Posts Tagged ‘Customer Service Software’
Customer Service Can Be Costly
Friday, January 15th, 2010Customer Service Can Be Costly
A recent study conducted by Genesys in collaboration with leading industry analysts at Datamonitor/Ovum shows that poor customer service is costing US businesses $83 billion annually! Most businesses are aware that excellent customer service positively impacts their bottom line, but fewer than one third of businesses have any way of tracking or measuring revenue per call or how much revenue is lost with an unhappy customer.
Almost two thirds of customers end a relationship with one company and deflect to another company within the same industry, causing individual companies to lose $50.6 billion each year. Not accounted for in the survey is the high cost of another company in the industry to gain that customer.
However, about a third abandon the relationship altogether, causing the entire industry to lose $32.4 billion annually. While some industries are essential to the well-being of the consumer, others become “unneeded” if the consumer is upset with the level of service.
For every 10 interactions, the customer will end a relationship with a company! The average value of each lost relationship is $289 per year.
Two amazing numbers from this study:
- 40% of consumers said it is critical to provide more intelligent self-service to reach a human so they are not trapped in automated systems.
- 90.5% of consumers would welcome proactive engagement to improve their experience through extended offers or help during self-service transactions.
Conversely, 78% of American consumers say their most satisfying experience occurred because of a capable and competent customer service representative.
These numbers are staggering, but what do they mean to your business on a day-to-day basis? How can you improve? How can you keep satisfied customers?
Most people are happy with their experiences with live agents, Web chat, and Web self-service. Therefore, those are areas in which the current products and practices are working.
Consumers want consistency and continuity. Those are easily achievable with good customer service software.
Consumers want improved personalization. That includes proactivity and outreach. For example, if they are stuck in automated service for a specified period, they would love to have an agent break in and assist them or for there to be a “chat” button to click to talk with an agent. It would be even better if that agent already had whatever information they had inputted into the system so they would not have to repeat it.
Consumers want to be valued. They want their time respected and they want their issues resolved politely in a short amount of time. This might mean submitting a “help ticket” and receiving an e-mail with instructions. Or it might include being able to schedule a time with an agent.
Knowledge Management for Customer Service
Monday, December 14th, 2009Knowledge Management for Customer Service
Is your Knowledge Management system working for your customers? Or do your customers spend a great deal of time searching through keywords and documents trying to find answers to their question? Do they become so frustrated they use more expensive channels or go to the competition’s web site?
In your effort to deliver self-service, you might have forced the customer to search so many documents for the answers that he sees your customer service as being content-centered rather than customer-centered.
Your customer is focused on his question, not on finding the most complete and detailed answer. He will search on keywords in his question, not in the answer! Your customer cannot find his tree in your forest.
In your Knowledge Base there may be over 10,000 pages. Some industries have more than 60,000 customer facing pages. Imagine trying to find the answer to a question in that forest! Can you imagine asking the Knowledge Base a question and getting 50 or more results, none of which appropriately answers the question? This is counterproductive, frustrating, and non-productive. It makes your company look downright inefficient.
Don’t let your document database bury your customers. Likewise, don’t let the plethora of documents bury your call center agents and make them ineffective.
- - Instead of 40,000 to 60,000 pieces of content, consider culling the useless documents.
- - List the 30-50 most common questions.
- - Write concise answers.
- - Post each question with its answer as its own document.
- - Use your CRM Knowledge Management system to categorize and index the questions.
- - Continue to monitor questions and add questions and their answers to a maximum of 300-500.
Each piece of information needs to be optimized for the channel through which it is delivered. Remember that a customer may not want as much detail as the call center agent may need. Give them access to different answers. You may even need a third set of answers which are shorter for use on mobile and social media. No customer wants to read five pages to answer his question, especially if he is reading it on his iPhone.
What Can CRM Software Do To Help My Company?
Friday, December 4th, 2009Companies need to increase customer loyalty and boost profitability. However, customers are more informed, more demanding, and less willing to release their cash.
The businesses of customer relationship management and marketing have historically based decisions on what the manager thinks the customer or market is going to do or what the company management feels will happen. They are slow to embrace the new technological methods of actually assessing trends and competing based on intelligence and analytics.
The time has come to change, to understand and be responsive to customers’ needs and market forces. The CRM solutions are readily available to help organizations improve their understanding of customers and realize the full revenue potential of their leads.
Three key obstacles stand in the way of turning leads into customers: (1) the lack of real-time data and analytics that capture insights from multiple customer touch points, (2) information that is selectively gathered, inaccurate, or incomplete, and (3) date being siloed and its use restricted across the organization. As a result, critical business decisions are made based on conjecture and partial data rather than on empirical data and intelligence.
