When customers contact a brand, they want to be treated like people, not problems.

Who can blame them?

Welcome to the future of customer care.

There, relationships will matter more than transactions.

Gone will be the days when customer queries automatically get routed to agents specializing in, say, rebates or product exchanges. Instead, agents will also be paired with customers based on long-term relationship compatibility and customer lifetime value.

Needless to say, these agents of the future will have cross-functional expertise, making them, in essence, super agents.

Ten percent of customer service organizations have already begun preparing for this transformation by revamping their hierarchal staffing models into cross-functional groups.^[1] They have no intention of getting left behind when the future takes off.

Except that the future has taken off for a handful of intrepid brands.

Thanks to digital accelerators like artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics, used in combination with design thinking and journey mapping, trailblazing companies have empowered super agents to take a longitudinal view of customers and a holistic approach to their needs.

The result? Greater value for all parties.

Here’s how your own company can achieve the same before the future arrives for everybody else:

X-Ray Vision: Use Cognitive AI and Omnichannel Integration to See the Whole Customer

Taking a holistic approach to your customer’s needs means seeing that person in their entirety. Most brands today don’t have a full picture. Those that do have brought all customer care, CRM and engagement channels onto one platform and then integrated them so that their agents see a 360-degree view of the customer in every interaction throughout the customer journey. The fastest and most cost-effective way to do this is to put everything in the cloud. In fact, the majority of customer care centers expect to be cloud-based within roughly the next year.^[2]

Brands can apply a blend of predictive and prescriptive analytics to their omnichannel customer data to generate actionable insights, and then layer on artificial intelligence to help super agents use those insights to better understand individual customers (including their churn propensity and likely lifetime value), more satisfactorily address customer concerns, anticipate their additional needs and make tailored purchasing suggestions they’re apt to welcome.

When it comes to this last part — “apt to welcome” — in-the-moment contextual clues are key. This is where the right emotional intelligence training for super agents will prove critical, along with advanced cognitive intelligence such as real-time sentiment analysis and predictive analytics for personalized recommendations.

Right now, only a few technology companies have the foundational capability to convert sentiment analysis into immediate insights while an agent is still interacting with the customer. That will change, however, as the future rapidly approaches.

Hone Personalization with Analytics and Agent Training

Beyond perfecting the relational art of connecting with the whole customer at every point of their journey, super agents must also be well trained in bespoke product/service offerings, customer-specific upsell opportunities and highly targeted sales conversions.

This requires knowing how to take a dashboard full of omnichannel-fed information about the customer’s shopping persona, purchase history, buying propensity, etc., and then translating all of that into high-quality customer interactions.

Here’s how one trailblazing fashion brand has begun doing precisely that: Using predictive analytics, the brand has created various customer shopping profiles and then determined which apparel and accessory combinations are likely to resonate with each persona. Armed with this intelligence and everything else known about each customer, the brand’s super agents double as fashion advisors, providing personalized advice — suggesting, for instance, that an ill-advised vest a customer bought with a blouse be exchanged for a flattering blazer rather than returned outright.

The results? The company’s super agents have boosted the brand’s sales conversion rate by 10 percent and grown average basket size by 7 percent. Not only that, they’ve achieved a first-contact resolution rate of 90 percent and a 23 percent drop in average handle time. Attractive metrics like these never go out of style.

Prioritize Proactive Contact and Lifetime Relationships

As super agents proliferate, outbound customer contact will become the norm. Instead of mainly reacting to inbound queries and complaints, agents will initiate customer conversations based on opportunities to deliver value.

A leading specialty pet retailer has already achieved this future state. Catalyzed by flagging customer loyalty and agent morale, the retailer radically switched its customer care approach from fixing one-off problems to building lifetime relationships. Consequently, if today somebody calls about the functionality of a retractable leash bought for a new puppy, a super agent not only answers the customer’s questions, but also learns the dog’s breed, size and behavior to make appropriate product suggestions (nutrition, training toys) and offer helpful services such as scheduling obedience classes at a nearby store.

Using the information from the call, the super agent subsequently checks in with the customer at key points throughout the dog’s lifecycle (e.g., vaccination updates), as well as makes more-frequent follow-ups, such as reminders about re-ordering flea medication. In just a year after the company adopted this approach, customer satisfaction surged to 88 percent, the number of agents who said they were highly satisfied doubled, the customer conversion rate soared to 80 percent (one-third higher than the prior year), and incremental sales jumped 25 percent.

Other brands look likely to follow suit, with Gartner predicting outbound contact will outnumber inbound interactions by 2025.^[3] The future is taking off.

On Your Way

As your own customer care future takes off, keep the following points in mind:

Get personal: Build relationships with customers by forging connections based on data-rich insights and compatibility with agents.

Do more with less: Use AI-driven automation for standard customer care transactions so that your super agents are free to handle more complex and value-focused interactions.

Get in touch: Reach out to customers before they reach you. Proactive engagement is always better than reactive defense.

