Analytics
“The science of analysis” or how an entity (i.e., business) arrives at an optimal or realistic decision based on existing data.
Why isn’t your customer experience program a top priority?
You probably made your customer experience program a top priority five short months ago when you sat down to make your New Year’s resolutions for your contact centers. Let’s do a gut check…did the priority to better your customer experience program fall by the way side just like your resolution of a smaller waistline? I’m sure that your intentions were noble but the hectic day-to-day of running your contact centers can easily get in the way of your long-range goals. There’s still time to redirect your focus back to your goals.
According to a recent CustomerManagementIQ survey, nearly 76% of the customer management executives and leaders rated customer experience a ‘5’ on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being of the highest importance). Could those executives and leaders be your competitors? It’s very likely. All the more reason customer experience and a revision of your Voice of the Customer (VoC) program should be a ‘5’ on your list too. Once customer experience is your highest priority and you are ready to get to work, where should you start? Who owns the customer experience?
While in my opinion everyone should own the customer experience in some way, for the purpose of this piece let’s focus on how the contact center contributes to the customer experience. Think about how the contact center is responsible for many of the touch points and has influence over many other touch points. So the contact center can own the voice of the customer. The easiest place to start in building a customer experience program from the ground up, or revamping your current one is with post-call IVR surveys. Continue reading “Why isn’t your customer experience program a top priority?” »
Does your current post-call IVR survey prevent collecting multiple customer comments?
“Does your current post-call IVR survey prevent you from collecting multiple customer comments?” is one of the 26 items outlined in the 25 Mistakes to Avoid with Post-call IVR Surveys e-book and self-assessment. There’s a bonus item to make the total 26. Answer the diagnostic assessment questions to uncover issues with your own post-call survey program. You can even use it to build a program that exceeds all expectations. Customer Relationship Metrics has documented the common mistakes we have seen since inventing and providing post-call IVR surveying programs in contact centers 20 years ago. To fulfill one of our missions to better the contact center industry, we freely provide the insights we have learned to everyone.
Why is this a problem?
The act of “collecting” customer feedback with a post-call IVR survey is not extremely difficult. This is part of the problem. It is not uncommon for contact center managers to fulfill the requirement to have a customer feedback tool by activating some software module to collect the data. Turn it on and the data starts to pour in, right? Like every other area in your contact center, you have too much useless data accumulating. Well, that is true and there are 25 other points in this self-assessment to stop garbage data coming from your post-call IVR survey program. Continue reading “Does your current post-call IVR survey prevent collecting multiple customer comments?” »
Does your VoC program take a shortcut and skip Survey Calibration?
If your data goes directly to the reporting platform from collection without survey calibration then expect your final Voice of the Customer (VoC) program to be riddled with erroneous information. Every post-call IVR survey needs to be evaluated in a survey calibration process because there are always occurrences of the customer not answering the questions correctly or a different agent being evaluated than the one to which the survey is attached. Across the programs we administer, there are hundreds of surveys each month that need to be adjusted to ensure the results are accurate. “I know you want me to review agent A, but I’m actually upset with agent B so I want to tell you about what he said to me when I called last week.” If one inaccurate survey makes it onto an agent’s report card, it’s easy to see how the trust in the feedback program will be undermined. Continue reading “Does your VoC program take a shortcut and skip Survey Calibration?” »
The customer expectation will damage your brand.
Recently two highly-publicized customer expectations lawsuits have been in the news; one for Anheuser-Busch misrepresenting the alcohol content in a variety of its beers and the other with Subway’s foot-long sandwiches for coming up short. In both cases the customer expectations were clearly set and advertised (Subway’s $5 foot-long sandwich deal and Anheuser-Busch light beers with the alcohol content of higher calorie brands). In both cases, expectations were so blatantly under-served that customer dissatisfaction went through the roof, the customer experience went in the toilet, and now both brands are dealing with multimillion dollar lawsuits and a serious image problem.
Continue reading “The customer expectation will damage your brand.” »
Hidden Risks with Post-Call IVR Surveying Stealth Mode
Many think post-call IVR survey programs must be conducted in stealth mode (sometimes referred to as automated transfer). Some contact center leaders and technology personnel say it’s necessary to prevent agents from being able to manipulate or game the system. They fear that agents would otherwise prevent complaining customers from getting to the post-call survey by only sending the happy callers that are likely to give them higher scores. They conclude that this risk is too high and that the only way to eliminate this risk is by conducting post-call IVR surveys in stealth mode. Ironic but, there is risk in buying into that risk assessment!
If you are wondering what’s stealth mode, here is an explanation that provides a good high-level understanding. post-call IVR surveying case studies
Web Experience Survey Mistake #1 – Trying to Measure WAY too much!
My bank sent me a survey invitation after I logged into my account to review my mortgage. I was happy to click on the survey link to discuss my satisfaction with the online experience. After about 6 minutes of clicking through the pages of questions, I had to give up. Time to respond to the survey would take longer than the time I spent on the website.
Given my occupation and obsessive desire to measure customer experiences, I probably stuck with this survey longer than many other customers. Do not try to get all of your customer experience intelligence all at once from one customer experience survey. This is difficult to remember when everyone in the organization has a need for customer intelligence. Continue reading “Web Experience Survey Mistake #1 – Trying to Measure WAY too much!” »
Customer Relationship Metrics’ Most Comical Contact Center Stories
Sometimes it’s good to take a break from the serious, so let’s look back at some of our funniest stories. Wild, 10+ hour customer experience calls, dissatisfied customers completely destroying brick-and-mortar stores, customer service terrorists going on multi-social channel rants — these are just some of our most shockingly true and amusing stories, and we hope you agree. They just have to make you laugh (what else can you do). Do you have a customer experience story or an outlandish customer comment that is laugh-out-loud ridiculous like those below? Tweet us @crmetrics and tell us all about it!
