To hear more about this topic and others like it, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30th, 2015.

Though customer experience continues to be a top priority and competitive differentiator for businesses, customer satisfaction has been on the decline for the last four years, according to a 2015 Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report. In a similar vein, research in 2014 by American Express, a company often cited for their excellent service, found roughly thirty percent surveyed say organizations usually miss their expectations. Only five percent say companies exceed them.

As consumers, we know this. Though we’ve made strides with automation and today have the convenience of channel choice, all we have to do is think of our own recent experiences. We can quickly conjure up an arduous, long journey — scenarios of waiting on hold, inappropriate timing of offers, and repeat calling to get the right person on the phone. And then we have to start from the beginning with yet another uninformed agent, if we weren’t disconnected upon transfer. These journeys require great customer effort and result in frustration and a loss of valuable time — and likely customers and revenue opportunity.

Though we have more paths to purchase and service than ever before, contact centers, the hub for most customer interaction, continue to struggle to provide continuity of service across these channels. Increased customer mobility, and the growth of newer touchpoints such as the mobile channel, smart apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices only add to the struggle.

But, let us envision a world where channel hopping doesn’t occur because of dead ends, but by choice based on preference, ease and availability. Your customers take quick trips to resolution rather than long journeys. They are in the driver’s seat, deciding when to start, or continue engagement, or perhaps react to an organization’s outreach. And they decide how, combining channels of their choosing to focus on the outcomes they need, whether it be returning a defective product, inquiring about a triple play deal or responding to a lower mortgage rate offer.

Customers engage at their pace and across channels they choose, spanning time to reach their outcome. The organization captures these key interaction moments, connects the waypoints, and analyzes and triggers the next right action. Business analysts and customer experience experts can create a blueprint of the customer experience flow, the quick trip toward outcome, with the ability to automatically adapt engagement and manage the customer outcome, without an over dependence on an IT department.

At the Idea Lab in Seattle at Customer Response Summit Seattle, Virtual Hold Technology (VHT) will show this world. We’ll discuss callback options that can be initiated over multiple channels and devices, and that save time and have dramatic impact on key operational and loyalty metrics. And will show how customer outcome management enables organizations to tie the silos together, capture context, and identify opportunities to navigate effortless customer experiences and desired outcomes.

The post Ditch the Customer “Journey” & Navigate Quick Trips to Desired Outcomes appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog written by Ted Hunting, Senior Director, North America Marketing and Global Demand Generation, at Genesys. Learn more about Genesys by visiting their website.

To hear more about this topic and others like it, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30th, 2015.

Gartner’s CEO has proclaimed that Digital Business is Upon Us. Companies that think they are not digital businesses will be out of business and the companies that will win in this era of digital transformation are those companies that make the most of every business moment. What Gartner is proclaiming is key to every company in every industry is essentially “customer care for the connected consumer” – the key topic of the Customer Response Summit Seattle. It’s also why I encourage customer care and CX leaders to attend what I have found in the past to be an extremely enlightening event, attended by smart, energized customer care executives and luminaries. From speakers, to networking, to innovative new ideas in the “Idea Lab”, it will be a fun few days of learning and “eureka” moments.

As CX and contact center leaders in our companies, we are now squarely in a position to help our companies make the most of every business moment and create the connected customer. The business moment occurs via customers hitting web chat, social channels, webpages, IVRs, mobile apps, text messages, and of course good old fashioned phones and email. These business moments, which historically started with the phone, have now changed 180 degrees with digital being the first and preferred communication channels for today’s connected consumer.

Companies like Uber and AirBnB have already started transforming the transportation and hospitality industries through new digital models, yet this is only the beginning of the larger transformations that will hit every industry, from financial services, to retail, to technology. Yet when I have asked CX leaders this year how many can see their entire customers journeys from webchat, to tweets, to IVR, to mobile, to even an in-store visit, 11% has been the highest number among leading companies, in cities across North America. We clearly have a huge gap when it comes to the connected consumer and creating great, seamless, omnichannel journeys. I see great progress, but I also see many companies failing to deliver.

