In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at what exactly friendly fraud is, how it happens, and why you should be especially aware of it as a CX leader in today’s digital world. 

What Friendly Fraud Is and Why It’s a Threat to Online Businesses

As technology advances, so do the creative ways in which fraudsters target unsuspecting online businesses. One such method is known as friendly fraud, which is anything but friendly. It occurs when a customer makes a legitimate purchase, but later disputes the charge with their bank, claiming the transaction was unauthorized. This not only results in a chargeback for the merchant but can also lead to a damaged reputation and increased fees from payment processors.

The threat is particularly troublesome for online businesses, whose transactions are often conducted remotely and without the added security of face-to-face interaction. Businesses are taking proactive measures to prevent friendly fraud, such as implementing strong fraud detection technology and maintaining clear policies and communication with customers.

According to Juniper Research, eCommerce losses are projected to surpass $48 billion worldwide in 2023, a significant rise from the $41 billion reported in 2022. This trend is anticipated to be fueled by the adoption of alternative payment methods such as digital wallets and Buy-Now-Pay-Later.

Dive Deeper into This Topic

One of our partners recently held a webinar focused on how a thoughtful approach to risk leads to more revenue and greater customer lifetime value.

Watch this on-demand webinar to learn how Adobe works with advanced technology from Forter to delight customers and fight friendly fraud.

The Different Types of Friendly Fraud and How to Spot Them

Friendly fraud isn’t as friendly as its name suggests. In fact, it can do serious damage to businesses. While the term may seem benign, the reality is that this type of fraud can come in a variety of forms, from chargebacks to refund abuse. And spotting them can be tricky – especially since they often look like legitimate transactions.

But fear not, there are ways to detect these sneaky schemes. By keeping an eye out for suspicious patterns or activity, implementing fraud detection tools, and establishing clear policies, you can protect your business from the harmful effects. So don’t let the “friendly” part fool you – be on the lookout for these scams and take action to stop them in their tracks.

Identifying and Preventing Friendly Fraud

Friendly fraud is a deceptive practice that can be detrimental to businesses of all sizes. Identifying and preventing it is crucial for not only maintaining a business’s bottom line but also for building customer trust.

So, how can you stay ahead of the curve? Well, for starters, understanding the different types of friendly fraud and their warning signs can help you spot a potential problem before it becomes a full-blown issue. Additionally, implementing strong customer service practices that prioritize communication and transparency can help prevent chargebacks from occurring in the first place.

By taking proactive measures to identify and prevent it, you can protect your business and maintain a positive relationship with your customers. 

Tips to Protect Your Business from Online Order Fraud  

In the age of eCommerce, protecting your business from online order fraud is a must. With the rise of technology, the number of online fraud cases is increasing at an alarming rate.

There are simple yet effective steps you can take to safeguard your business. Remember, prevention is better than cure, and investing time and effort into securing your online transactions can save you from a major financial setback in the long run.

Here are several strategies you can implement to reduce and mitigate your risk of falling victim to these types of scams.

1. Conduct regular audits of your financial records to detect any irregularities or discrepancies.
2. Implement two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to your transactions.
3. Invest in fraud detection software that uses advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect fraudulent behavior.
4. And finally, train yourself and your team to be vigilant and aware of common tactics used by fraudsters.

Leveraging Technology to Reduce Friendly Fraud Losses in eCommerce

As eCommerce continues to boom, friendly fraud remains a thorn in the side of merchants. Fortunately, technology offers solutions to this costly problem. Leveraging machine learning and AI algorithms, merchants can detect and prevent fraudulent behavior before it even occurs. By analyzing patterns in consumer behavior, these advanced technologies identify the red flags of potential friendly fraud, enabling merchants to take swift action to mitigate losses. And with the ever-increasing sophistication of these fraud prevention tools, it’s become more achievable than ever to strike the perfect balance between customer satisfaction and loss prevention.

So why not start leveraging technology to reduce your losses? Your bottom line will thank you.

Taking Preventative Measures

In conclusion, the threat of friendly fraud is real for any online business. By recognizing the different types and learning how to spot them, businesses can effectively protect themselves from loss.

Additionally, developing strategies to reduce and mitigate the risk of fraudulent transactions is invaluable. Leveraging technology is effective in reducing losses in eCommerce.

It’s important to remember that while friendly fraud is a significant problem, it can quickly and easily be avoided by investing the time and resources necessary into preventing it before losses occur.

To learn more about this topic, watch this on-demand webinar or visit our events page to check out all of our upcoming events.

