Creating a better experience

From Insurance & Technology: “I won’t leave my bank because I have to wait a few minutes, but I will leave if I can’t get the information I need.”

This is talking about physical wait times in a bank, but can it transfer to telephone customer service? I know I would rather wait on hold – virtually, of course! – and know that I will be talking with someone who can actually help me with my issue. Wait times are definitely a factor in customer loyalty and retention, but first call resolution is another major factor. Answering phones with warm bodies to improve ASA and decrease abandons isn’t helping customer satisfaction. Empowered, knowledgeable agents are key to improving customer satisfaction.

Lucyphone has gotten some good publicity over the past few months for putting consumers in control of whether or not to remain on hold when calling companies to do business. Because only a small percentage of companies have implemented an integrated virtual queuing solution to address the problem of hold time, waiting on hold is still pervasive today. Therefore, I applaud the concept and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Oristian brothers for taking the matter right to the consumer. However, I recently heard grumblings from contact center professionals that Lucyphone is causing some disruption.

When consumers use Lucyphone on the web or as a smartphone app, they select a customer service number from a huge directory of companies that has been provided to them. They may be calling the right company, but is it the right number? Not always. So, despite your company’s efforts to route consumers to the best skilled resource on the first call, they may become frustrated when they need to be transferred around the organization.

Next, after Lucy makes the call on the consumer’s behalf, he or she is directed through your company’s IVR menus where a PIN code, claim number or credit card number may be required to proceed. What happens to this information? With Lucy basically conferenced into the call, is it possible that she’s collecting and storing this private information? Is the consumer knowingly or unknowingly trading privacy for convenience? While I doubt the Oristian brothers have nefarious intentions, consider that the outsider who hacks into Lucy’s brain might. But if your company offered a virtual queuing solution that was fully integrated with the contact center, wouldn’t the consumer have the benefit of both privacy and convenience? In addition, when consumers are transferred to a holding queue, they tell Lucy to stay on the line for them and then hang up. She calls them back when it’s their turn to speak with a rep. Lucy detects when she’s reached a customer service agent and tells the agent to “hold on” while she calls back the customer and patches them through. But does Lucy drop off the call? Or is Lucy listening and recording everything being said? I don’t know for sure but the thought is frightening.

If you’re able to get comfortable with the possibility of identity theft, then Lucyphone is an awesome time-saver, right? Well, for the customer, yes, but what about for your company? To an agent, this process is falsely accruing as “talk time” — a metric by which many agents are measured to ensure high performance. So, is it possible that Lucy is skewing agent stats and affecting agent performance bonus? Yes, it’s possible…and not fair to them, either. The exaggerated talk time also distorts the information input into workforce management systems that are designed to help contact center professionals make better staffing decisions, meet caller demand and better serve customers. It’s possible that by skewing this data, Lucy may result in poorer customer service in the long run for most customers, and reduced satisfaction with call center interactions.

In addition, while Lucy waits on hold instead of the caller, toll minutes are still being accrued. When an integrated virtual queuing solution is used, no toll minutes accrue during the wait for a return call. Companies such as Southwest Airlines who deployed a fully integrated virtual queuing system from Virtual Hold Technology last year, saved 47 years of hold time in just 9 months. That’s just one of the reasons why the solution typically pays for itself in about one year.

I like disruptive technologies like Lucyphone because they bring to light real problems that consumers are now facing. However, there are better ways to handle this problem than to leave it in the hands of your customer and a third-party. Hold time is best addressed when your company listens to its customers, identifies the gap in the business process and then bridges the gap with a solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing systems, ensures privacy and efficiently and cost-effectively handles customer service requests, delivering the best customer experience and the highest possible customer satisfaction.

The other day I went to the store to look around the clearance racks and see if I could find a few bargains. I ended up getting a pack of new athletic socks. Obsessed with the frustration of waiting for anything, I was dreading the checkout line. As I approached it, there were four people ahead of me. After a long sigh, I decided not to abandon my socks, but rather to dig in and wait until it was my turn. There were two clerks, so I was cautiously optimistic.