Don’t squander free customer intelligence: Not analyzing customer care interactions is like leaving money on the table. Use sentiment analytics to mine your customer-agent conversations for all they’re worth, as well as to adjust relationship matches between super agents and customers where needed.

Transcend language barriers: Today’s natural language processing is advanced enough for highly accurate real-time translation in email, chat and SMS, eliminating language-specific competency for agents in those channels. By 2030, real-time voice translation and accent neutralization will all but eradicate language barriers for customer care.

Reduce complexity: Consider putting a centralized, fully integrated and easily scalable omnichannel platform on the cloud, one that you can swiftly modify at any time, at minimal cost and effort.

Stay human: Combining sufficient soft-skills training with adequate tech learning will become paramount for super agents. So will ensuring that agents feel supported and connected in a remote work environment, which is here to stay: Just 12 percent of contact centers anticipate reverting to a mostly on-site contact center model.

Guest blog post written by Sutherland.

To learn more about this topic and others, join us in Nashville for Customer Response Summit (CRS) on September 20-22, 2023.

The post Customer Care Super Agents: Meet the New Value Creators appeared first on Execs In The Know.

But how can you truly connect with your customers and cater to their ever-evolving needs? The answer lies within the vast, untapped potential of your customer data. In this blog, we will explore how leveraging customer data can breathe new life into your customer journeys, enabling your organization to stay ahead of the curve and drive meaningful impact to deliver exceptional customer experiences (CX).

The Untapped Potential of Customer Data

Organizations collect a wealth of data at every customer touchpoint, from website interactions and social media engagements to purchase histories and support interactions. This treasure trove of information is not just raw data; it holds the key to understanding customers like never before.

By harnessing this data effectively, brands can uncover invaluable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and pain points. Armed with this knowledge, you can align your products and services to address genuine needs and desires, transforming your CX  into one that is truly customer-centric.

Unveiling the Customer Experience Patterns

Within your customer data are patterns waiting to be deciphered. Every interaction and every decision made by customers leaves behind digital footprints that form distinct patterns. By connecting these dots, you can gain a holistic view of a customer’s journey with your brand.

Understanding the touchpoints where they engage the most and the pain points that hinder their experiences can empower you to fine-tune your CX strategy. This insight ensures that your organization remains agile and adaptive to meet customer demands with precision.

Personalization: A Game Changer

In a world where customers seek authentic connections with brands, personalization becomes a game-changer. Customer data provides the necessary building blocks to craft personalized experiences that resonate with individual customers on a profound level.

From tailored product recommendations to targeted marketing campaigns, personalization demonstrates that your organization values each customer as a unique individual. The result? Heightened customer loyalty, increased engagement, and unparalleled customer satisfaction.

Predictive Insights for Proactive Engagement

Beyond understanding the past lies the power to shape the future. With advanced data analytics and predictive modeling, your organization can unlock the ability to anticipate customer needs and behaviors. By analyzing historical data, you can identify trends and patterns that foretell future demands.

Armed with this foresight, your organization can proactively engage with customers, providing timely support and offering relevant solutions before they even realize they need them. This level of proactive engagement not only streamlines operations but also fosters a deep sense of trust and loyalty among customers.

Overcoming Data Privacy Concerns

Prioritizing data privacy and security is key. Trust is the cornerstone of any successful customer relationship, and safeguardin

g their personal information is non-negotiable. Transparent communication about data usage, stringent adherence to privacy regulations, and implementing robust security measures demonstrate your commitment to protecting your customers’ trust and your brand’s reputation.

Building a Data-Centric Culture

To fully unlock the transformative power of customer data, building a data-centric culture is paramount. This requires more than just investing in data analytics tools; it demands a company-wide commitment to embracing data-driven decision-making. Encourage cross-functional collaboration, invest in training your teams to interpret and use data effectively, and implement data-driven KPIs.

When data becomes the guiding compass of your organization, you set the stage for constant innovation and an unwavering focus on delivering exceptional CX.

Embrace Customer Data, Embrace the Journey

As a CX leader, you hold the key to redefining customer journeys and unlocking success. By leveraging the untapped potential of your customer data, your organization can gain profound insights, unveil patterns, and craft personalized experiences that resonate deeply with your customers.

Embracing the power of predictive analytics can help you stay one step ahead and foster a culture that values data-driven decision-making.

The post Redefining Customer Journeys: The Power of Leveraging Customer Data appeared first on Execs In The Know.

For example, in springboard diving, a “3-meter forward dive with a tuck” has a degree of difficulty of 1.4. Judges rate dives based on four categories: approach, take-off, execution, and entry, and multiply by the degree of difficulty to arrive at the final score for the dive. In other words, some dives are easier than others and rewarded accordingly.

It’s similar to today’s business executives trying to optimize business performance with data. Some steps are more difficult than others. Let’s look at some examples.

Approach: What? Where? How?

You may not really know what data exists, where it is stored, or have the technical know-how to get it all together for use and analysis. That’s the starting point for successfully getting insights from your data—but it’s only the starting point.