The post Friendly Fraud: How Everyday Fraudsters Pose a Threat to eCommerce appeared first on Execs In The Know.

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.

Click here to catch up on Part 1 – Customer Expectations, Part 2 – Channels, and Part 3 – Operations.

The fourth installment of this series focuses on thoughts on technology.

• AI will begin to automate tasks for the agent and the customer – however AI will take longer to mature than previously thought, due to data infrastructure not mature enough to fully leverage.
• Companies will begin to shift from handling transaction to personalizing service.
• Digital will continue to experience strong growth, powered by mobile usage.
• Messaging channels will continue to grow social volumes.
• More conversations around the “social ethics” of AI deployment.
• Continued push on technology – moving infrastructure to the cloud.
• Deep/machine learning will play a role in 2018 for brands to meet customers where they are. I think brands are starting to get on board with the concept of machine learning and using data to predict behavior. But deep learning can extend beyond things like chatbots. If a brand can predict what a customer might be looking for, it can tailor content to the customer that allows the customer to self-service, send push notifications, etc.
• Thinking about AI secondarily to the types of use cases and outcomes desired that require it.
• Companies will have to address AI and ML in their strategies for customer acquisition and engagement. 2017 may be seen as a year of hype as lots of new vendors emerge on the scene. Expect consolidation and actual AI/ML deployments to increase in 2018.
• Interest in – and deployment of – customer journey analytics tools will increase, as companies try to identify and solve problems upstream before they occur.
• Strategic enterprise automation (front to back office) will help businesses begin to improve the customer experience, while optimizing back office operations, leading to stronger sales and a better bottom line. Examples include automated machine learning/AI, self help, chatbots/avatars, to RPA and beyond.
• People continue to overestimate innovation in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.
• We will see the first practical examples of AI in the areas of contact center routing, compliance and quality, with practical use cases.
• Some brands are testing AI for knowledge management (ie. agent support tool powered by AI vs. a traditional knowledge management tool). A lower risk approach to testing AI vs. directly with clients.
• Over the next 3 to 5 years, I believe that the majority of inquiries that come into the contact center will no longer be voice or email, but some form of messaging. SMS is only one form of messaging: it encompasses a broad swath of methods including iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Kik, WhatsApp, and more. Many people are following WeChat, which is now one of the largest standalone messaging apps with over 963 million monthly active users. Part of the reason it has been so successful is that you can do more than just send messages. Apple is moving down the path with the announcement of its Business Chat messaging solution which is an extension of iMessage and will include some ApplePay capabilities. The convergence of these technologies will be what ultimately tips the scale to shift consumers and businesses away from phone and email to messaging.
• Maturity issue with emerging virtual assistance technologies (chatbots, AI capabilities, etc.), continues to lag – requirements for specific user case studies at an all-time high.
• Buzz and hype are high, but adoption is low. Brands realize they need more data in order to leverage these technologies to be accurate.
• I’m not convinced that brands have the capacity/talent/full understanding of what precisely goes into machine learning and true AI (beyond chatbots). I think we’re going to see a wave of failed adoption on that front.
• Technology – Proliferate of technology out there – from measuring CX, to ‘omnichannel’, to speech analytics.

Stay tuned next week for the final installment in the series Part 5 – Use Case Studies/Data and Security/Risk. 

The post 2018 Predictions for the Service Leader: Part 4 – Technology appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog by Mandeep Singh Kwatra, VP, Solutions and Capabilities at Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS). For more information about HGS, visit their website. 

As companies gain a deeper understanding of customers through research and predictive analytics, they will use that information to develop more individualized customer experiences. Today, it’s not enough to have a knowledge base. The best, most insightful business intelligence is developed from a contextual knowledge base that can be used by both agents and customers to predict the right answer based on that particular customer’s data, situation, location, and needs. The end result is faster responses, increased issue resolution, reduced customer effort, and happier customers.

Internet and digital channels have shrunk the world of customer information, and now everything is available at the click of a button. Customer loyalty is as fragile as that button click. Customers want brands to understand what they really need. They want everything personalized for them, at every step of the customer journey—from prepurchase research to complaints or when they are contemplating whether to jump ship. Today’s customers want personalized sales cycle, service queues, and complaints management. This means a knowledge base that employs two key elements:

– First, brand knowledge cannot be dated. It cannot be robotic or a copy paste of a manual or process. Knowledge has to be contextual. It has to be natural and language driven. It has to be how customers like to talk.

– Second, today’s predictive analytics answer to contemporary customer expectations, which are: to get the right answer fast, while also meeting sophisticated personalization criteria.

