiry is to transfer the call. And, everyone’s favorite – US-based cell phone providers, who oversell and under-deliver every step of the way. (All the great apps are not enough to enough to make up for dropped calls.)   Read more»

I continue to be surprised by the large number of poorly designed IVR applications in the market. Customers blame the technology when the fault lies with the interface design –either the script for touch-tone applications or the voice user interface (VUI) for speech-enabled systems. In most cases, except when a very old IVR/speech-enabled system is used, the underlying IVR or speech engine is very good.   Read more»

Let’s be real. The two primary reasons why companies use IVRs are to reduce operating expenses by minimizing the number of calls that require live agent support, and to provide service at times when no agents are available (which is also a way to provide customer service around the clock at minimal expense). This makes sense, as it costs approximately $0.05 to $0.25 to handle an inbound IVR inquiry vs. $5 to $25 dollars or more for a live-agent call.
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Building an interactive voice response (IVR) application, even a touch-tone one, is a combination of art and science. It requires deep knowledge of your specific products/services, vertical, and how customers describe and discuss your company and its products. Additionally, it’s important to have a good understanding of the types of activities your customers are willing to do using an automated system, taking into account their security concerns. It’s also essential to know IVR application development best practices, as we’ve learned over the years what works well and what does not.

While there is a lot to know, there are many talented people in the marketplace with a great deal of experience and expertise in writing touch-tone-based IVR applications for specific verticals. First-time IVR developers are often tempted to take on the challenge of writing their own scripts, but I strongly encourage them to resist the urge and find appropriate resources. A good script will speed up the adoption of an IVR application and improve the call displacement rate from day one. Here are a few IVR scriptwriting best practices:   Read more»