Archive

Victory: Heroic Agent Defeats Telephone System at Kaiser

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on December 21, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

Steve Pollock

Unfortunately, my son got an injury while at a Boy Scout event earlier this year. He and a knife got acquainted a bit too closely…and ended up needing emergency treatment. He’s fine (he doesn’t seem to be very sensitive to pain, as we’re finding). In any case…

I received a bill from the emergency center, and Kaiser paid part of it, leaving some in dispute. When I called Kaiser to appeal (at a minimum for help), I had a classically bad phone experience. Layers of touch tone menus, jarring on-hold reminders that my call is important, etc. I got ahold of a great agent who offered to transfer me to the appeals group. When she went to transfer me, I heard more hold music…and then I was disconnected. OK…start again.

Next call…same upfront experience. But then I got back to the same agent. Miracle or plan? I’m not sure, but she apologized and offered to quickly transfer me. We go to the transfer and … once again … disconnect.

Of course, you’ve been here too. I started laughing/crying. I’m 30 minutes in to this experience and about to start again. Some office-mates walk up and ask what’s going on. I explain my lament…and while I’m explaining, my cell phone rings. It’s the agent! She has tracked me down, apologizes again, and tells me how to conduct my business with a fax.

Needless to say, given the circumstances, I was very pleased.

Amanda, if I can figure out how to put you up for a commendation, it’s coming.

American Launches “Remember Me”

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on December 4, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

American Airlines has formally announced a “Remember Me” application with a very interesting email to their frequent flyer members.

  • First, this is a great leap forward in automated application convenience
  • Second, it’s also a great example of how to proactively contact your customer base and let them know about powerful new self-service capabilities.

Congrats, American!

Is the end of the contact center labor arbitrage in sight?

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on November 6, 2007
in callcenter automation
. 0 Comments

steve-pollock.gifThere’s been a long-standing trend in the contact center industry that’s been at the center of cost reduction.

Specifically I’m referring to “labor arbitrage”: The process of substituting lower cost labor from other geographies.

This global phenomenon has gone through some unique phases:

  • Lower-cost in-country resources
  • Outsourcing to specialist firms
  • Lower-cost cross-border resources

The economics behind this process have been extremely compelling for contact center managers. That said, from my recent conversations with executives, I have gotten the distinct impression that the arbitrage has slowed down or even stopped. Some companies have clearly pushed as much labor as they can across borders.

I was wondering how this looked at a global scale, and so I did a little analysis.

Datamonitor, a leading analyst firm that covers contact center agents and technologies, shows continued growth at about a 4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in agent positions worldwide. (For you math geeks who want to check out my calculation, here are the raw numbers - 2007: 7.9M; 2008: 8.2M; 2009: 8.6M; 2010 8.9M).

Now the comparison. Datamonitor shows that the CAGR for outsourced positions is dropping substantially for the

U.S.: 2006-2008: 15% vs. 2008-2010: 5%. That’s a huge shift in the rate of change of the rate of change (yes calculus fans, that’s the second derivative! Mr. Piatt, my math teacher, will be so pleased!). But what does it mean?My take: this validates what I’m hearing from executives. What we’re seeing is that most of the “labor arbitrage” that can be achieved has been ‘squeezed out’ of the system. It appears that the remaining positions can’t be taken across borders for structural reasons (legal/privacy restrictions, customer service quality concerns – real or perceived, availability of skills, management overhead, rising cost of labor globally, etc.).

Says Spock, eyebrow raised: intriguing.

Our perspective is the continued cost pressures faced by contact centers will turn to other fronts. In particular, this will continue to accelerate the adoption of self-service technologies, including kiosk, web self service, and of course voice self-service.

Congratulations, Telecom!

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on October 26, 2007
in callcenter automation
. 0 Comments

We’d like to give a warm congratulations to Telecom New Zealand, who won the prestigious 2007 Implementation Award by Speech Technology Magazine. The award is provided to companies who achieve significant results from their implementation. The results speak for themselves, and are the result of careful planning, attention to detail, and follow-through.

Check out the article on TMCnet at: TuVox Customer Wins Prestigious Implementation Award.

Breaking Up Is(nt) Hard To Do

Published
by
Nick Ezzo
on October 3, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

NickIn my Blog entry Knee Jerk Customer Service on August 7th, I described how I dumped my wireless carrier after 5 years of cell phone bliss.