Contextualized Knowledge Bases

This shift from “content” to “context” requires companies to understand and categorize customers in personalized slots. According to a recent survey by Adobe, more than 60% of online users wanted to know why, what, and how web sites select content personalized for them. Companies need to have their personalization strategies backed by solid, accurate customer data. This is made easy by customers leaving a virtual bread crumb trail on their online journeys for brands to follow. But, the first order of business is to build a contextual knowledge base template that can support personalized customer data. Because customer behavior changes from one situation to another, a contextual database should include customer reactions across a broad spectrum of situations to be comprehensive and accurate. A recent study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of EverString found that marketers most often face the two challenges of ensuring data quality and managing data from a variety of sources (both 47%) in attempting to gain greater insights about customers and prospects.

In terms of reducing customer effort, contextual knowledge base helps with predicting the right answer based on that customer’s data, situation, location, and needs. Customer service can provide faster responses, increased rate of issue resolution, reduced customer effort, and happier customers.

Role of Contextualized Knowledge Bases in Personalization

Contextual knowledge bases support brand efforts for personalization by supplying crucial individual customer data for ad and campaign targeting. The same survey by Adobe found that for 33% of marketers, personalization is the one capability that will be most important to marketing in the future.

When implementing personalization, possessing the right kind of customer data is the most important necessity. You need to know the customer’s:

– Preferred communication platform

– Best time to contact

– Spending patterns

– Purchase plans

– Significant life situations (that can affect spending and purchasing patterns)

– Product preferences

Regular customers expect companies to know their preferences and even new ones think that companies should have some idea of what they’re interested in. Keeping up with these expectations means that companies need to build contextual knowledge bases that are capable of recording and linking intricate customer preferences to their contact database. Knowing the advances in technology, customers have come to expect personalized treatment and customer service by their favored brands, and rightly so. Customers expect brands to understand their need or issue and provide personalized solutions for them. However, data given to them in trust by customers, companies have to ensure it is used responsibly and in a transparent manner.

Contextualized Knowledge Bases and Predictive Analytics

According to the same EverString study, predictive marketers are 2.9x more likely to report revenue growth at rates higher than the industry average and 2.1x more likely to occupy a commanding leadership position in the product/service markets they serve. Predictive analytics is a crucial requirement to ensure that you get the best out of your contextual knowledge base and your personalization efforts are optimized for best results. Use of predictive analytics needs accurate data to plot patterns and predict customer behavior to tell you when a customer will indulge in a certain purchase or when they will begin to research products. Your contextual knowledge base should consist of sufficient customer data from different scenarios for analytics to be fairly accurate in predicting customer shopping patterns.

Also, ensure that your predictive analytics software is processing all available and relevant customer data from all sources. In today’s multi-channel environment, customer data is sourced from multiple contact platforms and so counting in every source is important.

The post Disrupter 5: Contextualized Knowledge Bases for Personalization and Prediction appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog from Ted Hunting, Vice President, North America Marketing at Genesys. For more information about Genesys, visit their website. 

During the Customer Response Summit (CRS) last week in Austin, I shared my perspective on customer expectations of seamless, personalized omnichannel journeys with customer service executives from some of the world’s greatest brands. It was a rare opportunity to exchange ideas on digital innovation in customer experience (CX) with such a group.

To set the stage for brainstorming sessions on digital innovation, I talked about the prediction that by 2020, more than 90% of customer engagements will begin online, and what that means to CX innovation.

Currently in many customer service environments, organizational silos remain across channels, including web, voice, callback, mobile app, text, email, social, and video. In spite of initial interactions occurring on the web, customers nonetheless expect the effortless, personalized omnichannel journey that results from integrated communication channels. We explored some examples of businesses successfully integrating voice and digital channels to improve CX.

We looked at CX from the business perspective, examining aspects of the Genesys Customer Experience Platform, including:

– An omnichannel desktop that displays every step in the customer journey, across every channel

– Enterprise-wide reporting and analytics dashboard for overall view of CX and NPS

What did this group identify as key future trends? The internet of things (IoT), personalization through big data, and emerging self-service models such as chat and voice bots, led to brainstorming on digital innovation in the CX world.

Here’s what this group of CX leaders expects to see emerging in digital innovation:

Personalized customer journeys

Customer journeys will be increasingly personalized, leveraging big data and business rules to predict customer needs and deliver better CX.

– Visibility into the customer journey will continue to evolve so companies can provide proactive recommendations and communications for front- and back-office functions across the company, not just for the contact center.

