There are only two ways to build a business: retain existing customers and acquire new ones. Great customer service and satisfaction are the key to both because most customers are acquired through positive word of mouth. So you would expect most companies to be fully focused on providing exceptional customer service and experiences, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Every two years, Dialog Direct partners with CCMC (customer care measurement & consulting), the W.P Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and the Center for Services Leadership to conduct the Customer Rage Study to gauge how customers view companies and how retailers and etailers can address areas of weakness that cause them to lose customers. The study identifies customer problems and addresses the nagging question:

Why are customer service and satisfaction still declining, despite their paramount importance and bottom line impact?

The study revealed that, in 2015, $202 billion were at risk due to customer problems with products/services. Key takeaways:

– 66% of customers with problems experienced rage

– 60% identified wasted time as the biggest damage

– Only 35% were satisfied with their first contact

– Only 14% got problem resolved upon first contact

– It takes an average of 4.2 contacts to satisfy the complainant

– Nearly one in four wants revenge

Fortunately…

– If they become satisfied, 48% of customers would still recommend the brand

– When providing both monetary and non-monetary remedies, satisfaction almost doubled from 37% to 73%

What are the implications?

There is nothing more damaging to a company or brand than negative word of mouth. And customers are far more likely to complain when unhappy than to express joy when happy. In fact, the 2015 study revealed that customers are twice as likely to express dissatisfaction than satisfaction. So it’s far easier to diminish a brand than it is to build one.

The study revealed that more than half of American households experienced a product/service problem during 2015. And 63% said they received nothing for their trouble. As a result, it is likely that companies are losing more customers than they are gaining, a prescription for declining sales and profits. Ironically, companies’ customer care programs appear to be actually doing the opposite of what they’re supposed to do.

Many companies aren’t meeting complaining customers’ expectations

 The following findings from the study help to explain why:

It isn’t that companies don’t have customer complaint solutions. The problem is that they’re not always effective. For example, the message that annoys consumers the most is all too common: “Your call is important to us; please continue to hold.” Other weak links:

– Complicated automated response menus

– Lack of customer care agent empowerment

– Understaffing so it takes longer to respond to customer

Want to know more about the study and how you can solve your customer care conundrum? To hear more about this topic and others like it, and for more information about Dialog Direct, join us at Customer Response Summit Austin (Sept. 18-20, 2016).

The post The Customer Rage Study: What It Means To You and Your Bottom Line appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog written by Sara Wright, Marketing Director, at Dialog Direct.

Last week we shared the first post in this two part series “Uber-Channel Shifts: Lessons Learned From the 2015 Holiday Season.” Get all caught up on the first two “lessons learned” by reading the first post in the series!

At Customer Response Summit Phoenix a one-of-a-kind panel involving customer experience executives from three of retail’s biggest competitors came together on the stage.  The panelists shared their firsthand experience in retail’s hottest trends, innovations, wins and lessons learned.

Here is what we learned:

3. Social Media Brings Delight and In-Store Insight

The speed of growth and change in social media, and the way that it is transforming the expectations of the customer, will continue to revolutionize the way retailers market, sell and communicate with their customers.

The most common way that retailers are engaging with their customers on social media is through two-way social media communication. The debate, however, is about who to prioritize the communication strategy around – influencers, detractors, or do you proactively reach out to all to delight? It depends on who you talk to, but the majority seem to prioritize reactive communication to the detractors or those that have an issue to resolve. One large online retailer, however, spoke up at the Customer Response Summit and stated that they believe in using social media to surprise and delight, not just react. Use vines, photos and video, not just text, to engage with a customer to create an over-the-top experience. Many retailers rely on an outsourced customer engagement partner to help monitor, engage and delight customers, especially during peak times or after hours. It has also been found that social media predictive technology can increase operational efficiencies by nearly 41% by prioritizing the most impactful conversations.