Managers need to see their company from the eyes of their potential and current customers. That means thinking like a customer seeking information. They (and perhaps a friend who is not in the same type of business so he has fresh eyes and mind) need to become customers. Start with a question and navigate the company web site to see how much has to be done to answer the question – or if the answer even exists there. E-mail the support department with a request or question. Make a purchase to see how well that process works and how aggravating or simple it is. If you have stores, walk into one or more and ask questions a customer would ask. Request a demonstration. Purchase something. Return your purchase to see how that process works. Take notes on all the processes. Where are the glitches, the frustrations, and the hang-ups? What is going well?
When you pose the question to customer support, it is very important to note the follow-up. This is an area where many companies lose their customers’ future purchases and recommendations. Get together with key players from marketing, customer service, and sales and brainstorm ways to improve the various ways in which a customer can access and interact with the organization.
Select a CRM system that enables an organization to run campaigns that align with its customers’ preferences, tightly integrate marketing across all inbound and outbound channels, increase sales productivity by providing customer insight, manage marketing and sales resources more efficiently, and turn contact centers into profit centers.
Have you ever considered that help desk calls have the potential to become sales opportunities? By having a CRM software that includes a real-time data miner, call center agents can get a recommendation of a customer-appropriate prequalified sales offer while on every call.
The use of support tickets that are tracked can increase retention rates by as much as 40 percent. Good customer follow-up using CRM software can improve service renewals by over 100 percent in the first 18 months.
Customer promotional campaigns can be executed within hours instead of days. And 100 percent of the campaign offers will be followed up. Did you know it takes at least five contacts with a customer to actually engage the customer in talking about a sale? How many of your sales reps stay engages with potential customers through five or more contacts?
Implementing the right CRM solution makes the business of customer relationship management easier and provides economic value and a competitive edge to the company. It turns your sales reps into trusted advisers who can make appropriate, targeted offers to customers. It enables support personnel to shorten call times, resolve issues quickly, and engage in seamless conversations. The right solution delivers personalized, customer-focused interactions which result in more frequent revenue opportunities and satisfied customers.
3 Keys to Better Customer Service
Thursday, November 5th, 2009Do you have good customer service? Do you feel simply changing customer service software could improve your customer service? In most cases, customer service can be improved. Here are three keys to better customer service:
1. Be Proactive rather than Reactive.
Sears has not achieved their success by doing the exact same thing for the last 30 years or by simply reacting when a customer complains. What does the front of the catalog emphasize? Customer service! How do you know that? Because the front of the catalog always says “We’re always open. Prices guaranteed until . . . Our phone number is . . . ” Customer service is in the forefront.
2. Listen to your customers.
Guessing what your customers need or want will not satisfy your customers. Only when you start asking them and actively listening to their responses will you begin to understand what they want and need. Then you will be better able to supply them with what they are looking for.
3. Know what makes your company different from your competitors.
Research your competitors. Understand what they offer. Learn what their customers like. Figure out what you do or have that is different . . . and better. Know why it is better and more desirable. Which points are simply features and which are truly benefits. For example, lower prices are not better customer service – they are simply better prices. However, calling a customer to see what problems or questions they have is better customer service if nobody in your industry except you does that.
And always use a software that offers the kinds of features and benefits that your company needs. Never pay for features that are of no use to your company. Realize true value for the money you pay and give your customers value for their time and effort.
Customer Service Software: Creating Smart Service Agents
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009Frequently customer service agents dealing with complex products or processes do not have the ability to access relevant information in real time. New software solutions, known as “smart service agents,” help address these issues by building on contextual and real-time knowledge bases. They guide agents through similar processes to help them solve current problems.
What is a Smart Service Agent?
Complex products like those in industrial machinery or high tech may have problems that span various systems or parts. A single knowledgeable individual my not be able to troubleshoot the complexity or variety of problems. The “smart service agent” software would provide the field service agent or help desk agent with recommendations at key transition points to help speed up and sort out the problem resolution.
Service-intensive industries like banking, communications, and utilities can use “smart service agent” software to learn from their customers. For example, if a customer calls to inquire about a specific service and the agent cannot answer his questions or does not answer them to the potential customer’s satisfaction, the “smart service agent” will offer modified answers the next time he searches for answers to those questions. On the other hand, if he is able to make the sale, he will input that into the software to be used as a method the next time.
What is the driving force behind creation of a Smart Service Agent?
Traditional methods of selling are not working in today’s environment. Often, people go to the Internet to find their own solutions. When this happens, they expect to find answers to their questions immediately. The Internet, through social media, has become a driving force to push companies to refine the way they work with customers and potential customers. And the social media drive companies to provide customers with a highly satisfying interaction.