– We’ll improve on how we identify and measure journey success so that we can replicate the successful CX across the business.

– We’ll use customer journey analytics for predictive routing of customers.

– We’ll personalize routing based on business rules and customer data.

Customer preferences driving experience

Customers prefer to authenticate once, and effortlessly, in a journey. Adoption of verification methods like biometrics (voice biometrics or eye or fingerprint sensors on mobile phones) will grow, with verification becoming increasingly passive from the customer point of view, without reliance on interrogatory techniques.

– Customers will be better informed—proactively—using notifications tied to their channel preferences.

– Customers will choose channel preference based type of interaction. For example, they’ll be able to select a text message for doctor appointment reminder, but a personal call from their doctor for test results.

– With increased personalization, customers will need to supply personal information. To address privacy concerns, they’ll need to “opt-in” to such personalization efforts. Business will find ways to encourage participation, even if it’s only making sure the customer understands through clear communication that they’ll benefit from a better CX.

CX enhanced through collaborative business culture

– When CX leaders foster a culture of collaborative discussions across departments and the organization, they can uncover CX issues that persist in a siloed culture

Incorporating social channels into the customer journey

– Expect chat to be transformed with chat bots and other forms of artificial intelligence.

– Integrate social media into journey management to put agents with the right skills in place to respond through social channels.

– Peer networks in some industries can provide service. These can be enhanced by use of social media and “ambassadors” to assist customers.

– Agents can use information from social channels to assist customers. For example, they can use YouTube or other external content on how customers are using a product or solving a problem.

Taking steps to deliver omnichannel CX

– Serve customers better by arming agents with a unified omnichannel desktop.

– Use recording and speech and text analytics to discover gaps in agent knowledge, whether they’re participating in voice, chat, email. Use it to better train agents.

– Move to modern self-service options instead of old school, high-effort, impersonal IVR. Instead, offer the option to get wait times for channels from voice, text, email, web chat, to video chat and let customers choose self-service channels based on their preference. For example, give them the choice of chatting now or waiting 20 minutes for a call back.

CR Summit Austin was an opportunity to share information, and gratifying because I heard clearly that so much of what Genesys is working with partners and customers to achieve is of great interest to global leaders in CX.

Interested in where your company stand in CX innovation? Check out The Omnichannel Customer Engagement Playbook.

The post Leaders Speak on Digital Innovations for Customer Experience appeared first on Execs In The Know.

This is a guest blog written by Greg Sherry, Vice President Marketing at Verint Systems.

One of the primary objectives of Customer Response Summit Austin was to “identify best practices and discuss innovative ideas on how to serve customer through emerging channels.” Verint’s contribution to this theme was an interactive general session called “Customer Engagement LIVE!” where we grouped executives into discussion groups of seven or eight participants. The groups engaged in conversations around the strategies and execution steps that can help define how customer-centric organizations can enrich interactions, improve business processes, and optimize the workforce.

One of the questions included on the breakout group handout, for example,  was “If you could provide your peers with one piece of advice as they create and execute their customer experience strategy and program, what would it be?”  There were also discussion questions around Customer Engagement and Enterprise Workforce Optimization.

Below are some of the highlights attendees shared during the breakout group read back presentations. Do you want access to group facilitator notes from all of the major discussion and engagement areas? If so, click here for the detailed Customer Engagement LIVE! notes.

Breakout Group Discussion Highlights

Employee Engagement- TED Talks! We want to hire and retain the best contact center agents that we can. So, we want to make sure we have a variety of internal programs around employee engagement as well as all our focus on customer engagement.  One thing we started was Ted Talks Tuesday’s where we find creative and inspirational Ted Talks videos that have themes around creativity, innovation, customers. We then have a discussion group after the video. Our executives, managers and agents love all the interactions we all have – and we are learning new ideas and ways of thinking at the same time!

Integrate more digital themes and engagement into our traditional customer service environment. We have started to use gamification in our customer services group. As part of the program, we are identifying customer “brand ambassadors” who will serve as fans of our organization and our customer services mission. We are tying these fans into our CRM system and gamification solution foundation. We think these ambassadors will help us differentiate our brand – as well as the customer experience we provide to our customers.

Mobile-  How can you gain more customer loyalty? When adopting a tech strategy  for mobile, customer experience overall (including customer service) – you have to “win over the customer” when they first become a customer. The customer’s initial experience with your organization must be meaningful and personalized. When customers are new-reach out to them when they’re excited about new service.  Make it very easy for them to set up services and profiles. This is your best window to drive loyalty- the customer’s initial experience with your organization.