<Read: Going Above and Beyond to WOW on Social Media: Real-Life Case Study>

Other ways that top retailers are using social media is to provide store-level customer experience insights. For example, a brand can capture social media interactions made about particular stores or specific store employees and brings them back to the store. For example, if you love the customer service that Kathy Smith from the Boise, Idaho, store provided you and you tweet about it, there is a good chance that Kathy will see that recognition. If you are upset about the fitting room mess at the Shelby Township, Michigan, store, again, a good chance that the store manager from that location will be aware and take action.

The third way that retailers are using social media is to increase sales through posting about specific products with a link to purchase. It was stated that this strategy is fizzling for them as social sales only contribute to about 1%, significantly down from 2014.

4. Customers Don’t Care About Your Silos

In spite of being recognized as one of the biggest barriers in creating a seamless customer experience, departmental silos haven’t gone away. Brands are working toward breaking the silos by first identifying the silos and understanding how customers interact across them.

In the retail space, there are a growing number of channels and departments that must assume a holistic online-offline perspective; everything from physical store interactions, to marketing and customer service interactives, to departmental credit card initiatives. It was mentioned that to help create a seamless multichannel experience, retailers are integrating a CRM system that houses all departmental and channel interactions. This will give the right team member’s access to the most up-to-date customer data, eliminating some of your customers’ most frustrating experiences such as high-effort engagements and non-personal interactions.

If your brand has not yet completed the journey by tying in a robust CRM system, you may find it beneficial to rely on a customer engagement professional to help. Many outsourced customer engagement professionals have the integrated tools and processes that help bridge the CX and systems gap, helping to create a more seamless experience.

5. Customers Are Still Experiencing RAGE

In conversation over the 2015 “Customer Rage” study, the top conversation was around annoyance with customer service catchphrases. While it was agreed upon by all that the phrase “That is our policy” should never be stated in the call center or on the retail floor, the No. 1 most annoying phrase, as cited by the study, was still being used very frequently. That phrase? “Your call is important to us, please continue to hold.” 50% of all surveyed believe that is the most annoying phrase, while 17% actually want it banned completely.

One of the most controversial topics discussed regarding the Rage Study results? Whether or not to apologize to an unhappy customer. The Rage Study says that 75% of unhappy customers want an apology while only 28% received it. What do the retailers and the attendees of the Customer Response Summit think? Do you apologize or do you not? Well, that is still the debate. Some believe you do own up to the issue and apologize while others believe it comes off very insincere to say that you are sorry. Whether you apologize or not, it is a fact that complainant satisfaction will nearly double (from 37% to 73%) when a non-monetary remedy is applied with a monetary remedy.

It is important to consider that to avoid Customer Rage, it is essential to always be available, personal and effortless. This can be more difficult during high peak-volume times such as holidays and the launch of new programs when your call center is already experiencing a high volume of calls. Consider looking into an outsourced call center partner to help ease the pain of high call volume or to assist with after-hour needs.

Want even more content?

– Join a free webinar on “How to Craft a Strong Customer Service Recovery Program on May 19th. Register Here (expired).

– Interested in what was learned at the Customer Response Summit in Seattle during September 2015? Check out www.dialog-direct.com/media-room/article/crsummit-2015-6-things-we-learned/

The post Uber-Channel Shifts: Lessons Learned From the 2015 Holiday Season – Part 2 appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog written by Sara Wright, Marketing Director, at Dialog Direct.

The winter Customer Response Summit may have concluded, but the excitement generated by the event still lives on. Of course, when Execs In The Know is involved, we can all expect great connections, thought-provoking panels and lots of laughs, but it’s what we didn’t expect in Phoenix that is generating the most chatter – the convergence of three of retail’s biggest competitors together on one stage. This one-of-a-kind panel involving customer experience executives was full of energy, content and friendly, competitive jabs, as the panelists shared their firsthand experience in retail’s hottest trends, innovations, wins and lessons learned.