Many companies talk about “omnichannel” but what is really offered as the norm are fragmented conversations, in siloed channels, versus continuous, unified conversations, across channels. Join me in the Idea Lab where we will share a glimpse of a NextGen Contact Center for the Digital Age. Two nextgen ideas will be shared: 1) Using Journey Dashboards with a true omnichannel view, across all channels, to power a great omnichanel customer journey. 2) Innovative new digital approaches for a nextgen customer experience – combining web, voice, mobile, and the Internet of Things.

Digital business and the connected consumer is upon us. For us in the CX industry it’s a golden opportunity to help our companies win like never before. As a CX leader are you and your company ready to play? Or perhaps more importantly…are you ready to win? Come to Seattle and get in the game.

The post NextGen CX For The Digital Age – It’s Key to Business Survival appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Customer Response Summit Seattle is an intimate, laser focused forum, providing outstanding opportunities to directly engage with some of the brightest minds in customer leadership. The strength of the forum lies within the innovative design of informative sessions, relevant industry tours, specialized networking opportunities, and dynamic extracurricular activities all centered on one thing – customer service excellence.

Highlights of this Summit include a behind-the-scenes tour of the Microsoft Headquarters of the Envisioning Center and the Digital Crimes Unit, the release of the Customer Experience Management Benchmark Series 2015 Consumer Edition Report, and a Post Summit Workshop, hosted by Execs In The Know and COPC Inc. that will examine the findings of the CXMB 2015 Consumer Report in detail.

“We have an unbelievable line-up of speakers, content, and activities taking place at Customer Response Summit Seattle,” said Chad McDaniel, President and CEO of Execs In The Know. “I can’t wait for our executives, both new and returning, to experience the great discussion, brainstorming, and collaboration with their peers. I have no doubt that the innovative ideas for creating moments of customer success will have everyone in attendance excited to improve their own customer experience strategies, for the current year and beyond.”

Featured Speakers, Panelists & Case Study Speakers:

LinkedIn – Scott Shute, VP of Global Customer Operations
Microsoft – Denise Rundle, General Manager, Microsoft Customer Service & Support
Amazon – Mark Honeycutt, Director of Global Outsourcing & Support Services
Nintendo – Shellie Dow, Senior Director Contact Center
Target – Jennifer Hanson, Director Target.com Guest Services & GiftCard Operations
Expedia Inc. – Peter Andrews, VP, Global Customer Operations, Expedia.com
AT&T – Diane Magers, Customer Experience Executive
SolarCity – Paul Brandt, VP Customer Account Management
AT&T Mobility – Amy Jo (AJ) Stark, AVP Digital Customer Service
Alaska Airlines – Seth Ettwein, Manager of Call Center Workforce Planning
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) – Kristin Punter, Manager of Workforce Management

To learn more about Execs In The Know Customer Response Summit Seattle, visit the event website https://execsintheknow.com/events/crs-seattle/ or download the event agenda http://ow.ly/RHULy.

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.

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

The post Execs In The Know Announces Customer Response Summit Seattle appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog written by Daniel Hong, Senior Director of Product Marketing Strategy, at [24]7. Learn more about [24]7 by visiting their website.

To hear more about this topic and others like it, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30th, 2015.

Show of hands…how many times have you heard the word ”omnichannel” in a meeting, and like reflex action, you let out a slightly muffled grunt, just loud enough for the person sitting next to you to hear and acknowledge your sentiment with a “we’re totally on the same page” eye roll. And then later on in the meeting, when the “how would we implement omnichannel” is discussed, a flurry of questions is posed, by multiple meeting attendees, with sharp tones of tactful skepticism accompanied with cocked eyebrows. This seems to be a common scene unfolding in conference rooms today.

While omnichannel has been wildly heralded by vendors as the ultimate panacea for broken customer journeys, it’s no secret that there’s a certain degree of incredulousness among enterprises when it comes to actually making omnichannel customer engagement a reality. At the same time, all enterprises are sold on the vision and promise of omnichannel.

