All posts in Call Centers

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly…or in Queue…

by Mary Cook on November 30, 2011 in 2011, Call Centers, CRM, Industry News, Mary Cook, Retail, Varolii News with 2 Comments
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It’s that special time of year again, the 4th quarter. The quarter all of us call center, customer care and experience professionals live (and die) for. While many of us this past Thanksgiving planned out our shopping trips like the covert PMP multi-media-centric individuals we are (ok, perhaps it was just me…), my beloved and brethren customer service professionals were busy working. Whether they were in their retail stores, calculating their cloud storage to support their digital customers, or re-calculating their 15 minute interval call center staffing plans – the madness of the Holiday season has officially begun. So in honor of this most wonderful time of year (where as a call center professional you are guaranteed to catch bronchitis at least once from over working yourself amongst a set of snotty-nosed CSRs – and I say that with love – I buy Kleenex in bulk), I share with you some of my favorite 4th quarter meltdowns.

My Favorite Holiday Calamity

Once upon a time, years and years ago, I started a new job as a small BPO Call Center Director during the last week of August. Team of 50. Two clients. Two supervisors. Five days after I started my new exciting job, the company signed a deal with a direct mail catalog company.  The majority of their revenues were received during the 4th quarter. Within 24 hours of hearing this news I knew I needed to go from 50 to 250 FTEs by the 2nd week of November. To 315 by the 2nd week of December. And not just agents. We needed technology, networking, processes, support staff, allll the Holiday call center trimming. We accomplished our main goals. I hired an entire team who I still keep in contact with (so they can verify this horror story). We had a Workforce Manager, a Trainer, a Quality Assurance Department, more supervisors, agents, and a Staffing Agency on board.

So…What could possibly go wrong?

  1. The direct mail company forgot to mention the hundreds of thousands of faxed in orders they would also need us to support. No back order office support anywhere in the contract or SOW.
  2. And some of these faxed orders were from large Fortune 500 companies sending Christmas gifts to ALL of their hundreds of clients. Good old green screen data entry from back in the day…
  3. The call forecasts we were provided by our client were off. By over 40%. ABOVE. Calls in queue and upset customers were commonplace. I heard busy line signals in my sleep.
  4. The call center was in the basement. No windows. Heater broke – and it was 90 degrees on and off for days. We all wore shorts and baseball hats to survive the heat (in the dead of winter outside, of course) and to hide our perpetual bad hair days.

I worked a record 321 hours in 21 days straight. I got home every night and ate a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, apologized to my dogs, and cried. And then got up again and did it all over again. One would ask why, but the BEST memory that made this my FAVORITE 4th quarter story was the fact that I had temporary FTEs and supervisors, that despite the fact they knew at the end of January they wouldn’t have a job with me, worked every single day with me. Side by side. If I worked 16 hours, they worked 17. We laughed, cried, and survived together. And it wasn’t just about their overtime pay. It was about our indomitable spirit that we refused to fail the customer – and our customer was our client, their customers, and each other. It was the 4th quarter where all of my leadership education came to fruition despite the never ending holiday call center nightmare packages we were delivered.

Now I could share other stories…like the time 40% of our 800 volume was pointed to the wrong VDN and my Holiday Orders were going to Sears Appliance Repair. Or the year that we predicted that 20% of our order volume would be ecommerce orders and 80% phone orders.  Well, that year 60% of our orders were internet based. THAT was the year I learned to negotiate with my BPO providers.

But instead of sharing more of mine, I would LOVE to hear some of yours. Don’t be shy – all mistakes are merely stepping stones to successes.

Happy Holidays, and may your queues be managed and your network stable…

Catch 22 - Why Congress Must Modernize the TCPA

by Brian Moore on November 3, 2011 in 2011, Airlines, Banks/Finance, Brian Moore, Call Centers, Compliance, Consumer Svcs, CRM, Industry News, Mortgage, Varolii News, Wireless/Telcom with 4 Comments

catch 22 cover Catch 22 Why Congress Must Modernize the TCPAJoseph Heller does not get enough credit for coining the term "Catch 22". How many authors can claim a phrase that conveys so much meaning in two little words, immediately understood as a shorter yet more eloquent version of "between a rock and a hard place"?