Here is what we learned:

1. “Click-and-Collect” Shopping Has Many Challenges and Opportunities

Appealing to the omnichannel shopper who bounces back and forth between online and in-store shopping, “click-and-collect” orders are enjoyed by 42% of online shoppers, according to Forrester Research. While the concept of buying online and picking up in-store seems easy, both retailers and consumers are experiencing both the joys and the pains that go along with this new initiative – especially during the 2015 holiday season.

The introduction of buying online and picking up in-store is very complex operationally, with one major retailer expressing challenges specifically around accuracy of available stock, customers buying the reserved item in-store before it is picked, and order queuing. While challenges are observed and expected, this new fulfillment model brings many exciting revenue growth opportunities. For one, this model brings online shoppers into the stores which, according to a survey by Deloitte, omnichannel shoppers were poised to spend about 75 percent more than store-only shoppers this season on gifts, entertaining and other purchases.

Perhaps the greatest benefit to retailers? The ability to tackle their warehouse out-of-stock issues by using their stores as another fulfillment source. During the 2015 holiday season it was noted that 30% of the items that were purchased online were out of stock at the warehouses, but because of the new ship from store model, brands are now able to save all of those sales. Dubbed “smarter inventory,” retailers can now pull from stores that have higher inventory of a specific product, reducing static shelf life to maximize profits, as well as pull from the store closest to the shipping address to lower shipping costs and decrease ship time. This format greatly benefits those last-minute holiday shoppers, now giving them additional online shopping days while still receiving their packages on time.

As a retailer, be prepared for the pitfalls of not meeting customer expectations when it comes to click-and-collect, or with any new innovation, by adequately staffing your call center, or outsourcing a piece of your contact center for an increase in call volume. A customer service recovery strategy, following data-backed guidelines to deter customer rage, may also be helpful.

2. Geo-Tracking Enhances the In-Store Experience

While dot-com sites have long had the benefit of placing cookies and other tracking tools on computers to track online consumer behavior, 2015 brought a similar benefit to the brick-and-mortar operations. Thanks to cell phones, Wi-Fi and retailer apps, retailers can now personalize the in-store experience by tracking the customer location, as well as real-time store behaviors. One of the retail panelists at the Summit spoke about their use of this new technology, to enhance the customer experience with their booming grocery pickup service. The store can actually receive a ping from your cell phone, alerting them that you are in the parking lot. This then let’s the employee know that it is time to meet you outside to load up the groceries!

Another large retailer represented at the Summit uses mobile tracking to track customer behavior. If a purchase is not made in their store, they can send you a non-purchase survey and then track the competitor stores that you go to instead. The mobile app also tells the brand that you are in the store, so if you are ordering an item via your phone while in-store, the shipping charges will be automatically waived.

Geo-tracking can bring many opportunities for retailers to personalize the customer experience, giving the opportunity to deliver just-in-time ads and coupons, as well as gain a better understanding of how customers move throughout the store, providing helpful insight for store design and product display. Another option for a personalized customer experience is to work with a campaign management partner to strategically use your data, to deliver personalized and relevant digital and traditional communications that drive measurable results in real-time.

Join us next week for part two in this series, to discover three more lessons learned from the 2015 Holiday Season!

Want even more content?

– Join a free webinar on “How to Craft a Strong Customer Service Recovery Program on May 19th. Register Here.

– Interested in what was learned at the Customer Response Summit in Seattle during September 2015? Check out www.dialog-direct.com/media-room/article/crsummit-2015-6-things-we-learned/

The post Uber-Channel Shifts: Lessons Learned from the 2015 Holiday Season – Part 1 appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Customers aren’t just frustrated, they are ENRAGED! In fact, 66% of people with a brand problem have experienced rage. How does Rage affect your business? What do customers expect to benefit from complaining, versus what they believe companies actually provide?  The 10 Customer Rage Study* stats below may surprise you.

– More than 202 billion dollars were at risk to businesses as a result of problems with products/services in 2015.

– It takes an average of 4.2 contacts to satisfy a complainant.

– Only 35% of complainants are satisfied on the first contact, while only 14% actually had their problems resolved on first contact.