After all, it makes perfect sense that customers should be able to start their journey in one channel on one device and continue their journey, in a seamless fashion, on another channel and on a different device. All the while, the customer’s experience is continuous because context is maintained, regardless of the touch point. Matias Duarte, the former lead designer of Android at Google, sums it up well “…but when services actually work seamlessly across all these screens that are available, you’re going to be like, OMG, obviously.”

Channel Pairing

When it comes to delivering a true omnichannel experience, channel pairing is an obvious place to start. In channel pairing, you identify common cross-channel journeys and create linkages between two channels. Here’s why: over 85% of customers that can’t get what they need to get done on the website (the channel where most customers start) will cross to the phone, mobile app, web chat, social media or email, and 70% will seek live agent assistance. Even as websites are optimized, there will be a slew of customers that will cross channels and devices in a single journey, for a variety of different reasons that include wanting to talk or chat with a live agent, using different devices, workflows within the journey, preferences, and time constraints, just to name a few.

By pairing channels that customers commonly cross, enterprises can move context from one to another, to provide greater personalization for the customer and also significantly lower customer effort. Also, by pairing channels, enterprises can orchestrate a unique experience like visual IVR that merges a mobile web experience and voice on a smartphone.

Pair Up in Seattle

At the Idea Lab at Customer Response Summit Seattle, [24]7 will be demonstrating two examples of channel pairing that make sense for your customers and reap immediate benefits for your business:

• Web to IVR: Deliver a seamless experience that maintains the context of your customer’s web interactions and provides that information to your IVR. Your IVR can then provide a personalized experience that better serves the customer and lowers AHT for time spent in the IVR and with the agent.

• Virtual Agent to Chat: Serve your customers with an intelligent virtual agent that serves up the best “right answer” to handle 90% or more of inquiries. For the more complex or authenticated inquiries, pass the context to a chat agent to assist the customer quickly and effectively.

Both of these examples can be implemented quickly and deliver a smoother, seamless and more engaging experience for your customers, while reducing your costs.

The post Omnichannel: Taking it From Vision to Reality appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following post is a guest blog written by Sara Wright, Marketing Director at Dialog Direct. For more information about Dialog Direct visit their website. 

As customer service professionals, we experience it every day: the dreaded customer complaint. There is no way around it and no channel that is off limits. If someone is unhappy, you are going to hear about it – or are you? Statistics show that for every customer who complains directly to you, there are 26 more unhappy customers that are remaining silent (1). Silent to you, that is. You can be sure they are telling their friends, family, and social media networks at an alarming rate. And, with social media, there is no stopping the wildfire.

With all of our knowledge about the effects of online reviews and social media, and the damage they can do to a brand, it should be assumed that corporations are stepping up their efforts to improve customer service. Is it working? According to Mary Jo Bitney, Executive Director of the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University, it doesn’t appear to be.

She and a team of researchers have completed a study showing 56 million American households experienced at least one problem as customers during the past 12 months. What’s more, the rate of “customer rage” appears to be growing rapidly. In the same study, conducted from 2004-2007, 52% of those with customer rage felt unsatisfied with how their complaint was handled. Customer rage dropped by 5% in 2011, showing that companies were getting better at seeking out and understanding complaints. But, two short years later, the percentage of customers unsatisfied with how their complaints were handled skyrocketed to 56%. Bitney says many companies are throwing money at the problem without fixing it (2). So, the questions stands: do we truly understand how to solve our customer problems?

We can begin to find a solution to this issue by understanding the delta between what customers want versus what they have actually gotten during their experiences complaining to customer service channels. Such results were collected through an independent study conducted by Dialog Direct, in partnership with CCMC and Arizona State University, in which phone interviews were conducted to 1,000 households. The study is based on one originally conducted by the White House in 1976, offering a clear comparison of customer satisfaction over the years. The results clearly showed that there are 13 consistent solutions complainants are telling us that they want as a resolution when they complain. The responses and differences between what they wanted versus what they got may be somewhat surprising.

The #1 thing that people wanted? To be treated with dignity! How do you accomplish that? Simply listen. 94% of respondents stated that they wanted to be treated with dignity by just being heard. While this might seem obvious, only 35% feel like they were actually heard.