Degree of difficulty to solve: 5 out of 10

Take Off: Analyzing the Data

If you can get past that first barrier and locate what you have, where it is, and how to pull it together, then how do you analyze all the data? It’s not simple. You’re likely dealing with multiple types of data: structured, unstructured, front office, back office, marketing systems, interaction systems, social media, and the list goes on. There’s so much data that even the clear signals can actually look like noise.

If you can get past that barrier of figuring out your data, the next challenge is determining what do you actually need to know? Besides intuition, experience, current data set of reports, advisors, competitive information, Google searches—and maybe a dart board—how do you know you’re getting the highest caliber information and intelligence and removing all the noise that doesn’t matter?

You need to know what you need know before you start asking questions and performing the analysis. To be successful, insights programs need to follow design thinking principles, otherwise, all you get is noise, false flags, and useless detail.

Degree of difficulty to solve: 7 out of 10

Execution: Decision-Making

Once you’ve determined what you need to know, the next step is using all that data to make the best possible decisions. Intelligence without action is a total waste of time, and actions are not always completely obvious, particularly today when there’s so many choices.

How do you leverage the data, insights, and intelligence to develop a list of options? How do you combine statistical analysis in prescriptive analytics and your experience and intuition to make the best possible choice?

And, by the way, time is of the essence! Every business on the face of the planet needs to move fast because their competitors are moving fast, customer expectations are moving fast, technology is moving fast, markets are shifting and shaping fast, regulatory environments are moving fast. So, you need to make decisions quickly from the best possible data with the highest quality signals addressing exactly the right questions.

Degree of difficulty to solve: 8 out of 10 

Entry: Applying it to Your CX Practice

OK, now you’ve got the ability to make decisions. But more importantly, how do you begin using insights in real time to change customer and business outcomes?

For example, let’s say your customer is in a live interaction with a bot asking a question and the bot dips into the platform, understands who the customer is, their history, their persona, what they are “feeling” now, their sentiment in the past, their past purchases and can predict what they are trying to do now. All of this culminates in a singular response that enables and equips the customer to take the easiest path to resolution, which creates the highest value for the customer and for the enterprise.

Degree of difficulty to solve: 9 out of 10

Ultimately, the next and final step is to quickly understand and assess whether the changes you are driving in the business are creating the value you expected. This constant feedback loop is critical, because without it, you won’t be able to adjust with the scope, scale, and speed that is required to be successful in today’s business environment. It’s essential to measure the right things in the right ways at the right time, and produce future signals that are going to enable you to meaningfully manage the business.

Degree of difficulty to solve: 10 out of 10

Diving into Your Data

You don’t want to get this wrong and end up doing a belly flop. Not only is it painful, but you’d be out of the competition.

Whereas diving has it’s scoring steps, at Concentrix, we use a model of:

Or, in short form: Insights to Outcomes.

Is all of this easy? Clearly not. Is it solvable? Definitely. We’ve built a team of data insight experts that have helped businesses across multiple industries solve exactly this challenge, and do it in manageable chunks. We can help evaluate what data you have, where it’s located, how to evaluate it and turn it into actionable insights, and then measure outcomes and adjust in real time.

Please join our panel discussion “Leveraging Customer Data and Insights to Design, Build, and Run a Winning CX Program” at Execs in the Know’s Customer Response Summit on March 2, 2023 at 2:15pm. I’ll be moderating a panel with CX leaders from United Airlines, Vistra, and iRobot.

I hope to see you there when we discuss how to help you get to a perfect score!

Guest blog post written by Reagan Miller, the Global Vice President of Analytics and Insights at Concentrix. To learn more about this topic and others, visit the events page to check out all of our upcoming events.

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The customer service industry will experience the biggest digital shift yet in 2018, as customer experience (CX) brand leaders seek to expand channels, leverage analytics, adopt automation, and integrate the front office with back office operations. CX pioneers should prepare for a surge in the adoption of disrupter technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), digital self-service, and bot tools, as well as the need to hire data scientists to improve business intelligence and better enable consumers to get the right answer fast. These digital capabilities will help some businesses, with the right unified engagement strategy and delivery expertise, to unlock a treasure trove of transformational potential for optimizing customer experience—balancing the cost of service with frictionless engagement. In this report, we will cover those digital innovation and customer engagement operational trends that will assist CX leaders in planning their transformation projects in 2018-19. (Click here to view a webinar from January 10 on this same topic.)

1. Digital channels finally overtake voice.

We will finally witness the tipping point where digital channels—email, chat, social, text, messaging—overtake voice in the contact center. Mobile driven interaction management —in-app messaging, chat, SMS, and social—have become foundational components of an omnichannel strategy. According to Dimension Data’s global contact center benchmarking report, digital interactions accounted for over 42% of all interactions taking place inside the contact center in the beginning of 2017. At that current rate, digital was expected to overtake voice in 2018. It’s already happening with some of our clients. One consumer packaged goods client being serviced out of the UK receives 71% of all customer interactions from digital channels, and only 29% from voice. Included in these statistics are messaging via WhatsApp, which currently accounts for approximately 10% of the client’s volume. Instant communication will become the standard for exceptional customer service in 2018. Messaging is the new channel of choice, according to Twilio research, which states 89% of consumers want to use messaging to communicate with a business. There are multiple benefits to messaging such as the ability to send photos or videos between agents and customers, faster and more timely communications, and the ability to stop, start, and continue with the conversation at the customer’s convenience.