- Man destroys T-Mobile store with fire extinguisher - In Manchester, England a T-Mobile customer learned he would not get a refund. He chose not to take his case to social media, instead he destroyed the store and used a fire extinguisher to spray the place. Continue reading “Customer Relationship Metrics’ Most Comical Contact Center Stories” »
Post-call IVR surveys: the key to call center process improvement
The only effective way to capture the Voice of the Customer (VoC) is through post-call IVR surveys, where results are able to tap into the genuine experiences customers have with a product or service. The knowledge shared by the customer, and thereby gained and analyzed by the company, can lead to powerful change for the future improvement of the business. When executed well, post-call IVR surveys are the single greatest tool at determining customer pain and propelling businesses toward positive customer experience process improvement.
Most call center managers can agree that post-call IVR surveying is important, but many surveys fail in practice, first with the types of questions asked, and second with the length of the survey. Remember our discussion of market researchers versus customer experience analysts? Continue reading “Post-call IVR surveys: the key to call center process improvement” »
The Best of Knuggets and Knuckleheads: Post-call IVR Surveys
You know that capturing post-call customer feedback is critical to your business. It allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of the customer, uncover problem products, agent issues, service faults and organizational barriers. Additionally, it reveals the positive in what is working, who is performing at high levels and quantifies how the customer experience translates into customer satisfaction and loyalty. If you are not getting these things, you are missing it. You may think that your customers are inconvenienced by being asked to participate in a post-call IVR survey. If done correctly, they will not be.
As you know, Customer Relationship Metrics conducts free Customer Insights to Action assessments on post-call IVR survey programs. Many of those who take advantage of this service do so because their current customer experience measurement program is not yielding information that can be used for driving process improvements inside the contact center and for the enterprise. Continue reading “The Best of Knuggets and Knuckleheads: Post-call IVR Surveys” »
2012 Year in Review: Top 10 Post-call IVR Survey Mistakes
It’s that time of year again when we all begin to reflect on the past year and make resolutions about the things we want to change in the coming year. I hope you are as excited as I am about all the possibilities the new year could bring.
Many organizations are doing things right. And we celebrate them. But the majority will get a lump of coal in their stocking because of their mismanaged Customer Experience measurement programs.
While the Chinese Zodiac tells us it will be the Year of the Snake, let’s proclaim 2013 to be the Year of Customer Experience Transformation! Continue reading “2012 Year in Review: Top 10 Post-call IVR Survey Mistakes” »
You cannot skip Survey Calibration in your customer experience VoC programs.
Customer experience data is powerful if you know how to unlock its valuable insights and make it actionable. If your organization wants to gain employee and company engagement, and create customer-centric environments, then it is critical to use survey calibration in your Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs.
When you are looking at specific customer experience performance metrics for call center agents, and you are sifting through piles of post-call survey scores and customer comments, you start to see that customers aren’t necessarily answering the questions correctly. It’s not uncommon to see that even though a customer was asked to rate one agent, they may opt to give a comment about another customer interaction entirely. I can’t tell you how many times when reviewing client data I see, “I know you want me to review Tom, but I’m actually upset with Mary so I want to tell you about what she said to me when I called last week.” Continue reading “You cannot skip Survey Calibration in your customer experience VoC programs.” »
Obama Wins and a big data lesson for the customer experience
Analytics predicted an Obama win, and it’s a Big Data lesson for all customer experience and contact center professionals.
Before the votes were cast, New York Times blogger Nate Silver predicted, with 90%+ confidence, that Obama would win the election. He did this while billions of dollars were spent on old methods of people calling me, people knocking on my door, and outbound IVRs calling me all day long. Seriously, I was beginning to think all of that money was spent on me. I am so glad this is over; I can get some productive time back. Whew! Continue reading “Obama Wins and a big data lesson for the customer experience” »
The research proves it…we cannot wait to measure the customer experience.
A 2002 Harvard Business Review article stated that after a year, customers who were surveyed regarding satisfaction with a service interaction (with a financial institution) were more than three times as likely to open a NEW account, less than half as likely to defect and were more profitable than consumers who had not been surveyed (Dholakia & Morwitz, 2002). The only difference between the two groups was that one was surveyed and one was not; neither group received any direct marketing from the company during the year. The impact of surveying customers was shown to be profound due to the customers’ desire to be acknowledged by the company; the company also remains top-of-mind when product choices are made, simply because the process of asking a consumer’s opinion allows people the opportunity to think about your products and services that otherwise may not occur (Dholakia & Morwitz, 2002). Continue reading “The research proves it…we cannot wait to measure the customer experience.” »
Emotional decisions will cost you thousands without Customer Experience Analytics
It is human nature to make emotional decisions based on nothing more than a reaction to a feeling, even if it is irrational. In business, emotional decisions made every day without thorough customer experience analysis to support them is costing you tens of thousands of wasted dollars. How do you know you are making emotional decisions? If someone had directed you to make a change or has imposed a goal and a customer experience analyst has not verified the accuracy of such, it’s a clue that it’s an emotional decision. Continue reading “Emotional decisions will cost you thousands without Customer Experience Analytics” »
Innovations in Mystery Calling would excite Sherlock Holmes
If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were alive today, he would have written a story for Sherlock Holmes that would cause everybody in the world to rethink mystery calling for call center interactions.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote fifty-six short stories and four novels about Sherlock Holmes. The first was published in 1887. In my opinion, Sherlock Holmes was the first Crime Scene Investigator (CSI). His use of forensic skills and logical reasoning were on the revolutionary edge and were used to solve very difficult cases. Continue reading “Innovations in Mystery Calling would excite Sherlock Holmes” »