What are the advantages of a Smart Service Agent?
The advantages of a smart service agent begin with the obvious – turning potential customers into customers, up-selling and cross-selling to customers, and improving customer satisfaction. They also include less downtime when solving issues and less frustration for customer service reps. The end result is satisfied and loyal customers who come back and send their friends and aquaintances to your business on a regular basis.
Customer Service through a Personalized Help Desk Builds Business
Thursday, September 10th, 2009Have you ever gotten a coupon to your favorite store? We all have. There’s a good reason for that. Those companies know that their existing customers are the best – and most profitable – customers they’ll ever have. So it’s not surprising that they work hard to keep these customers happy and coming back again and again.
The same concept holds true for your business. While you don’t want to ignore potential customers, you’ll find that when you pay a little more attention to the customers you already have, it will really pay off – in increased sales and profits for your business. The following 8 practical strategies will get you started.
1 – Understand your customers
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Start listening to your customers and asking questions, and you’ll learn a lot – fast.
2 – Make their first contact with your company a fabulous experience
Connect with the customer on a personal level. Empathize with them. If they are calling with a problem, find a solution as quickly and efficiently as possible. And be courteous and respectful.
3 – Be professional in everything you do
Treat your customers in a businesslike manner. Be meticulous about meeting deadlines and keeping appointments. Always provide the materials or information you promised – complete, and on time. And remember to thank your customers.
4 – Ask for another sale
When liquid shampoo first came out, it gave consumers a convenient and easy way to wash their hair. “Lather and rinse,” the label said. But shampoo sales really took off when just one word was added. Your shampoo bottle now says, “Lather, rinse, and repeat if desired.” Repeat sales can revolutionize your business, too. Be bold. Ask satisfied customers to refer their colleagues. Ask them what other needs they have. The key here is to ask for the sale.
5 – Upgrade your customers
Another way to increase your income is to upgrade your customers to a more profitable product (“deluxe” shampoo for color treated hair, for example). It’s really pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. If you sell a product that has add-on modules, see which module they would purchase next and how they would use it.
6 – Cross-sell your customers
Cross-selling is simply selling your customers something different from – but related to – what they’re already buying. Think back to the shampoo example. Wouldn’t it be relatively easy to cross-sell hair conditioner to someone who already uses shampoo? A fruit and vegetable vendor might be able to sell his customers a bouquet of fresh flowers. Now take a look at your own business and see what related products you might sell your current customers.
7 – Let your customers get to know your company and your products
It makes good business sense to find ways to share your products and processes with current customers. You might invite them to an informal demo – it can be online. Give them a free trial period of a new product or process – with support. Educate them as to what else you do or sell and how it works through informational e-mails, blogs, white papers, and case studies.
8 – Build strong, ongoing relationships with your customers
Find connections with the people who are your customers – not just their businesses. Learn who they are and why they do what they do. Get to know likes and dislikes, hobbies, family members and their activities. Give them a feeling of being known and understood by asking about those things or referencing them in e-mails or building a campaign around a hobby many of your customers share.
Improved Business During a Tough Economy Part 2: Track Your Future Customers
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Track your prospects with web based CRM software
If you desire to find an animal, you must look for it. Let’s say you want to find a deer. First you have to dress for a time period outdoors (usually in cold weather). Then you have to use your eyes to look for the deer. Not only do you look for the deer itself, but you look for signs of the deer such as its tracks. Once you find its tracks, you begin to follow them.
To find prospective customers, you have to do some preparation. Just like dressing appropriately for a period of time in the cold, you will have to plan ahead. Use referrals, testimonials, and case studies to get your message out to more potential customers. During an economic downturn is not the time to cut the advertising budget! In fact, it is the time to increase that particular budget and work especially hard to understand where potential customers will be. For example, if you are selling a product to farmers, you should realize that nearly all of them listen to the radio in their tractors and trucks. Use a testimonial in a radio advertisement. Or, if you are selling to women, you need to figure out what television shows the women will watch or what magazine they will still pick up when money is tight. If you sell to other businesses, take advantage of trade shows and trade magazines. Use the information your satisfied customers have given you as ammunition and show their faces or their companies as proof of what they’ve said about your company.
Marketing is not the deep, dark secret that many companies think it is. You do have to spend time and effort tracking down a deer by following its footprints. In prospecting for new customers, sophisticated analytics are useful in tracking responses to marketing campaigns. Some tracking tools even capture every “touch” with the prospective customer.