2. Investments in advanced analytics tools drive customer experience transformation.

Advanced data analytics tools can help businesses uncover business-critical insights and gain a competitive edge. According to Gartner, “By 2018 50% of agent interactions will be influenced by real-time analytics.” As customer experience analytics matures, it is becoming increasingly predictive and focused on personalization. A sophisticated data analytics tool can make predictions, or generate recommendations based on information gathered, thus giving contact center agents and bots more background and context on each individual customer they are servicing. In addition, analytics plays a significant role in increasing productivity. As one case in point, speech analytics can detect non-value adds, such as long conversational pauses or points in the conversation when the customer has to repeat responses.

3. Smartphone video camera support changes the game for customer support.

Gone are the days of customers struggling to explain technical product issues to an agent by phone. With smartphone video camera support, 3-4 minutes of triage can be accomplished in seconds. By texting customers a simple link, brands can now activate the video camera on a customer’s mobile device to see what they are looking at. It’s that simple. Smartphone video camera support, in combination with messaging or voice support, can accelerate time-to-resolution while boosting customer satisfaction.

If customers are uncomfortable leveraging video, the alternative option is to send a simple picture via SMS so that companies are able to get a better view and understanding of a product issue and communicate more effectively with customers—for example, annotating photos to indicate product issues. Real outcomes are cost-containment, better average handle time (AHT), lower product return rates, and improved CSAT.

4. Emojis make digital conversations measurably more emotional and expressive.

As digital conversations overtake voice in 2018 and tone of voice becomes absent from interactions, the customer care industry will need to find new ways to gauge and measure emotion and sentiment. The answer lies in technology. The emoji became accepted and praised as part of the customer care communication mainstream in 2017 and this will expand in 2018—as a means to add lightheartedness or a personal touch and show humor and happiness. Another way to measure and gauge emotion is by embedding text analytics in digital channels, such as text or chat. Analytical dashboards can run behind the scenes as agents engage with customers to detect the level of sentiment in conversations. If the analysis detects a high negative sentiment score, the conversation can be flagged for a supervisor to review. Lastly, the same text analytics approach should be applied when using bots. Today, talking to a bot can be more and more akin to connecting with a human. However, there should always be an option for a customer to escalate to a human agent when necessary.

5. Artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionizes the customer service industry.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries across the globe, including customer service. Thanks to the rise of digital channels and the advancement of AI and machine learning technology, we now have the ability to predict (with a high level of confidence) the right answer to a customer’s inquiry in any digital channel — email, SMS, chat, or social. This advancement in technology will make our agents much more efficient. No more looking up answers, spell checking, tagging or categorizing conversations. The only action agents will have to take is to hit “approve” or “personalize” on the predicted responses. These new customer care solutions will bring together the empathy of agents with the efficiency of bots, for AI-assisted conversations that present the facts of a product or brand while adding the personalization of a human touch. AI technology will even be able to automatically tag and categorize posts, saving agents more time.

6. The customer care industry seeks outside expertise to build and optimize chatbot experiences.

As the hottest topic in 2017, customer service professionals had some high expectations chatbots were going to be a game changer. But apparently, chatbots still have a lot to learn. Early in 2017, Facebook announced it was “refocusing” its use of AI after its bots hit a failure rate of 70%, meaning bots could only get to 30% of requests without some sort of human intervention. There are a few reasons most chatbots fail. One, organizations fail to clearly define the bots’ purpose. Two, most organizations launch well before they are ready and fail to do the necessary amount of testing. Lastly, organizations did not have the in-house expertise to optimize and train a machine learning, natural language processing AI model. Chatbots are only as good as the data that feeds them. If chatbots start to learn something inaccurately or are fed false data to start, they will produce false results and humans will need to reset and intervene.

7. Smart Bots&Brains™ strategy is at the heart of CX transformation.

In 2018, the winning customer service formula will be a strategic “bots-brains” approach, leaning on intelligent automation to create optimized CX, intelligently integrating people at key moments of truth.

Whether front-end bot or bot-assisted agent, tomorrow’s businesses will employ automation where it adds value through reduced customer effort (improving CSAT by guiding customers to the right answer fast), cost-containment, or revenue generation. Bot deployment frees up human labor for higher-minded, more emotional, and complex decision making. According to a recent report by Horses for Sources, automation is making way for strong growth of high- and medium-skilled personnel—with highly skilled positions in the service provider industry increasing by 56%, and medium-skilled by 8%. However, low-skilled, routine jobs drop 30% as many of these roles get phased out over the next five years.

8. More customer care professionals budget for and hire data scientists/analysts and invest in text and speech analytics.