However, within 2 minutes it became apparent that something was horribly wrong. The line hadn’t moved at all and so I turned my attention to the activities taking place at the two registers. It was hard to tell what was going on at first because it looked like nothing was happening. I was perplexed. I thought that buying things was supposed to be quick and simple: Scan items, swipe debit card, sign paper, get receipt, go. But I didn’t see any of this going on. The transactions finally concluded and the line moved forward. But once again, the checkout process for customers in front of me was taking forever. My internal expected-wait-time calculator was totally off because the length of time that each customer was spending with each clerk was completely erratic.

I was finally next in line and I was able to get a glimpse of the problem. The customers were taking extra time because they were filling out credit card applications. The clerk was just standing there watching and waiting for the customer to finish.  When the application was complete, the clerk had to type the information into the system and wait a few more moments for the approval and credit limit to be established before finally resuming the activity of actually buying and selling things. It was aggravating to watch. Was this the right time to be up-selling? There were four more people behind me in line and none of them looked happy about the slowness of this queue. Why didn’t the clerks recognize that they should put their up-selling to the side for a few moments until they worked off the queue of anxious customers? They could resume their up-selling when there wasn’t a queue. Perhaps they weren’t trained to recognize it. Or maybe they get a spiff for each customer they get signed up for a new credit card and are therefore financially motivated to let the queue of customers with product in hand to grow and allow their frustration to build. It should be intuitive to the clerks that working off the queue is a higher priority than signing up customers for new credit cards. The check out process is one of those “moments of truth” in the business process. If it goes poorly, then customers may never come back. Stores want you to sign up for credit cards because stats show that people shop where they have cards. This would hardly be considered a loyalty program with much benefit to customers in the long run. It mostly benefits the store.

It was finally my turn and when I walked up to the register, the clerk scanned my socks. Then she asked me if I wanted to save 10% by filling out a credit card application. Hmmmm…an enticing offer indeed. No wonder the take rate was so high and the queue was so slow.  I looked behind me and still saw four incredibly bored customers in line. Then I turned back to the clerk and quietly declined her offer. When she said, “Are you sure?” and I told her “no” a second time and she was slightly stunned that I spurned her so quickly. Perhaps she was disappointed because she wouldn’t be getting a spiff. Who knows for sure. But what is certain is that I’ll take “no waiting” over a measly 10% off and another evil credit card in my wallet any time, anywhere. What about you?

It’s a fact that self-service transactions cost a fraction compared to connecting customers to live-service. It’s the major reason why self-service is an important strategy for Business and IT these days. Most consumers like helping themselves and I am one who certainly enjoys this convenience so long as they don’t try to get too “cute” or complicated with the options provided or the technology installed. You know what I mean, so I won’t pontificate. Self-service technology will continue to improve and its applications will evolve into useful and intricate mashups that combine home grown content with elements and information from communities all over the Web. Your organization will become an aggregator of content specific to your business and it will become quicker and easier for your customers to get information and solve their own problems than ever before. They will come to rely on a vast outside network of resources, sponsored and condoned by you.

But it’s obvious to all of us by now that self-service can’t satisfy everything. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been a net gain of 10,000 contact center jobs in North America in 2009 as reported by Saddletree Research and the National Association of Call Centers. The need for live-service remains steadfast in order to solve more complicated and sensitive customer service issues. As I’ve noted above, advances in self-service will increasingly resolve more stuff for customers. Therefore, live-service in the contact center will evolve to satisfy something different…the emotional needs of your customers. Emotional needs include affirmation, acknowledgment, empathy, validation, safety and also includes feedback. In the future, customers will rely more on emotional support from live-service to affirm their decision to continue doing business with you.  When a company cannot adequately fulfill these higher level needs, customers will switch loyalty to another brand that can. This vision marks the shift from agent to associate and from representative to advisor.