Track what you have done and track your inquiries (leads) using customer relationship management software. You will have a built-in method for know what works and what doesn’t. You will also be able to carry on conversations by e-mail and phone that leave a trail so that you know what is talked about and what interests they have.
Use the internet to attract new customers. Build a better web site. During an economic downturn you can use your extra time to evaluate what is working and what is not working with your web site. Have it professionally evaluated. Spend the time and money to improve it and get it search engine optimized so prospective customers can find you. Tie your web site to the analytics of your customer relationship software so that you know how effective it is.
Consider social media. Start a blog. Your blog can be about your products or services or it can be things of interest to you. Have two or three people in the company participate in writing blog entries two to four times a month to keep it fresh and interesting. Start a business page for Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Get and keep people interested in your company by using short sentences about your products or services. Set up your customer service software to connect with people through these channels.
Follow up each touch with a phone call or e-mail contact to assure that each prospect has all the answers necessary or can get an online or personal demonstration when necessary. Use your CRM software to route leads to the representative who is most qualified to help that prospect according to the availability or qualifications of the rep or the particular marketing effort that brought in the lead.
Lead-qualification scripts can be embedded into CRM systems and pop up when keywords are said or typed to help understand and sell to each prospect. Your sales process should be able to build a 360-degree view of the customer to whom you are selling. Using your web based crm, you should be able to match campaigns and messages to individual prospects or prospect-types. Become very focused. Customize your messages and offers to address specific issues within an industry or for a specific customer-type based on a specific customer.
Integration of sales software and service software through web based customer relationship software keeps the contacts with a prospect seamless as he moves through the process from prospect to customer to high-priority customer or customer-with-a-problem. Each person who deals with that person can see his entire history with the company or product line and understand exactly what his experience has been thus far.
Marketers, sales managers, and help desk managers should have current statistics and analytical tools at their fingertips. These should not bring up overwhelming amounts of data with no meaning, but should analyze the data and give meaning to it. They should be able to use web based crm software to know if an ad campaign is generating a good percentage of qualified leads and how many of those are being turned into customers through purchases they are making.
Have You Got a Real ID?
Friday, July 10th, 2009I don’t know about your driver’s license bureau or department of motor vehicles, but the one in our state is becoming fully compliant with Real ID. It is my understanding that all states must be compliant soon. The Real ID Act became effective nationwide on May 11, 2008. Many states have already met the requirements, with the rest needing to update by January 1, 2010.
It is a great idea to PROTECT my identity. The concept is truly noble and appreciated. I understand that its purpose is to fight terrorism and reduce fraud. And my state has certainly seen its share of fraud in this area! However, in order to PROVE my identity and receive either an ID card or a driver’s license I need:
- For identity and lawful status: an original or certified copy of my U.S. birth certificate or a U.S. passport
- For Social Security number: an original Social Security card, a W-2, tax form or an SSA-1099 form (or a pay stub that shows my name and Social Security number)
- For residency: 2 recent statements from a utility company, bank, credit card company, doctor or hospital showing my name and address
And did I mention the requirements for your picture?? No smiling! That should make some people happy. Hair must be pulled back from the face. No hats and no sunglasses are permitted. This is all to make sure the face recognition software recognizes the right person!
So now I have to remember all these documents and rules to renew my license. The local license branch has a customer service desk and that is where you go first.
I hand all this stuff to the straight-faced person sitting there who takes her time looking through them and then asks, “what are you here for?” I feel like telling her I’m there to order a hamburger, but I refrain. I am wondering, though, if she thought I just collected the required documents for a driver’s license on a whim. She is supposed to be the customer service person. Oh well.
I tell her, as pleasantly as possible, that I’m there to renew my driver’s license. What does she say? “Oh. Have a seat.” In a monotone.
She keeps my papers. And she puts the biggest paperclip I’ve ever seen on them before putting them in an “IN” box with about 10 other peoples’ papers – each with a giant paperclip! So this is supposed to be customer service.
I have now spent two hours collecting all the correct paperwork, taken a shower and made sure my hair is away from my face and rushed to the license branch to sit and wait.
Meanwhile, a nice looking young lady breezes in and takes her papers to the same customer service desk and gets told cheerily (I said CHEERILY), “Just have a seat right over here so I can take your picture and they’ll have your license in a couple of minutes.”
I march right over to find out what she did differently from me. I am indignant.
This time the customer service person is patient as she explains to me (and about 10 other people who also marched over indignantly), “This lady got an appointment online and she is keeping her appointment. Our customer service software is available to all of you to make appointments. We service those customers at their appointment times regardless of how many people are waiting without appointments.”