Delivering voice of the customer data is undoubtedly both art and science. Customer service teams live in a world of “unstructured” data including phone calls, chat transcripts, social transcripts, text transcripts, etc. Teams need analytics tools and data scientists to help make sense of the data and ultimately learn what customers are saying, requesting, complaining about, praising, and questioning. With the rise in digital conversations, hiring the right data professionals is going to become critical in 2018 if they want to execute their digital strategies flawlessly and remain competitive.

9. Robotic process automation (RPA), transforms both the back office and front office.

In the next two years, RPA will be recognized for its front-office potential as well. Automation will provide agents assistance to enhance productivity, by allowing team members to focus on helping customers and less time on navigating systems or post-contact wrap up. Additionally, automation at the desktop, will also improve quality by decreasing errors of manual data entry, reducing rework, and decreasing complaints. Reducing manual tasks allows for a better focus on listening to the customer, empathizing, and providing a frictionless experience. In 2018, we’ll see better collaboration between the front- and back office, for ROI that covers the advantages of both RPA types.

10. Work-at-home solutions grow and provide millennials the flexible jobs they seek.

Over the past decade, telecommuting has increased by 115%—that’s almost 3% of the U.S. workforce, as reported by Global Workforce Analytics and FlexJobs. With hiring, staffing, and attrition being some of the biggest obstacles in the customer care industry, this is one trend that will continue to grow in the next couple of years. There are many advantages to having a remote, at-home workforce. For one, many work-at-home teams will have much lower attrition and absenteeism rates. Two, it expands the talent pool significantly making it much easier to hire for seasonal work. Three, the need to overstaff for the “just-in-case” is greatly reduced, thus saving cost.

Interested in finding out more about the topics in this blog or HGS? HGS is one of the subject matter experts that will be sharing their insights and expertise at Customer Response Summit Charleston, March 12-14, 2018. CR Summit Charleston will feature speakers from Neiman Marcus, Indeed, Capital One, T-Mobile, and more. For more information about our leading event for CX professionals, visit our event website. 

The post The Top 10 Customer Experience Trends in 2018 appeared first on Execs In The Know.

We surveyed a number of customer service/experience leaders, from many of today’s leading brands, in our community to get their predictions for 2018. Over the coming weeks we will be releasing their thoughts on specific CX topics including customer expectations, channels, operations, technology, use case studies/data, and security/risk.

Click here to catch up on Part 1 – Customer Expectations and Part 2 – Channels.

The third installment of this series focuses on thoughts on operations.

•Further advancements in the area of personalization of the experience. The ability to leverage “big data” sources to create a more personalized experience. Driving demand for analytic platforms, as well as analytic resources (both offshore and onshore).
• Expansion of the work at home (work anywhere) models for care support for cost savings. Advancements of tools and technology to support this.
• ‘Employee engagement’ truly changing culture.
• Customer service must be able to show ROI to adopt messaging channels and chatbots for customer interactions.
• Companies will begin to focus more on the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition, to sales, to service/support. The lines will blur between organizational siloes that focus on acquisition and those that focus on customer care, as businesses embrace a more holistic approach.
• Business leaders will get better at overcoming common, but large, digital transformation challenges (e.g., data silos, governance, systems integration, executive buy-in, acquisitions, technologies, security, etc). This will enable them to develop better customer insights that are actionable, to improve the customer experience, as well as optimize business operations.
• Businesses will drastically adopt and improve how they apply predictive analytics across the enterprise.
• Businesses will further embrace outsource service providers as strategic partners vs. traditional labor arbitrage.
• The usage of behavior profiles will go mainstream in marketing and customer service.
• Companies realizing that they need to center operations, technologies and practices around people and customers, not case numbers and ticketing systems. Leveraging modern technology to replace legacy systems will take time, but brands realize they need to start now to execute on their 3-5 year vision.

Stay tuned next week for Part 4 – Technology.

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The following is a guest blog post from Greg Sherry, Vice President Marketing at Verint. For more information about Verint, visit their website. 

Thank you for taking part in Verint’s interactive general session at Customer Response Summit Las Vegas called “Customer Engagement LIVE!”  where we broke into discussion groups for interactive discussions and summary read back presentations. Here are some of the recommendations we heard from the groups as part of the breakout group notes and read backs:

What’s Old Is New Again. When is the last time you received a handwritten note or personal email from a business you engage with? It was memorable, wasn’t it? Think of ways you can incorporate genuine, personalized touches with customers. The strategy can be scalable: one “wow” moment can generate genuine delight and powerful word-of-mouth amplification.

Think Mobile. Do you have a mobile strategy? The need is clear: provide information, customer support, “wow” moments via mobile channels. But be careful: consumers often have limited ability to “digest” content you are sharing with them (because they are at the airport, walking, at home, multi-tasking), so be sure your content and communications are as short and to-the-point as you can.

Establish a common knowledge base across all channels to ensure consistent response. One company recognized the need to consolidate contact center systems to a single agent desktop. Customer service agents had difficulty serving customers in a timely manner and providing accurate information because information resided in 13 disparate systems. By consolidating all the systems into one agent desktop view, the company quickly reduced agent average handle time (AHT) and saw increased customer engagement scores. The unified access to the applications and information also increased employee productivity and helped provide a personalized experience for customers.