All too often, we respond by going on the defensive. We believe we are right, and this is why we are right –right? This strategy, while most likely creating an even more infuriated customer, also limits our ability to truly understand why a customer is not satisfied. They will tell you the problem, how they think it should be resolved, and give you a critical view into their thoughts to make a change happen. So, before you try to explain, contest their complaint, or offer a solution to the situation, listen.

Want to know the other customer “wants” as they relate to the complaint process? Visit Dialog Direct in the Idea Lab at Customer Response Summit Seattle for your free copy of the study, to get ideas on how to innovate your customer-engagement process, and to maximize your customer-complaint-handling success.

To learn more about CR Summit Seattle, taking place September 28-30, 2015 click here.  

Sources:

1) Lee Resources International
2) Freeman.D. (2013, November). New Customer-Rage Study Out for Holiday Shopping Season. Retrieved from: https://wpcarey.asu.edu/news-releases/2013-11-26/new-customer-rage-study-out-holiday-shopping-seasonex

The post Addressing Customer Rage: Are You Doing The Right Things The Wrong Way? appeared first on Execs In The Know.

This is a guest blog written by Dan Gordon, SVP Strategy & Development, West Interactive Services. Learn more about West on their website. To hear more about this topic and others like it, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30th.

Picture this: You’re a frequent flyer, going from city to city every week, and spending hours in airports. You have your routine down to the letter and any substantial hitch has a domino effect on your schedule – not to mention work/life balance.

You roll with inevitable delays and gate changes better than most, but you have to be in-the-know. You don’t demand flawlessness, but you do expect communication at a rate that keeps up with the countless voice messages from your colleagues, emails from your boss, texts from your spouse, in-app bill-pay alerts, etc., that are hopefully punctuated by a few moments to catch your breath.

So, you opt-in to SMS/text alerts from your airline. When you land, your phone dings with a notification that your connecting flight is delayed due to plane maintenance. “Ok. Is there a gate change?” you naturally reply, knowing that it takes 20 minutes to trek from point A to point B.

The response: Radio silence or, perhaps worse, a plain old “Thank you for flying with us.” (Why? Because that alert was sent by a machine and there’s nobody manning it on the other end.)

There’s an estimated 30-minute hold-time when you click-to-call, so you ask a rep at a nearby kiosk who, unfortunately, hasn’t yet gotten the memo that there’s a delay in the first place, much less its implications. Meanwhile, dozens of other confused passengers are duplicating efforts – spending far more of the airline’s time and money – when a simple “There is no gate change at this time,” SMS response could have taken care of it.

***
Pew Research tells us that 9 in 10 Americans own a mobile device and roughly 65% of them own a smartphone, proving that this scenario is a very real one – and this customer service challenge, a pleasantly solvable one.

***
One-to-one agent-based support is expensive, which explains why many organizations adopt proactive communication strategies to preempt some of customers’ inbound service needs. SMS/text messaging engages customers on devices they’re already using and just so happens to provide a more bang-for-your-buck than other channels.

However, SMS isn’t so simple that you’re off the hook for two-way support; just as they would when having a text conversation with a friend, customers expect to be able to respond to SMS notifications and assume your brand will heed their replies. (It’s completely rational.) The big hitch is that not every reply is predictable and not every interaction can be automated. (They’re only human.)

Fortunately, solutions are out there. Agent-assisted SMS can do much of the heavy lifting for you – managing conversations, automating texts when possible, routing queries appropriately, and enabling agents to multi-task.
Customers fully benefit from the convenience of your SMS support offer, your contact center agents more confidently manage customer service, and costs stay impeccably low. That’s textbook “win, win, win.”

Advanced SMS solutions can interpret free-form, natural language texts and automate replies; others can route requests to an agent and provide as much freedom or selection of “canned” responses as is appropriate. Any agent on the receiving end of an escalated customer message can see the entire conversation (including an initial alert that may have prompted it) and duly engage with countless users at one time.

Unlike phone conversations, which demand undivided attention and plea for in-call resolution, SMS dialogues could take place over two minutes, 12 hours or even days, depending on the nature and urgency of the matter. Nonetheless, every interaction is recorded, every conversation is regulation-compliant, any transferred agent maintains visibility, no conversation requires exclusivity, and every customer feels nurtured.