Apparently, some wireless carriers are also breaking up with their customers — if they call too often.

Check out Sprint Drops Customers Who Call for Help Too Often on NPR from July 11th:

Day to Day, July 11, 2007 · Cell phone service provider Sprint is dropping some of its customers who frequently called customer service with problems. The company sent letters to about a thousand customers telling them it was time to move on to another provider.

What is also interesting is the shocked and stunned reaction of the dumped customers on the Sprint Users Discussion Board.

Back in August, I posed the question:

Are their systems and business processes just too knotted up to deliver proactive customer service?

Or, do they just take their customers for granted?

I’m starting to think there is a third option: they see their customers as a nuisance.

The Power of Word-of-Mouth

Published
by
Nick Ezzo
on September 25, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

Nick EzzoI just read an interesting article by John I. Todor, Ph.D., on the blog The Perfect Customer Experience.

The entry places some tangible, scientific figures behind what we all intuitively know to be true: whether you provide good or bad customer service, your customers are going to talk about it.

Here are a few interesting nuggets:

  • 70% of word of mouth occurs “face-to-face” and only 8% occurs online.
  • Overwhelmingly, consumers have positive things to say about brands by a margin of more than 6 to 1. This contradicts the common notion people spread negative experiences more than positive.
  • 78% of consumers rank word of mouth as credible at a level of 7 or higher on a 10 point scale.

Why is word-of-mouth marketing powerful?

We trust word of mouth because the person telling us puts the experience in a context that is meaningful to us. Since the peer-to-peer relationship is based on trust, the message is credible.

So, remember the next time you’re stuck waiting on hold, or transferred around, or told to call back because “the system is down”:

Your customers are going to talk about it.

Where to Start? Outsource Your Call Routing.

Published
by
Rick Davison
on August 28, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Rick DavisonIn my last two articles, I floated the idea that fixing your call routing and eliminating touch-tone menus is the best way to improve your call center automation and satisfaction rates.

Then I went on to prove my case with some simple math. Now the obvious question: Where in the world do I start?

There is a way to stick your toe in the water. You can outsource call routing leaving your IVR alone (for the time being) and have the routing application work seamlessly with your IVR and your agents. Outsourcing may or may not include physically locating the application outside of your enterprise.

Not only does this approach free you from having to make a capital investment, it allows you to run a small sample of your callers through the application and measure customer satisfaction before expanding traffic.

A huge added benefit in starting with routing is the visibility you can obtain into your callers’ intentions. Rather than a broad picture of how callers navigated a touch tone maze, you’ll see details about what they’re thinking when they call. The wealth of information you obtain will help you improve the routing application and give you a clear road map showing where to leave well enough alone, and what are your best candidates for new speech applications.

Another question:
Are others in your business doing this?

Maybe, maybe not. But callers’ expectations are changing and if you are too focused on your competitors you might miss the bigger picture. As a consumer, I use natural language call routing when I call my bank, when I book my air travel, when I need to speak with an expert who can help me with my camera, when my iPod breaks, when I need to get support for my iPhone, when my phone bill doesn’t seem right, and even when I call my insurance company to report my teenager’s fender bender.

One thing is for sure: I’m going to expect as much when I call your call center, and if you force me to navigate a touch tone menu nothing that happens next is going to make me happy.

How To Dig Up That Treasure

Published
by
Rick Davison
on August 17, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Rick DavisonIn my last article, I put forward the idea that the best way to improve your caller experience is by fixing your call routing and eliminating touch-tone menus. Now, let me give you the economics behind this approach.

Let’s assume your call center takes one million calls per month, your IVR is offered 30% of those and completes half. Let’s also assume that a call completed in automation saves your operation $1.00 per call.

A speech application which improves your call completion rate in your IVR by ten percent will yield a total additional saving of $360,000 per year — not bad.

But what could happen if you apply the same efforts to improving your routing experience? If a natural language routing interface can increase the calls offered to your IVR by the same 10%, your return almost doubles to $600,000.

The math works because fixing the top of the funnel has a multiple effect over tinkering with the bottom. Now that the cost of Natural Language call routing is on par with other applications, clearly routing is the biggest bang for your buck.