Create a broad, multi-channel “listening” program. One organization created a multi-pronged campaign branded “We Listen.” It was launched across a variety of media channels internally within the organization, as well as via a 42-foot company branded recreational vehicle (RV). This “RV Relay” was a literal and figurative “vehicle” that included a rotating crew of senior level executives who drove a total of 8,500 miles across North America and visited dozens of customer sites. They engaged customers in a variety of channels including Skype, Twitter, Google hangouts, a company blog, etc. They launched a new online customer community during the relay that drew 5,500 customers per week and ultimately 150,000+ registered community members.

Think of this: Can you find ways to be “proactive” with communications, when you know that a customer’s expectations won’t be met? There are many ways to do this with data from delivery systems, mailing systems, survey data- and many ways to proactively reach out to customers- email,  phone call, SMS etc. Also think about using IVR/routing/skills based info to get customers to the person/place that can solve their issue (rather than the one-stop shop (call center) where all issues end up (and various issues can’t be solved due to department silos, information gaps etc.)

Do you have additional creative idea you’d like to share – or questions about the content in this blog post? If so, email me at greg.sherry@verint.com. I look forward to seeing you at a future Customer Response Summit.

The post Follow Up and Group Facilitator Notes: Customer Engagement LIVE! 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! 

The post Get Your Chat Fitness On appeared first on Execs In The Know.

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 one hour session will take a deeper look at how actionable knowledge management can address the increasing need for self-service, while support the need for traditional channels when self-service is not enough. The following key highlights will be shared:

– Trends impacting effective customer engagement and self-service
– The 3 E’s of customer experience: Effectiveness, Ease, and Emotion
– Best practices for creating actionable knowledge
– The digital tipping point and how to balance self-service and the human touch

“Findings from our recent CXMB Corporate Report show that 63% feel their company is beginning to divert focus away from traditional avenues of assistance into autonomous (self-help) options,” said Chad McDaniel. “While it’s crucial to still offer traditional channels, it’s becoming increasingly important to not only offer self-service, but to optimize it the right way.”

To register for the webinar visit https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9146439583075979009.

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 Verint Systems

Verint^® (Nasdaq: VRNT) is a global leader in Actionable Intelligence^® solutions with a focus on customer engagement optimization, security intelligence, and fraud, risk and compliance. Today, more than 10,000 organizations in 180 countries—including over 80 percent of the Fortune 100—count on intelligence from Verint solutions to make more informed, effective and timely decisions. Learn more about how we’re creating A Smarter World with Actionable Intelligence^® at www.verint.com.

Media Contact

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

The post The Digital Tipping Point Webinar appeared first on Execs In The Know.

This is a guest blog written by Kelly Koelliker, Director, Solutions Marketing at Verint Systems. Learn more about Verint at http://www.verint.com/.

For the first time ever, self-service channels have surpassed the phone as the most popular channels for service. As a result, organizations are beginning to invest heavily in these channels, seeking to provide the user experience customers demand. Meanwhile, contact centers still field millions of phone calls every day. So while the self-service channels are growing, many interactions still require the human touch of a phone call.

Many customers prefer to find information on their own, searching and browsing on web and mobile devices. Self-service offers the convenience of anytime/anywhere access for customers, with an added benefit of lower cost for organizations. At the same time, assisted service channels like the phone offer the value of the human touch, which can be critical when dealing with sensitive or complex issues.

Clearly, both traditional and emerging channels are important for a complete customer service strategy. But to really optimize engagement across these channels, organizations must pay attention to which channels are preferred for different user types and user scenarios. While many customers select self-service as their initial engagement channel, what causes them to pick up the phone? What is the tipping point that sends a customer away from self-service and to an assisted channel?

Once an organization understands the tipping point between self-service and assisted service, they can optimize both of these channels to best serve the customers and their specific issues. Self-service design should focus on ease of use for a frictionless experience, relying on tools like knowledge management and seamless escalation. Assisted service strategies should focus on soft skills to connect with the customer and guided troubleshooting tools to handle complex issues.

If executed correctly, your omnichannel strategy can serve each customer with exactly what they need, when they need it. To learn more on how to get started, join us on June 21 at the Execs In The Know webinar, “The Digital Tipping Point: Balancing Digital Self-Service and the Human Touch With Knowledge.” To register and learn more, visit https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9146439583075979009. 

The post The Digital Tipping Point: How to Balance Self-Service & The Human Touch appeared first on Execs In The Know.