Customer service software?? Nobody told me about that! They put out plenty of publicity about all the documentation to bring and how to prepare for the picture.
Customer Service Aids Drivers License Process
Don’t they think my time is valuable?
Guess what I’m doing next time! I’m checking the web site to see what new innovations there are with the customer service software. You should do the same before you go to renew your license. Good luck.
Oh, yes, it only took 45 minutes for me to get my license while it took the lady with the appointment less than 15 minutes. At least I didn’t get sent home for more documentation. Or worse yet, I guess they could have told me I wasn’t myself. Then I would have had a problem! By the way, this isn’t my license; it’s only an example!
Customer Service Software is Key to Company’s Most Important Asset
Friday, May 29th, 2009Customer Service Software may be your company’s key to coming out of this recession ready to grow. Customer relationships today are far more complex than those of just a few years ago, or even a few months ago. Customer service software is now expected to encompass traditional local and long-distance telephone service, a variety of wireless communications, high-speed internet access and entertainment.
Customer service software must capture customer data. Customer data, and the quality of that data, is a company’s most important asset. With every interaction, customers are providing critical information. With rising costs, it’s more important than ever to capture this data accurately, completely, in a timely manner and in a consistent format.
Customer service software must capture a large variety of data such as address, age range, demographics and behavioral data. These pieces of information enable companies to plan and evaluate their business, to target specific slices of the population, and to plan for sales and store openings and closings.
Customer service software in the B2B realm captures information about product penetration, productivity, and share of market. Sales territories and the efficiency of sales reps are evaluated on this data.
If customer data is your company’s most important asset, how do you know that the data is correct and up-to-date? According to PriceWaterhouseCooper’s, customer data degrades at a rate of about 2% per month – nearly 30% a year! That makes a well-enforced data maintenance program a “must have” for every company.
Customer service software can help in this process. It can search for false data such as phony e-mail addresses (royrogers@horse.com) or sequential social security numbers. It can keep fields from being filled with wrong sets of information like having a person put their city and state into a field labeled “address 2.” Data profiling is usually built into your customer service software, but most companies do not know how to use it or how often they need to use it.
Your company should have someone or a team that defines guidelines for completeness and for formatting of information. For example, they need to establish how dates and times are expressed. Not as easy, but possibly more important, would be a definition of “household.”
Good back-end data is essential to front-end data quality. This becomes apparent when a new customer has the same name as an existing customer and the customer service software must differentiate between the two.
Customer service software is useful for far more than simple data entry and tracking a customer and his issues. It is the tool for up-selling and cross-selling to him and his household. It is the basis of the company’s decisions about its future. Therefore, it is critical for the data being used by the customer service software to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
Building Consensus for Your CRM Solution
Thursday, May 7th, 2009When you implement a new or upgraded CRM Solution, be sure to build consensus. All stakeholders – business users, management team, and IT staff – should agree with, or buy into, the decision to upgrade. All should understand the benefits and the risks of the project.
Building consensus takes work that starts long before the new CRM Solution is purchased, installed, or implemented. The team that chooses the CRM Solution needs to have members of all stakeholder groups as active participants.
IT Staff: The right CRM Solution will reduce the workload of the IT Staff, making it simpler for them to respond to requests. Their buy in should be enthusiastic. They should be able to see:
- New tools that are provided in the upgrade that will enable them to respond more quickly to users’ requests.
- Ways in which the upgrade allows end users to answer their own questions via tables, reports, queries, various methods of viewing data, etc.
- Possible savings to IT as a result of consolidating hardware or consolidating software licenses.
Management Team: The right CRM Solution will be affordable and will have a positive impact on the overall revenue stream. It should have tools that will improve the productivity of employees in Sales, Marketing, and Support. The CEO, CIO, and CFO should see cost savings to the organization. All members of the management team should be able to see:
- The upgrade reduces maintenance and/or support costs.
- The upgrade is scheduled for a time that is convenient for each unit of the business as they are expected to be involved.
- Each unit understands the expected time frame for a return on the investment (ROI).
- Each unit knows the benefits of the upgrade and when those benefits will overtake the costs of the current system.
Business Users: The daily users of the CRM Solution must see the benefits. They need to hear things like “the upgrade will include enhanced workflow that streamlines complex processes.” Further, they need to know:
- The key benefits that they will realize because of the upgrade.
- What the key features are and how they will function to make their lives easier.
- What indirect benefits the users can enjoy with the upgrade – things like streamlined processes or quicker calculations.
- That they will not lose any of their favorite functionality or capabilities with the upgrade.
To keep the CRM Solution on track, consensus is critical. All stakeholders must be involved in the process of choosing and implementing an upgraded CRM software solution.