In the book by the same name, Catch 22 was a military rule that said the only way to get out of a dangerous mission was to prove you were insane, but that if you wanted to get out of such a mission, it proved you were sane so you had to go.

While Heller's setting was World War II, he could easily have placed his characters in a more modern setting. Instead of focusing on a military bureaucracy intent on keeping soldiers in perpetual service, he could have written of government regulations that force American businesses to choose between keeping their customers satisfied or breaking the law.

Consider an airline. They are required by the Department of Transportation (DOT-OST-2010-0140) to promptly notify passengers of flight delays at the airport, on their website and on their telephone reservation system. Some airlines try to go the extra mile by proactively notifying passengers using interactive voice messages. But if a passenger provides their cell phone number as their point of contact, the airline would be violating the FCC's rules implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) if they send such a message to a passenger without their prior "express consent". Sounds easy if the ticket is booked on the airline's own website - just add a click box for consent to the check-out process. However, getting consent is not so easy if the flight is booked by an independent travel agent over the phone. Catch 22.

And what about a mortgage servicer? Under Fannie Mae's servicing guidelines, they are required to attempt phone contact with delinquent borrowers every three days. Fannie wants servicers to make every possible effort to assist borrowers in avoiding foreclosure by communicating all the loan modification programs the government has made available. But if the borrower has provided a mobile number (and for 30% of American households, that is the only number they have), in most cases the servicer would be at legal risk if they used automatic dialing technology to make these calls. That's because the original lender failed to obtain the necessary consent when the loan was issued. Catch 22.

I could go on. Prescription refill reminders, credit card fraud alerts, COD package delivery notifications - all good for the consumer, but risky for the business under the current TCPA. That's why a coalition of sixteen business associations ranging from the American Bankers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came together to draft an amendment to the TCPA that has now been sponsored as a bill by a bi-partisan group of congressional representatives.

This week I went to Washington, D.C., to lobby for this bill, HR 3035 "The Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011", the primary intent of which is to remove the distinctions made in the TCPA between landline and mobile service when using "assistive technlogy" (dialers and recorded messages) to communicate with customers for informational, not marketing, purposes.

We may not be flying dangerous missions over well-defended enemy territory when we try to do the right thing by contacting customers with information they need, but we would still have to be insane to keep doing it in the face of our own Catch 22. The only sane thing to do is change the rules.

Why Mobile is Not Just Another Channel

by Mary Cook on October 11, 2011 in 2011, Call Centers, Mary Cook, Mobile, Varolii News with 7 Comments
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Mobile devices have come a long way. However, mobile is not just another channel through which to reach potential customers. Mobile communications can be used as a way of enhancing your multi-channel strategies to gain maximum benefits for your business. That gave me an idea: write about how the unique attributes of smartphones can be leveraged to generate more personal and profitable customer interactions. The inspiration came from a February 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. report, Mobile is Not just Another Channel.

A multi-channel customer experience should be a seamless, unified and connected experience between communication channels. Mobility is a channel that delivers new audiences that may not be found in print, online or in other channels. Mobile communications reach customers in unique ways and deliver unique experiences and they extend existing business services (website, online ordering, in store, etc.). The mobile channel is, in essence, where the “Multi-Channel” customer is headed.

Many companies are using mobile as a way of reaching online shoppers or providing customer service. However, there are other ways to use the mobile channel, especially when you add this channel into your customer experience and multi-channel strategies.

For example, your mobile communication strategy could be a combination of print, online, and mobile communications. In this scenario, mobility can help acquire customers and business that perhaps neither channel is currently capturing alone. I still love reading my Sunday advertisements from my Sunday paper. And of course, I also enjoy shopping on Sunday afternoons on my iPad while watching NFL. A paper advertisement doesn’t drive me to purchase anymore. However, a QR code that I can scan from a paper ad that delivers me a link to more products, information or offering does. So in this example, the QR code helps bring together print and online channels—and all of this is capable by introducing the mobile phone into the mix. You merely create a QR code to be printed in a location. Consumers then scan the QR code and are either directed to your website, a mobile app, or perhaps a special discount is sent to them. So in this example, the mobile channel helps execute your communication strategy more effectively.