Think back to that your same travel experience above. An offer to request SMS “HELP” with the initial notification of a flight delay could have saved multiple customer service representatives’ valuable time – not to mention your frustration. Multiply that times the hundred-some fellow passengers on your flight, times however many flights a day, in however many airports around the world, and you’re talking serious savings and skyrocketing customer satisfaction rates.

Now imagine the implications in your industry, on your contact center: Banking, insurance, utility, healthcare, pharmacy, telecom, retail, home services… You name it.

If that’s not a reason to feel great about hopping on a plane to Seattle, to join Execs In The Know at Customer Response Summit, I don’t know what is.

West will share more about how this concept works at the Idea Lab during Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30, 2015. Join us!

The post One-on-One Text Conversations Make Customer Support Easier (And Cheaper) appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Survey Reveals Majority of Consumers Utilize a Multi-Channel Approach, but Still Embrace Traditional Contact Channels for Issue Resolution

WINTER PARK, FL and PHOENIX, AZ — August 19,  2015 – Leaders in the customer experience management (CEM) industry, COPC Inc. and Execs In The Know, global network of Customer Management Professionals, have announced the release of the Customer Experience Management Benchmark Series (CXMB) – 2015 Consumer Edition Summary titled, “The Consumer’s Perspective:  Exploring Multi-Channel Customer Care”.

The summary presents a snapshot of the total survey results including the continued strength of traditional channels of customer contact by phone, email, and in person—if given a choice and assuming the customer’s issue would be resolved. The 2015 Consumer Edition is the sixth report of the CXMB Series.   

The full report will be released at the Execs in the Know Customer Response Summit in Seattle, September 28-30, 2015.Detailed findings of the report will be presented by COPC Inc. during a post-summit workshop on October 1, 2015.

“As the customer care industry evolves to meet consumer expectations, the 2015 CXMB Consumer Report provides insight into how consumers are utilizing various contact channels. This insight can really help direct improvement efforts,” said Chad McDaniel, President and CEO of Execs In The Know. “For instance, this year’s findings show that a multi-channel approach is now the norm, yet Traditional Care is a major intersection on this journey. Brands need to understand how and why consumers use the channels they do, and take steps to ensure the experience is always positive, no matter the approach.”

The 2015 Consumer Edition includes year-over-year comparisons in areas such as channel usage, first contact resolution performance, and overall satisfaction with customer care. This year’s research also focuses on the customer journey and the customer’s experience in resolving issues through multiple channels.

“We are proud to be participating in this year’s Consumer Edition of the CXMB Series. We know from working with our clients that customers expect multiple ways to easily contact a company,” said Cliff Moore, Chairman, COPC Inc. “What this survey suggests is that customers still value that human connection. Companies will need to maintain high service levels in traditional channels while ensuring their multi-channel strategy delivers a seamless and consistent experience,” said Moore.

The CXMB Series has been providing insight about the customer experience since 2012. Each year the survey offers a consumer version that is released in the fall and a corporate version that is released in the spring.

To download the summary, visit http://ow.ly/R6Viq.

To download past editions of the CXMB Series, visit https://execsintheknow.com/resources/cxmb-series/.

About COPC Inc.

COPC Inc. is an innovative global leader that empowers organizations to manage complex customer journeys. With a focus on driving improvement, the company provides consulting, training and certification for operations that support the customer experience. Founded in 1996, COPC Inc. began by developing the COPC® Family of Standards and helping call centers increase their performance. Today the company works with hundreds of leading brands worldwide to optimize key customer touch points and deliver a seamless experience across channels. COPC Inc. is privately held with headquarters in Winter Park, Florida, U.S., and with operations in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, India and Japan. To learn more about COPC Inc, visit www.copc.com.

 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.

Media Contacts

Lezli Harrell
Vice President, Marking
COPC Inc.
lharrell@copc.com
www.copc.com

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

The post COPC Inc. and Execs In The Know Release Summary of Customer Experience Management Benchmark Series – 2015 Consumer Edition appeared first on Execs In The Know.