Develop a Journey Map as Part of Your Customer Experience Strategy. Our group defined a journey map as a diagram that illustrates the steps your customers go through when they engage with your company, across different channels and touch points. The more touch points you have, the more complicated — but necessary — the journey map becomes. Creating a customer journey map is an investment but is well worth the cost. For some creative ideas on journey maps, check out this recent blog post by Verint’s Nancy Porte – Five Tips for Building a Customer Journey Map.

Millennials/Diverse learners. Move away from phone to proactive chat; offer chat if automated resolution doesn’t work. Find ways to be “proactive” with communications when you anticipate that a customer’s expectations won’t be met.

Develop a Comprehensive Work-From-Home Strategy. One great reason to offer work from home is that you have the ability to recruit some of your organization’s biggest “fans,” regardless of their location. If you offer part time or flex time, you could have highly enthusiastic providers of information – and raving fans – who support your solutions or services. The customer experience these fans deliver could be very meaningful.

Use analytics not just for customer projects, but also for agent performance and metrics. Many companies use in depth analysis for customers, but more straight forward measurements for agents (AHT, quality score, Adherence etc.) Look at ways you can analyze agent performance more to impact customer experience. Identify which associates have the best cross selling abilities? Use their recorded interactions to train others. Who are the agents with best overall cx abilities?  Have “gold” and “platinum” customers (highest value customers) routed to them since they are top in delivery of CX. Drive pilots of business changes based on analysis/date- and “go big” with winning ideas. Also explore further: how can you provide different levels of service based on the “value” of your clients to your business.

Drive customer experience excellence while also handling call-types that are more and more complex. One organization is leveraging contact recording and speech analytics to determine the reason for calls that fall into the highest 10th percentile of average handle time, which are the longest calls. We can’t solve everything, but we believe that if we can “fix” the issue(s) that cause the top three to four call types, we can free up resources and focus that will help us enhance the customer experience.

Build the Feeling of an In-Store Experience Online. Meet customers at the right moment when they are challenged. Know when they are about to defect. Provide the support they need when they need it. (How are you doing in this area? One idea is to implement a journey map project as mentioned above.)

Consider an Automation Pilot. Organizations are under pressure to increase processing efficiency and productivity, reduce errors, cut operational expenses, and maintain security and regulatory compliance. Key advancements in the areas of robots/bots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are creating opportunities to service and engage with customers like never before.

Organizations should consider automating repetitive and time-consuming processes, allowing employees to focus on more complex tasks, cross-selling and delivering a personalized experience. The net: position automation as beneficial—and not a threat to your employees’ jobs.

Do you have some creative or best practices ideas to add? We’d love to hear those, too! Help us continue the conversation and submit your idea on Twitter by using the hashtag #CustEngLive. You can also follow and tag us on Twitter @ExecsInTheKnow and @Verint.

The post CRS Vegas – Customer Engagement LIVE! Executive Summary appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog from Leslie Joseph, Senior Director, Product Marketing at [24]7. For more information about [24]7, visit http://www.247-inc.com/.

When was the last time you asked yourself “How can I improve the performance of my chat program?” No matter how optimized your chat program is, there is always room for improvement. As with any fitness program, simply following generic rules will only get you half way there. A customized workout for your chat is necessary to get the highest gains in performance. So how does one find the right routines, tools, and methods for getting chat-fit? The answer to all of these questions is in your data. It’s not just about what data you use, but how you use the data to make the biggest improvements.

Data is key. You don’t need to be a 1000-agent chat program before you start thinking about data. In fact, chances are, if you start thinking about data only after hitting a 1000, or even just 100, you probably have some catching-up to do. Smart execs can optimize even a fledgling chat program based on insights that can be gleaned from mashing up chat logs and reports with web data. But that’s just scratching the surface. Once you’re ready, chat transcript mining is the next frontier. Chat transcripts are a goldmine, rich with nuggets of insight that the performance-focused exec can arm to implement actions on the floor that enhance not just the efficiency, but also the effectiveness of agents. Chat mining is also a way to unlock other insights into customer sentiment and issue drivers that can lead to lower out-of-scopes, better customer engagement, smarter targeting, reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction. These insights, either on their own or paired with predictive models, can trim and tone your chat program to top efficiency.

But it doesn’t end there. The most important part is getting started. Once you start building momentum and making traction, you will soon realize that data-driven improvements will put even the best performance enhancing drugs to shame.

Join me on July 19, 2016 at 1:00 P.M. EDT as I discuss how some of the most successful companies use data and analytics to turn their chat channel into lean, mean performance machines. Register today! 

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PHOENIX, AZ. July 8, 2016 – Chad McDaniel, President of Execs In The Know, and Leslie Joseph, Senior Director, Product Marketing at [24]7, will be hosting the webinar “How Data and Analytics can Turbocharge Your Chat Program.” The action packed training session will take place on Tuesday, July 19th, 2016 from 1:00-2:00 ET.