Delivering communications to these new mobile audiences can increase revenues because you are giving customers an easy, and in many cases preferred way and reason to access your company.

In order to capture your mobile audience, you also need to appeal to their senses on the mobile application itself. This could mean creating an application that gives them multiple ways to interact with your business. They may be able to buy your products online via their mobile phone. They may be able to make an appointment with you via a mobile application. However you incorporate mobility into your communication strategy will rely completely on you and what your business is all about.

When you use mobile communications as part of your customer experience strategy and you help to drive traffic to your other channels, you are increasing consumer “stickiness.” Mobile pages representing your website can increase shopping on your website as customers now have the opportunity to shop whenever and wherever they are, instead of waiting until they are in front of a computer. The same thing can be said about mobile coupons and other advertising methods. Delivering these things into consumers’ hands while they are out and about can create an immediate impact.

These unique mobile ways of reaching customers can help your company stand out from the crowd. Unique experiences are what will ultimately keep consumers coming back for more because you are giving them something that your competition is not. Mobile services and strategies will continue to evolve, and should be viewed as multi-channel, cross-channel or mobile-only communications, with their sophistication growing over the course of this evolution. As with any other channel, offering mobile services that have the ability to lift consumer satisfaction, loyalty and brand perception just makes good sense.

Interactive Communications and the CRM Puzzle: The Last Mile of CRM

by Kael Kelly on October 10, 2011 in 2011, Call Centers, CRM, Kael Kelly, Wireless/Telcom with 1 Comment
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In the 1990s and 2000s, as broadband networks proliferated, telecommunications service providers struggled with what the industry coined as “the last mile problem.” High bandwidth networks crisscrossed the country, yet mostly narrowband copper wire ran from the Telco central office to the customer’s home. The last mile problem was how to get the customer access to these new, bold, high-speed networks. For the consumer, the situation was like gazing through a store window and seeing the perfect gifts, yet the store was never open.

With customer relationship management (CRM), companies spend billions of dollars each year in CRM software, contact center infrastructure, websites, analytics, and customer service representatives to support customers. They also invest heavily in systems to capture, store and analyze customer data for support and selling activities. Yet, when it comes to customer service, too much of the burden is placed on customers to engage with the companies they do business with. They have to find the information they need, get support, and determine the appropriate course of action. In that sense, CRM has a “last mile” problem, too—how to get relevant, timely information to customers so they engage with the company to solve problems and build tight relationships.

To effectively manage their business relationships, customers must comb through information and support from websites, streams of email and postal mail, inbound contact centers, and retail centers. These customer communication tools are expensive for businesses and often don’t provide an easy way for customers to take action. That is, companies don’t have a way to fully leverage on the information and systems they have where it really matters: communicating with customers in a timely way via their preferred medium. Instead, organizations put the burden of managing the relationship on the customer.

The name of the game in this decade is customer engagement. Companies have to solve this “last mile” problem with smart, effective customer interaction. The great thing about our company is the power of Varolii Interact gives businesses the ability to better engage customers through multi-channel interactions. Not messages, not “blasts,” not spam, not information overload. Rather, highly personalized communications that inform customers and let them take action, including connecting them to an expert or support staff to engage at a different level.

Call Center Book Review

by Mary Cook on October 5, 2011 in 2011, Call Centers, Mary Cook with 1 Comment
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If there’s anyone who knows a thing or two about contact center practices and strategies, it’s Greg Levin.  Voted “Most Likely to Write a Top Selling Ebook on Contact Center Best Practices”, he spent 16 years at ICMI witnessing and learning about the most effective practices with regard to workforce management, quality monitoring, customer satisfaction measurement, customer relationship management, agent hiring and retention, email/chat management, IVR and web self-service, outsourcing, home agents, and a lot more.  His popular ebook, Full Contact: Contact Center Practices and Strategies that Make an Impact, combines comedy with practicality.  His light-hearted approach to the topic has revolutionized the way that contact centers handle their business.

His 145 page book is broken down into seven different chapters and addresses best practices in metrics selection and measurement, agent recruiting and assessment, agent training and development, and agent motivation and retention. There’s also advice about workforce management and staffing, quality monitoring and customer satisfaction management, and e-support, self-service, and social media.  Sample questionnaires, forms, agreements, and articles finish out the ebook and give you the tools that you need to lead your contact center to success.

