TuVox Speech Central

The Oft Forgotten Phone Channel

Try this: go to any shopping mall and take a good look around. Look at the storefronts, the carefully arranged displays, the beautiful people hawking perfumes. A visual feast of delights to assault your senses and make you a true believer… in the brand.

Then call the 800 numbers for these same companies and that’s usually when the needle scratches off the record.

Companies obsess over maximizing the value of every customer touch point and yet, most of them miss the opportunity to engage their customers on a brand level through the phone channel. I would go one step further and say a large portion of these companies have 800 numbers that actual repel customers. The Website Touchtone Hell chronicles some of the most repellent 800 numbers around.

According to a recent article by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), more than half of support issues are initiated by phone. So, it’s hard to believe companies would intentionally ignore the phone channel. And yet, most callers are still tortured by long hold times, confusing touch-tone menus and repeatedly told to visit a company’s website.

But alas, a glimmer of hope: A handful of companies have figured it out. Companies like American Airlines, Apple and USAA are actually extending their brands through the phone channel with personalized and often proactive service. For example, with the American Airlines ‘Know Me’ program (see my June 21st comment), the company knows who the caller is and why they’re calling, before they ever speak a word.

In a world where touch-tone hell is still the norm, it’s refreshing when you actually do business with a company that has customer service continuity, whether that service is provided at the ticket counter, on the jet way, or by phone. There are a ton of retail and other companies who would do well to follow the American Airlines lead and invest as much in telephone self-service as they do on storefronts.

Personalization Arrives in the Voice Channel

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to personalized customer service. Most merchants and companies I do business with have a personalized web experience. On Amazon, Netflix, eBay I’m greeted by name. My recommendations are highly tailored and my account information is readily accessible.

I’ve been waiting for this for years on the phone, and it’s finally happened.

I was just greeted by name when I called American Airlines. It’s about time!

American has just deployed a really amazing new system that has some really cool features. My favorite is one of the simplest — I can opt-in so my cell phone is recognized, so I’m immediately identified and authenticated.

“Thanks for calling American Airlines. Welcome back, Steve.” It’s very cool. Better yet, I get proactive service — when I’ve got a flight coming up, I automatically get flight status. When I land, I’m offered help with lost baggage. If I need to be rebooked, it is handled automatically. The most common options are menu-free — they’re proactively offered.

The phone has taken a huge step forward.

Are you an American frequent flyer? Try it! You can get information on the American Airlines website.

TuVox built this system using multiple personalization techniques. A series of dynamic features are used to create a highly personalized experience. Some of the personalization features include greeting by name and context-specific menus — so that I’m only offered appropriate choices at any point.

The other key element of a next-generation personalized experience is what we refer to as ‘anticipating intent’. The American application looks at your current status to see if you’re flying; if you’re between legs of a trip; if you’ve just landed; if you’ve got an upcoming return flight, etc. On top of your status is event-based information — are planes late, have you been re-booked. The combination of these may result in a high probability reason for a phone call.

Anticipating intent allows American to offer service without having to present a menu selection. This is very forward-thinking and breaks significant new ground for a phone system.

This is the phone system of the future, here today.

Recently, I was helping out on a project for one of our customers. The customer had on-premise IVRs at multiple call centers with multiple phone numbers from multiple carriers landing at each site.

The customer wanted a CTI-integrated, fully-redundant hosted speech solution to automate just a part of the call flow, with the existing call flows still being serviced by the respective IVRs.

And… all of this in the TDM world!!!

The sheer complexity of the solution boggles the mind. We were discussing crisscrossing tie-lines, bridging calls back-and-forth, with CTI servers at multiple locations. It was just too complicated. Of course, we figured it out, but it’s a very complex solution.

I was fantasizing how much easier things would have been if the IT group was open to (and had justified budget for) a VoIP based solution. Nowadays, even though most IT groups have some plans to roll out VoIP based solutions, many don’t have a comprehensive plan to migrate contact center infrastructure.

An all-IP solution for contact centers comes with the promise of universal routing, pre-treatment of calls, centralized voice portals, reduced infrastructure costs. Imagine not having to deal with terminating circuits, “take back and transfer” costs and expensive CTI infrastructure.

The key thing to remember is that companies must have an enterprise-wide vision to rollout the all-IP solution. In my experience, most companies start-off with a pilot projects with specific purpose and then future projects become dependent on the choices made previously. I have seen VoIP plans getting quickly derailed due to inability of legacy hardware to be upgraded or due to interoperability of the hardware/software choices from various vendors.

To start out on the right foot, it is crucial to align with the right IP open standards at the enterprise level. This will pave the path to the future possibilities via interoperability of newer applications. SIP has been becoming a dominant standard in the VoIP market place. Its popularity can be attributed to lower complexity, higher extensibility and better scalability.

Continue reading ‘Tell Me Again: Why Do I Need VoIP?’

Just this morning, I read an entry on the Customer Service Blog “Customers Are Always” that made a pretty bold claim about having a live customer service answer the phone on the first ring.

Normally, I agree with Maria Palma, and I heartily applaud her for carrying the banner for improving customer service.

However, in this case, I couldn’t disagree more. Here is the quote:

Is it possible to have a live agent answer the call on the first ring? You’re darn right it’s possible!

It is neither possible nor practical to answer every call with a live agent. The reason is simple: Call Volumes.

Just ask 1-800-Flowers.com how many calls they take on February 14th. Or, ask Apple how many iPod calls they receive on the day after Christmas.

In order to have a live agent answer the call on the first ring you would need to have hundreds or thousands of call center agents waiting for calls to come in on that single day. And when no agent is available, what do you get? Music on hold.

If done correctly, automation can (1) handle unpredictable and uneven call volumes and (2) make your existing call center agents more productive. When your customers’ needs are handled quickly and efficiently, they will thank you and they will become repeat customers.

Putting a Voice to your Key Support Knowledge
We need to acknowledge that there are two clear classes of callers. First, the web-oriented callers who have already tried all our web resources, were unable to solve their problem, and are now on the phone. Those callers need to be directed to an agent and encouraged to continue to use self help.

Second, are callers who have not used the web – either it’s not convenient (they’re mobile) or they just didn’t bother. In any case, BOTH know there’s a website. Just telling them there’s a support website is a waste of their time and precious telecom costs.

That’s a shame, when it’s relatively easy to help callers with knowledgebase content right on the phone. Or, just a way to guide callers to specific information online – not general message, but a specific page that will help.

The question is:
Why aren’t companies making this information available over the phone?

If you’re in charge of providing telephone-based support at your company, I have to ask — are you leveraging this information across all customer interaction channels, including Web self-service and voice self-service?

The reality is that some customers will use Web support and some won’t. In many cases, customers have tried Web support, but couldn’t easily find a solution.

Others might not have tried Web support at all — some customers are unable (not near a computer, technologically challenged, etc.) and a few are unwilling — they would prefer to speak with a live customer service representative at any cost.

For these reasons, your technical support line continues to ring (and ring). And every call handled by a live agent is costly, cutting into ever-narrowing profit margins.

When customers have reviewed all your Web articles, and are willing to wait any length of time, it is difficult to decrease the business impact of these calls.

For all other callers, however, using voice automation to access your knowledgebase can save up to 90% per call.

To successfully automate a large percentage of routine technical support calls, there are five key best practices to keep in mind.

Download the rest of the article here.

5 Best Practices to Make Your Knowledgebase “Talk”