– 48% of complainants that become satisfied will still recommend your brand.

– When applying both non-monetary and monetary remedies, complainant satisfaction almost doubled from 37% to 73%.

– What is the number 1 most annoying customer service catchphrase? “Your call is important to us, please continue to hold.”

– The top channel for complaining is still the telephone.

– The percentage of complainants who felt they got NOTHING as a result of complaining increased from 56% in 2013 to 63% in 2015.

– 24% of complainants want revenge!

– The most frequently cited damage resulting from customer problems in 2015 was lost time (60%).

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

Want the full study? Request your complete copy of the Customer Rage Study here.

*The Customer Rage study is 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 post 10 Stats You Need to Know About Customer Rage! appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Seattle. The Emerald City – best known for its coffee, rain, grunge and … customer experiences? From September 28^th through the 30^th, the Hyatt Olive 8 in Seattle became the hub for connecting customer service professionals with their peers, creating engaging discussions around the trends, challenges and best practices related to the customer service industry. There was much to be gained at the Customer Response Summit, from conversations in the hallways to soaking in expertise at the panels and presentations. We combed through our notes to share our most valuable bits of information gained.

#1: Digital and Traditional Channels Need to Integrate Seamlessly

A strong and reoccurring theme throughout the Customer Response Summit was the consensus that a robust customer service strategy must assume a holistic online-offline perspective. With the proliferation of communication channels and devices, customers expect to be able to start an interaction in one channel and complete it in another.

In 2015, the customer service industry continues to think about ways to create customer-centric, omni-channel experiences. The end goal is to focus on the user experience and create one-to-one relationships with customers integrated across all their favorite channels – email, SMS, video, chat, social media, and phone, in-store and on desktops, mobiles, and tablets. For example, if a customer has been browsing your how-to videos on your FAQ page on topic A, and then turns to Facebook and asks a different question on topic B, the company should be able to bring together all that data and respond promptly with a concise and useful answer.

The customer expects you to know who they are, what they want, and how they last interacted with your brand. To help seamlessly integrate the multi-channel experience, allowing your brand to truly understand the customer, the use of a CRM was discussed. A CRM that captures data of all interactions will allow your phone agents to see social and online data and your social customer service agents to see phone dispositions, giving all of your team members access to the most up-to-date customer data.

 #2: Effortless Experiences

From multiple call transfers to slow systems, there are numerous causes to an increase in customer effort.  These obstacles are not always easy to identify, making them difficult to remove. To begin to reduce customer effort, you need to understand the obstacles that get in the way of an effortless experience.

Start by being your own customer. Use your customer service line, visit the stores, secret shop, and use feedback from disgruntled customers. This firsthand insight will help you highlight the biggest problems and will allow you to start strategizing a plan to reduce customer effort. An example that I discovered while researching the topic a little more was a story on how Ameriprise Financial sought to reduce customer effort. They asked their customer service reps to capture every instance in which they were forced to tell a customer no. While auditing the “noes,” the company found many legacy policies that had been outmoded by regulatory changes or system or process improvements. During its first year of “capturing the noes,” Ameriprise modified or eliminated 26 policies. It has since expanded the program by asking frontline reps to come up with other process efficiencies, generating $1.2 million in savings as a result (1).

This strategy is similar to a comment received at the Customer Response Summit. An attendee told the story of their “Kill a Stupid Rule” campaign with the goal of calling out rules that hindered experiences, reduced employee happiness, or increased customer effort. You may find that reducing customer effort starts by simply reevaluating your company policies.

 #3: Customer Experience Metrics Are Not “One Size Fits All”

Traditional measures such as Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and First Contact Resolution (FCR) seem to be the common measures to understand the customer’s perception of the support they receive. Are these the right measures for your business? Maybe, maybe not. Most organizations are trying to solve for (or should be trying to solve for) reducing customer effort, increasing the customer experience and increasing brand loyalty, but we have operational needs to consider as well like cost, handle time, and adherence to schedule. How do you balance both without hindering the experience?