Easy to follow and written in a language that you can understand, Levin explains the importance of educating new hires and reminding existing agents about the meaning and importance of adherence, reducing burn-out by encouraging agents to take longer breaks, involving agents in the scheduling process so they get the time off that they deserve, and coming up with new and creative ways to make the job more enjoyable.  By making the contact center employee accountable, he explains that, “agents are human beings, at least in most contact centers, and thus need to be treated as such when it comes to measuring and 'enforcing' adherence to a schedule.”  He also notes that, “merely telling agents that they need to be in their seats at certain times 'or else' will do little to foster agent buy‐in and commitment, and a lot to foster agent graffiti and arson.”

Levin also talks about “taking hiring by the horns” by always being on the lookout for exceptional individuals who would shine in a contact center environment.  He states that, “typically, an agent hunt does not involve the use of any weapons or camouflaged clothing, but if that’s what it takes to build your frontline dream team, then so be it.  I’m not here to judge.”  The ebook helps identify your ideal agent and states that there are 8 Elements of a Successful Agent Recruiting Program.  Equally important is the “very long engagement” period that it takes to win over and retain agents.

A resource worth checking out, Levin’s Full Contact: Contact Center Practices and Strategies that Make an Impact is a must-have in all contact centers.  If you want to change the way that you do business, you’ll learn a few tips and tricks by reading this ebook.  I’ve gotten acquainted with it and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Personalization Pays Off - Part 2

by Brian Moore on September 8, 2011 in 2011, Brian Moore, Call Centers, Consumer Svcs, Varolii News, Wireless/Telcom with No comments

When communicating with customers, does personalization  matter? Can you expect a return for the effort and expense of recognizing your customers as individuals?

In Personalization Pays Off - Part 1, we discussed the tension between your customer's desire for personal treatment and your company's need to keep costs low by delivering products and services that are essentially the same for large segments of your customer base.

Striking a proper balance between these two competing forces is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction and company profitability.

Whole books have been devoted to this topic; I'm not trying to boil that particular ocean here.

That said, there are a few practical adjustments to "business as usual" you can make that will pay for themselves by improving customer loyalty, lowering operational costs and driving better business performance:

  • Track and act on customer's explicit and implicit preferences. An example of an explicit preference is a customer request that communications be in a language other than English; an implicit preference might be inferred from the fact that they only answer your calls between 10AM and 2PM.
  • Provide time saving conveniences to reward customers who choose to self-serve. Offer to securely store their bank or credit card account information when they make a phone or online payment so they don't have to enter it again next time. Also, configure self-service menus on web pages or IVRs to provide easier access to previously used functions.
  • Look for any and every opportunity to treat customers as individuals. Start by using their name, not their account number, when you greet them. Reference the name of the unique product or service they are using. Be specific about account status, including reference to any recent conversations, payments and purchases - all the better to prove you are talking to them about their unique situation.

The importance of this last point is hard to overstate, particularly when you are automating communications via interactive voice messaging, SMS text or email. Personalization helps cut through the noise in these channels, allowing your message to stand-out as timely, relevant and respectful.

Consider the following experiment we ran with a wireless carrier (I'll call them XYZ Mobile) who uses interactive voice messages to encourage their prepaid subscribers to "top up" their accounts by making an immediate payment. In this experiment, the target customers were randomly assigned to either group A or group B. The only difference between the messages delivered to the two groups was in the greeting - Group A were asked to confirm they were owner of the assigned phone number, while Group B were greeted by name:

• Version A

“Hi. This is XYZ Mobile calling for the owner of <206-555-1212>. Press any key to continue.

• Version B

“This is XYZ Mobile with an important reminder.  If this is <Brian Moore>, press 1.  Otherwise, press 2."

Which do you think got better results?

If you said the one that asked for the customer by name instead of by number, you're right! Over three quarters more customers indicated they were the right party and almost two-times as many topped up their accounts in direct response to the interactive voice message in Version B than in Version A:

Greeting Test2 Personalization Pays Off Part 2

Needless to say, our client concluded the experiment by treating 100% of their accounts with Version B, no doubt with a nod to Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

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