Current IVR

 World Class
IVR		 Natural
Language
Routing		 Routing &
World Class
IVR
Total Monthly Calls 1,000,000 1,000,0000 1,000,000 1,000,000
Calls Offered 300,000 300,000 400,000 400,000
Calls Automated 150,0000 180,000 200,000 240,000
Annual Savings $1,800,000 $360,000 $600,000 $1,080,000

Now, if you take the same scenario and combine a 10% increase in calls offered from a natural language routing application with the 10% increase in call completion from your world class automated speech application, the total saving becomes $1,080,000.

This number approaches the ROI you enjoyed when you first implemented your old IVR, but that’s not the biggest benefit. Natural language routing allows twelve million (as apposed to 180,000) of your customers to receive a better caller experience regardless of whether the call is ultimately automated or handed off to a customer service agent. Done right, this positive experience will give your company the opportunity to associate your brand with 12 million more positive experiences every year.

You might be thinking a call routing approach has ten thousand more opportunities for something bad to happen. You could be right, but that same line of reasoning could have been used when you opened up your first call center. Not having a call center was not an option because you would eventually lose customers if they couldn’t get the information they wanted via the phone.

Now the bar has been raised and the same principle applies: you will eventually lose customers by not allowing convenient and timely access to the information callers require.

Your Treasure Is Buried Under 6 Feet Of Dirt

Published
by
Rick Davison
on August 15, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

Rick DavisonWhy is it that when businesses think of applying speech technology to their organization, their first thought is about replacing touch-tone IVR applications, some of which may be functioning perfectly well?

If your operation is like most call centers, you probably had someone responsible for your ACD routing and someone else designing your IVR. Maybe there’s a third person who has developed the CSR procedures for handling calls. The caller doesn’t view this as three separate experiences, so why shouldn’t you also be viewing the entire encounter from ‘hello’ to ‘goodbye’?

Here’s part of the problem in not taking a holistic view:

If you’ve decided to create the most compelling speech application known to man, and stick it underneath a DTMF driven routing application, you may still be forcing callers to navigate through six DTMF menus before they’re exposed to your world class application. So, you’ve already lost most callers before they hear the first “how can I help you”.

You’d literally be building a treasure for improving efficiency and satisfaction and burying it under six feet of dirt, leaving your callers with an arcane treasure map. There isn’t a caller in the world (other than Paul English and gethuman.com) who wants to take the time to learn your call navigation schema.

Perhaps the map is as important as the treasure? I’d argue that the map is a great deal more important and here’s why:

The promise of voice self-service is not the elimination of touch-tone (yes, you read that right). It’s the eradication of menus, and these menus negatively affect a great deal more callers at the top of your application than they do at the bottom.

Knee-Jerk Customer Service

Published
by
Nick Ezzo
on August 7, 2007
in caller experience
. 0 Comments

Nick EzzoA few years ago, I broke up with my wireless carrier.

We had five fantastic years together.  Oh, the minutes we used spend, just talking!  But like all good things, it had to end sometime.

Due to an extensive travel schedule, I had exceeded my plan minutes two months in a row, and my normal $59.99 plan suddenly became a $280 plan.  Ouch.

So I paid my bill and promptly switched carriers.   And with my new wireless provider, I got more minutes for about the same price.

Do you think my wireless provider even cared that I broke up the relationship?  How about… Nope.

No call.  No card.  Nothing.

Here’s my point: if my provider had proactively reached out to me before I walked out, I would have stayed.  Imagine:

Good morning, Mr. Ezzo, this is ____ wireless calling.  I notice you have exceeded your plan minutes for the last two months, and I’d like to upgrade your account to a plan that better fits you.

The call never came.

But, let me go even further with this delusional fantasy:

And, if you sign up for a two-year contract, I can wipe out those excess charges for the last few months.  Heck, I’ll even send you a Bluetooth headset free.

Hallelujah!  Where do I sign?

The sad part is that my provider missed an excellent opportunity to lock me in for another two years.

Wireless providers don’t seem to care about retaining their customers, and I can’t figure out why.

Are their systems and business processes just too knotted up to deliver proactive customer service?  Or, do they just take their customers for granted?

Either way, it’s a problem that can be fixed, and I would like to see someone do it.

Dear ____ wireless,

Let’s get back together.

I’m waiting for your call.