In this hour long session, Leslie Joseph will provide tangible tips on how to use web data, customer journey analytics, and text mined insights to improve chat results and become an engagement fitness expert. Three levels of chat fitness will be explored:

– Beginner: How to get started by utilizing basic operational analytics

– Intermediate: Ramp up your efforts by working text mining and predictive models into your routine.

– Expert: Progress to the next level through platform analytics that can transform the chat experience for visitors and drive maximum business outcomes.

“Findings from our recent CXMB Corporate Report show that online chat has undergone a notable year-over-year increase, growing by 27% among companies offering one or more Interactive Care solutions,” said Chad McDaniel. “This webinar will feature real, actionable tips that will be applicable to chat providers at every stage of the game.”

To register for the webinar visit https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5098092745822594819.

About Execs In The Know

For over 15 years, Execs In The Know has built a reputation of excellence in the Customer Management Industry and a worldwide community of over 50,000 Customer Experience Professionals. Execs In The Know connects people to engaging industry content, thought leadership, current trends, peer-to-peer collaboration, networking, and industry employment opportunities. Examples of this can be seen at their Customer Response Summit events, roadshows, webinars, workshops, Blog Talk Radio segments, Industry Benchmarking Series, blogs, thought papers, and social communities.

To learn more about Execs In The Know, visit www.execsintheknow.com. For more information on their Customer Management Recruitment Solutions, visit www.justcareers.com.

About [24]7

[24]7 makes customer service and sales simple. We use big data and predictive analytics to understand customers and drive better service and sales results for the world’s leading companies. [24]7’s platform enables an omnichannel experience that connects customer interactions across web, mobile, chat, social, and phone channels in real-time and in the cloud to drive immediate business results by increasing revenues, reducing service and sales costs, and creating more satisfied customers. [24]7 serves the Global 1000 market leaders in Finance, Retail, Telecommunications, Technology, Travel and other industries.

For more information, visit: www.247-inc.com.

Media Contact
Alyssa Pitura
Director of Marketing and Brand Experience
info@execsintheknow.com
www.execsintheknow.com
@ExecsInTheKnow

The post How Data & Analytics Can Turbocharge Your Chat Program Webinar appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog written by Edward Kowalski, Associate Vice President, Retail Marketing, at Sutherland Global Services. To download a free white paper on the topic, visit  http://www.sutherlandglobal.com/Retail/WP-20160104/Default.aspx

Most retailers are missing a key opportunity. It’s a way to take what’s now an expense and instead use it to build awareness, create loyalty and even grow profits.

It’s customer care.

Companies should combine customer care with customer experience, big data and predictive analytics. It’s a transformation that requires retailers to break down silos and start sharing information that’s widely available.

Consider the constant signals customers provide, based on multiple experiences, with brands across multiple touchpoints. Retail marketers use the information to develop a customer journey that’s seamless, relevant, authentic and omni-channel.

But it’s a missing link that needs to be shared with the customer care team.

Retailers should develop a new system that arms customer care agents with intelligence that spurs personalized engagements. This helps resolve complaints, increase Net Promoter Scores, improve customer satisfaction, create loyalty and, yes, generate revenue.

Here are the steps we recommend:

– Share information – Marketers analyze data and analytics, creating a 360-degree view of customers. It allows them to create intelligent communications so customers receive the right message, at the right time, through the right channel.

That customer intelligence forms the blueprint that drives strategic marketing plans. But it’s rarely shared with customer care agents who routinely have direct 1:1 communications with customers. Without the analytics needed to guide a customer’s journey, customer care is typically limited to solving at-the-moment issues as quickly as possible.

We helped a fashion retailer give customer care agents the tools needed to become an integrated part of the customer experience. The agents saw each customer’s purchase history, for example, allowing them to customize product recommendations. The result? Sales conversion climbed from 15 percent to 25 percent, the basket size increased by 7 percent and the average handle time dropped by 23 percent.

– Make it personal – Retailers have long tried to “know thy customer,” which is why they now analyze and segment data. Once they acquire a better understanding of customers’ buying behaviors, their predictions alter their strategies.

Product-centric programs are out. The focus now is enhancing the customer experience. No matter the communication channel, when businesses personalize shopping effectively, it creates a brand loyalty with customers.

This happens on intelligent websites, for instance. They collect user data and, based on a customer’s preference, they dynamically present different retail offerings. Today, as omni-channel marketers and ecommerce leaders make this shift, it should also carry over to customer care.

The more customer care agents know about customers, the more they can create personalized experiences across channels and devices.

– Help customer care agents make real-time recommendations – After unlocking information, retailers should provide customer care agents with an automated set of intelligence that enables personalization. Now the customer experience journey gets extended through the customer care channel.

Customer care agents can deliver a consistent, relevant, authentic and timely experience if they have tools that provide information, intelligence and recommendations in real-time. It’s efficient and effective.