During the Customer Response Summit, Scott Shute from LinkedIn gave an example that I can picture over and over again in my head. Scott was traveling with his wife and three young children during the busy holiday travel season. Their first plane was delayed, creating an incredibly small window of time for his family to get to the gate of their connecting flight. Scott was determined to make the flight as it would be incredibly hard to reschedule.  After running like a track star to the gate, Scott told the airline attendant his story and asked if she would allow his family 90 seconds to catch up and get to the gate. The attendant heard his story, looked in his eyes, and then, slowly walked over to the boarding door. What did she do next? Nope, she did not escort the family personally onto the plane; she closed the door to the jetway!

Can you imagine traveling for the holidays with small children, running across the airport, and making it to the gate in time – all just to miss the plane? Why did the airline attendant have no empathy? Simply put, it’s because the metric that she was being evaluated on was “on-time” flights. A perfect example of how good metrics go bad. While this is a good metric operationally, it can backfire horribly on the customer experience. We learned at the Customer Response Summit that metrics should be based upon the customer, not the operations, if you want to truly create a brand built on the customer experience.

#4: Happy Employees Deliver Happy Customers

The customer experience is nothing without customer-oriented service, and customer- oriented service is impossible without people. Consumers 2020 reports that by the year 2020, the customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. If this is true (and as customer service professionals, we are already seeing this upward trend), we need to treat our employees as we want them to treat our customers.

Some tips given at the Customer Response Summit to create a loyal employee experience include following a closed-loop process with your employees as you would your customers. Just like when addressing customer rage, when employees give you feedback, LISTEN! More importantly, it’s not enough to only listen;let them know that you hear them, and tell them what you are going to do about it!

One of my favorite tips I heard at the Summit was to not assume that your employees know how they affect the customer experience. You need to tell them! At Dialog Direct, we have a “WOW story” program:every week, we share a story about how one of our frontline employees created a “WOW” experience for a customer or even for another employee. This reminds the team that each and every day, they personally have the power to positively or negatively affect someone’s day. It’s exciting to see the lightbulb turn on in someone’s head and watch them get really excited to make someone’s day. By setting the stage and removing the roadblocks, you allow employees to create remarkable experiences and feel empowered and more satisfied with their work.

#5: Follow the Data

Customer engagement strategies are fueled by customer data. Understanding what customers have done, what channels they’ve used, what products they’ve purchased, and what service interactions they’ve had are all important data sources that can be used to build predictive models. Leverage cookie data and past-purchase data to help develop and train models. These models are critical in helping service teams understand which customers need your attention, which customers are about to churn, which customers are most likely to purchase again or buy more frequently, and which customers are likely to call in and check the status of an order, claim, or billing issue.

READ: Predictive Analytics in Action: Implementing Strategies for Dramatic Sales Lift

As companies gain a deeper understanding of customers through research and predictive analytics, they will use that information to develop more individualized customer experiences, such as reaching out to the right customer at the right time, using their preferred channel, and delivering a personalized offer pre- or post-purchase. Another example: service teams will leverage the power of predictive analytics to route callers to the phone agents who are “the most likely to help” based on the anticipated reason for the call. Similarly, predictive can assist in finding which type of agents can be paired to the right type of caller to improve the FCR. They will use learnings from these proactive engagements to improve operational performance and to predict future customer behavior.

#6: The Whip and Nae Nae Is Not as Hard as We Thought!

We came, we saw, we nae nae-ed.

What do you have to add to this list?

But, wait … There’s more! 

We enjoyed meeting everyone at the show and would like to share with you our 2015 “Customer Rage” study. This free, detailed study offers primary research on the issues Americans are experiencing with brands and examines customer-complaining behavior.

Get your free copy of the 2015 Customer Rage Study

For more information on how Dialog Direct can help you implement these these and other customer experience strategies into your call center, send me a note at sara.wright@dialog-direct.com 

Sources:

(1) https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers

The post #CRSummit 2015: 6 Things We Learned 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.