Customer care

We’ve all been there, those waning moments before a presentation or a meeting where you have to cram, create, or calculate some last minute bits of information.  The following is my recollection of one such situation that provided me with an “aha” or “light-bulb” moment that gave me complete satisfaction from my job. A job in which I help contact centers better serve their customers and be completely relevant to their business.   Read more»

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or “on-demand software” is becoming a fast growing, common software delivery model that provides tools that can reduce time-to-market and cost of converting a traditional on-premise software product, making implementation easier and more cost effective.    Read more»

A well-scripted IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system can provide significant benefits to customers by offering services around the clock, 24/7, including holidays, saving a business time and resources. It can also provide new services that could never have been cost justified if using real people; it can help to handle high call volumes; and enables customers to handle their own simple operations over the phone, such as pay bills, track shipping, verify specific account information, or make reservations.   Read more»

As I noted in my last blog post, the key to some of the most successful Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs is the ability to “Keep it Simple.” You may have created your customer feedback survey and now you’re wondering what else you can do to ensure your program is a success. Here are a few tips from Jim McNutt at Piedmont Natural Gas and Bob Moore at TDS Telecom.

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In the past year, I’ve been fortunate to learn from our most successful customers about the practices and programs that they put in place in order to deliver phenomenal customer service. A key cornerstone of delivering extraordinary customer service is often having a Voice of the Customer, or VoC, program in place. 

In this 2-part blog series, we’ll take tips from our customers and learn from their experience in implementing a successful VoC program.   In today’s post, let’s talk about “Keeping it Simple.”   Read more»

Holiday shoppers seem to come in many forms - there are the Black Friday shoppers (way to scary for me), the early shoppers (one Facebook friend had all of her presents purchased and wrapped before Halloween), the "hit every store in a 100 mile radius shoppers" and the online shoppers. I fall into the last category. I love the Internet.   Read more»

One of our amazing clients processes refunds for a number of consumer products. When these refunds come in, it is their standard policy to issue their refunds in the form of a cash card. However,  every month, they have a customer who calls into their company's contact center for a paper rebate check instead. Despite the fact that this exception to their process eats up valuable time and resources,  they accomodate this request each and every month. Sure,  it is a great example of going above and beyond for their customers,  however,  when you multiply this kind of effort over time and add in other higher maintenance customers,  you can start to see how it can really effect the bottom line.   Read more»

Regardless of the right way to do things, most organizations consider the service experience from the company's perspective and not from the customer's.  This makes for an inside out approach that can be less than satisfying.
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Proper SaaS architecture is critical to preventing events such as the recent loss of data from the T Mobile Sidekick Microsoft Danger incident.  This is especially important when data loss is involved.  When you are running a SaaS operation, it is important to realize that the customer is paying for you to do the innovation, for you to keep the system running, for you to ensure that the system is fault tolerant and secure.  This is exactly why SaaS is not hosting.   Read more»

I find it interesting that prior to toll free numbers, the only way to get a hold of a company for sales or customer support was via a local, LEC provided 10 digit telephone number that the caller paid the toll fee on or a customer calling collect (then called transferred-charge service). It wasn't until 1967 that toll free numbers were introduced by AT&T and at the time, only major hotel chains used them.

Since then, toll free service grew to  huge proportions to the point where the industry ran out of 800 prefixes and moved on to consuming 888, 877, now working on 866 and have in reserve 855, 844, 833, 822 and several more.  But enough of the history lesson.  This is about Local Numbers, an alternative to Toll Free.   Read more»