After breaking down silos and unlocking all of a company’s information about customers, retailers must integrate that intelligence with the dashboards customer care agents use. This is made possible through the integration of Customer Engagement Management Platforms. Dashboards powered by these platforms will showcase insightful data and analytics, providing a full view of the customer and automating customized recommendations (in the form of next best actions). In turn, this provides the highly valued, personalized customer experience.

In addition to unified customer views and real-time recommendations, these platforms also provide robust business intelligence tools to measure the outcomes of customer engagement. If retailers understand those outcomes, they can incorporate the customer voice into the customer experience design.

The platform’s tools should help customer care agents:

– Pick data from disparate sources

– Correlate the data and enrich individual customer profiles

– Provide cross-dimensional views from the customer’s viewpoint

– Interface and deliver relevant recommendations (Next Best Actions)

– Deliver these actions to the customers at their preferred touch point with context and relevance

This creates more relevant, more meaningful interactions between the customer and the agent. Eventually, it also means a seamless and desirable customer care experience that prompts more long-term customer loyalty and advocacy.

– A better way to measure success – Traditional customer satisfaction measures (C-SAT) become less helpful as the standard of retail customer care becomes more consistent and homogenous. Instead, consider Net Promoter Score (NPS). This measures the most powerful form of marketing: a customer’s willingness to promote a service or product to family and friends. Earning that loyalty shows the retailer’s brand commitment to its customers has been noticed and appreciated. That loyalty means customers shop – and purchase – more frequently.

To hear more about this topic and others like it, from Sutherland Global Services and our other subject matter experts, join us at Customer Response Summit Phoenix, February 23rd-25th, 2016.

The post The Missing Link Retailers Need to Turn a Cost Into a Revenue Generator appeared first on Execs In The Know.

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA. March 3, 2015 – Chad McDaniel, President at Execs In The Know, will be moderating the webinar, “If it’s Broken fix it. Mending Broken Customer Journeys Through Digital Transformation,” Thursday, March 19, 2015 from 1:00-2:00 EDT. Daniel Hong, Senior Director of Product Marketing Strategy, will be speaking on behalf of customer engagement software andservices provider, [24]7 Inc. Yogena Austin, Sr. Business Web Analyst, Web Technology/Salesforce Team at Duke Energy, the largest electric power holding company in the United States, will also be a speaker in the webinar.

The webinar will explore how to identify and mend broken customer journeys, often caused by automation, escalation, and channel crossing. It will touch on topics like virtual agents, intelligent chat, visual IVR, customer effort, tracking metrics and analytics, and digital engagement solution technologies, to help create a next generation customer journey.

“Having a seamless customer experience works hand-in-hand with driving customer satisfaction and loyalty,” said Chad McDaniel. “[24]7 Inc. and Duke Energy have a wonderful partnership story to share, that highlights how they were able to address their own customer journey mapping concerns and the exact deployment models used to correct them.”

To register for the webinar visit https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4869604323173159682.

About Execs in the Know

For over 15 years, Execs in the Know has built a reputation of excellence in the Customer Management Industry and a worldwide community of over 50,000 Customer Experience Professionals. Execs in the Know connects people to engaging industry content, thought leadership, current trends, peer-to-peer collaboration, networking, and industry employment opportunities. Examples of this can be seen at their Customer Response Summit events, roadshows, webinars, workshops, Blog Talk Radio segments, Industry Benchmarking Series, blogs, thought papers, and social communities.

To learn more about Execs in the Know, visit www.execsintheknow.com. For more information on their Customer Management Recruitment Solutions, visit www.justcareers.com.

About [24]7 Inc.

[24]7 makes customer service and sales simple. Our platform and applications use big data and predictive analytics to understand customers and drive better service and sales results for large enterprises. We do this over 2.5 billion times a year for the world’s leading companies. [24]7’s platform enables an omnichannel interaction experience. We connect customer interactions across an enterprise’s web, mobile, chat, social, and phone channels. It’s all in real-time and in the cloud. Our solutions drive immediate business results. We increase revenues, reduce service and sales costs, and create more satisfied customers. [24]7 serves the Global 100 market leaders in the Financial Services, Retail, Telecommunications, Technology, and Travel Industries. [24]7 is noted by Forbes as one of America’s Most Promising Companies. [24]7 is a trademark of 24/7 Customer, Inc. [24]7 is based in Campbell, California. For more information, visit: www.247-inc.com.

[24]7 is a trademark of 24/7 Customer, Inc. All other brands, products or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

About Duke Energy

Duke Energy makes life better for millions of people every day by providing electric and gas services in a sustainable way – affordable, reliable and clean.

Duke Energy is the largest electric power holding company in the United States, supplying and delivering energy to approximately 7.2 million U.S. customers. They have approximately 57,500 megawatts of electric generating capacity in the Carolinas, the Midwest and Florida – and natural gas distribution services in Ohio and Kentucky. Their commercial and international businesses own and operate diverse power generation assets in North America and Latin America, including a portfolio of renewable energy assets.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 250 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK.

Media Contact
Alyssa Pitura
Director of Marketing and Brand Experience
alyssa@execsintheknow.com
www.execsintheknow.com
@ExecsInTheKnow

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