This is a guest blog written by Greg Sherry, Vice President Marketing at Verint Systems.
One of the primary objectives of Customer Response Summit Austin was to “identify best practices and discuss innovative ideas on how to serve customer through emerging channels.” Verint’s contribution to this theme was an interactive general session called “Customer Engagement LIVE!” where we grouped executives into discussion groups of seven or eight participants. The groups engaged in conversations around the strategies and execution steps that can help define how customer-centric organizations can enrich interactions, improve business processes, and optimize the workforce.
One of the questions included on the breakout group handout, for example, was “If you could provide your peers with one piece of advice as they create and execute their customer experience strategy and program, what would it be?” There were also discussion questions around Customer Engagement and Enterprise Workforce Optimization.
Below are some of the highlights attendees shared during the breakout group read back presentations. Do you want access to group facilitator notes from all of the major discussion and engagement areas? If so, click here for the detailed Customer Engagement LIVE! notes.
Breakout Group Discussion Highlights
Employee Engagement- TED Talks! We want to hire and retain the best contact center agents that we can. So, we want to make sure we have a variety of internal programs around employee engagement as well as all our focus on customer engagement. One thing we started was Ted Talks Tuesday’s where we find creative and inspirational Ted Talks videos that have themes around creativity, innovation, customers. We then have a discussion group after the video. Our executives, managers and agents love all the interactions we all have – and we are learning new ideas and ways of thinking at the same time!
Integrate more digital themes and engagement into our traditional customer service environment. We have started to use gamification in our customer services group. As part of the program, we are identifying customer “brand ambassadors” who will serve as fans of our organization and our customer services mission. We are tying these fans into our CRM system and gamification solution foundation. We think these ambassadors will help us differentiate our brand – as well as the customer experience we provide to our customers.
Mobile- How can you gain more customer loyalty? When adopting a tech strategy for mobile, customer experience overall (including customer service) – you have to “win over the customer” when they first become a customer. The customer’s initial experience with your organization must be meaningful and personalized. When customers are new-reach out to them when they’re excited about new service. Make it very easy for them to set up services and profiles. This is your best window to drive loyalty- the customer’s initial experience with your organization.
Create a broad, multi-channel “listening” program. One organization created a multi-pronged campaign branded “We Listen.” It was launched across a variety of media channels internally within the organization, as well as via a 42-foot company branded recreational vehicle (RV). This “RV Relay” was a literal and figurative “vehicle” that included a rotating crew of senior level executives who drove a total of 8,500 miles across North America and visited dozens of customer sites. They engaged customers in a variety of channels including Skype, Twitter, Google hangouts, a company blog, etc. They launched a new online customer community during the relay that drew 5,500 customers per week and ultimately 150,000+ registered community members.
Think of this: Can you find ways to be “proactive” with communications, when you know that a customer’s expectations won’t be met? There are many ways to do this with data from delivery systems, mailing systems, survey data- and many ways to proactively reach out to customers- email, phone call, SMS etc. Also think about using IVR/routing/skills based info to get customers to the person/place that can solve their issue (rather than the one-stop shop (call center) where all issues end up (and various issues can’t be solved due to department silos, information gaps etc.)
Do you have additional creative idea you’d like to share – or questions about the content in this blog post? If so, email me at [email protected]. I look forward to seeing you at a future Customer Response Summit.