Nevertheless, a problem exists in the linkage between the two worlds of self-service and live-service described above. One world is impersonal and automated, the other is emotional and collaborative and consumers fall into a customer service gap when they attempt to pass between worlds. We continually improve the self-service process and technology on one side…we implement performance management and better training on the other. Both worlds get better, but the connection between them remains broken. It’s like shifting gears without putting your foot on the clutch. The friction and grinding represents the resulting customer experience and this is where companies are failing and placing business at risk. Whether getting disconnected, waiting on hold or having to repeat account information, each customer interaction that falls into this gap costs your organization money, causes frustration and threatens customer loyalty. The operational cost is attributed to increased call handle time, which lowers productivity. In addition, there is an increased expense associated with subsequent call attempts by customers who originally abandoned and who now have to repeat the process all over again. The customer frustration comes from a lack of forethought by organizations that view self-service and live-service as two separate and distinct strategies and who neglect to put assurances in place for customers who wish to safely travel from one customer service strategy to the other.

Guardrails were invented for a reason. They protect us if our car has a mechanical failure or when the road conditions deceive us. The same is true in the contact center. To keep customers on track and prevent them from falling into a customer service gap in the business process, consider providing a new kind of customer safety when formulating your overall strategy. Make sure your customers move smoothly (and safely) from self-service to live-service.

Many buyers love the idea of choking a single wringable neck…meaning, that when something goes wrong, there’s only one place to call. On the surface this approach appears to have other benefits as well. For example, the more you buy from a single vendor – then the better service you will receive. However, this is a common misconception that has proven to be a painful pitfall for many. Logically, our human instincts and sensibilities tell us that the bigger customer we are, the greater service we will receive. But we must only look to our experiences as buyers to learn that this logical conclusion is not consistent with reality. There is no direct correlation between sales revenue and service delivery capabilities. The two elements should not be linked together. The service arm of a vendor’s organization should be evaluated separately based on reputation and references. An IT colleague once told a story of how he decided to standardize on a single vendor for all data room servers. Having achieved the rank of “Platinum Customer”, he was satisfied with his coverage and status with the vendor. However, he admits today that the false link created between sales and service was a big mistake. His vendor’s service organization had slow response times, poorly trained techs and layers of escalation bureaucracy. Not platinum nor all of the precious metals in the world was enough status to overcome the vendor’s customer service shortcomings. None of the processes in place could be quickly fixed either, whether it be with more money or by choking the neck more tightly. Over time, his frustration intensified and the relationship waned. With the bulk of the vendor service contract paid upfront in order to take advantage of pricing discounts, the IT Director is now stuck riding this horse for years to come. Another colleague tells the story of how he has successfully invoked an 80/20 strategy with regard to vendor selection…meaning, that their organization will standardize 80% on a single vendor and use best of breed solution providers for the other 20% of the time. The strategy keeps all vendors sharp, on their toes and vying for a piece of extra opportunity, he says.

Additionally, it is important to note that in these single-provider arrangements, your escalation paths inevitably lead to a dead end. The top of the organization is in plain sight. Once reached and choking has commenced, you are out of options. Even the CEO is at the mercy of his own company’s poor customer service processes that have been created over time and will take even more patience and time to change. However, companies that employ the 80/20 strategy do not run out of escalation options. Instead, they contact their other business partners for answers, advice and counsel. The partners know just as much about the technology, if not more, than the manufacturer because they have spend years perfecting their integration to it. They understand the platforms’ capabilities and limitations more clearly than the manufacturer who has less real-world integration experience with their own solutions.

The single wringable neck vendor selection strategy is a very logical approach. But unfortunately it does not satisfy the modifiability and flexibility quality attributes required by most service oriented architecture (SOA) enterprises with shifting requirements from internal business customers. But rather, it only satisfies the convenience attribute.