Efficiency and Customer Service – The Balancing Act

Have you seen the commercial where some doctors and nurses are gathered intensely around an operating table and the patient is all prepped but they are all just standing there waiting for something? Finally another doctor comes dashing into the room, skillfully observes the environment and cautiously approaches the operating table. The doctor reaches to the brightly polished tray of exquisite medical instruments and slowly passes his hand above each implement searching for the right tool. He stops his hand, reaches for a tool and picks up… a cell phone. He dials. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. “Hello and welcome to the medical operation help line.” answers and extremely friendly lady. Then she proceeds “Please listen carefully because our menu options have changed. For kidney removal, press 1 or say ‘kidneys’ now. For open heart surgery, press 2 or say ‘open heart’ now.” So they haven’t made this commercial yet, but I’m sure that someone will after they read this article.

Customer service is being attack from all sides lately. Advertisements, similar to the one described above, and the ‘IVR Cheat Sheets’ demand customers are able to talk directly to agents as soon as they call into a business. This forces companies to think about the level of service they provide. Customer service departments also have to deal with the ever-dangerous PL (Profit and Loss) dragon. I can hear one of my old managers now, “Every group is a PL unit.” How do organizations balance amazing customer experience and the looming demand to keep expenses low or at least in control?

Automation – The Necessary ‘Evil’?

For many businesses automation is a necessary ‘evil’. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) have been getting a bad rap lately. Have you thought about why? Maybe it is because there are some very bad IVRs out there. Some IVRs do not give customers the option to talk to a live person at any point during the call.

Call Containment! Completing more transactions inside of the automated ‘agent’ will increase the ROI (Return On Investment) of the expensive robotic person (the IVR) and faster ROI looks really good to the PL managers. Striving to increase the number of calls that are complete with in the IVR is a good thing, but this has to be balanced to meet the needs of the customers.

Mega Menus! How many times have you listened to all of the menu options and forgotten which one you were supposed to choose? Or do you now, as soon as your hear the option you think is right, hover your finger above that number so you do not forget?

No Options! The task you need to complete wasn’t even an option so you listen to the menu a few times and then just guess. It will be some time before an IVR will be able to help explain how to read a statement and to work through a billing dispute. There are countless issues with the automated gatekeepers of customer service but is there another side to this story or are they all bad?

What are the qualities of a good IVR? From a customer’s viewpoint, a good IVR will allow customers to quickly and easily access information, perform transactions and allow them to transfer to an agent. For example: access their account checking account balance, verify order status, pay their mortgage, or possibly even get open heart surgery instructions. Companies rely on IVRs to decrease the amount of calls agents are required to handle, decrease the total talk time per conversation, and identify and authenticate the customers. A good IVR combines the customer’s needs and the company’s needs, mixed with best practices to create a user-friendly system that saves the company money on every call.

Good IVR solutions require hard work and expertise. Contact centers have dedicated resources that constantly evaluate people, skills, training, schedules, SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and many other facets to try to increase the effectiveness. Few companies dedicate a fraction of that time to analyze how customers interact with the IVR and seek to understand how the system can be improved. Improvements can be a simple as changing the options on the main menu or more complex solutions that implement speech recognition. IVRs are only as good as the amount of expended effort. Good systems require a continued effort, working to make your customers happy.

The Right Agent the First Time

The goal of the IVR is to automate as many contacts as possible. But when a customer needs to talk with a person the system should transfer the customer to the right agent the first time. Some companies only have one product or service and customers can talk to anyone in the entire company to get the assistance they need. But in the real world most companies have many different products and services in multiple locations around the country or the world. Hiring and training employees is a major investment and the biggest cost of nearly every contact center. Your business is unique. Every business is unique. To make sure your customers talk to the right agent requires complex business rules that model how you do business today. This logic can use system information such as the number the customer dialed, the phone number they are dialing from, time of the day and many other system variables. The system can also prompt the customer for information. (Oh no, more automation!) Obviously, the most effective way to know whom the customer needs to talk to is to ask them.

But how do these systems transfer customers to the exact person that a customer needs to talk to? What if the customer speaks Japanese? What if the call is about the newest product that was only released in Canada? And what if this customer has a platinum membership with the company? Interaction management systems allow companies to create complex scenarios that map directly to how companies do business with their customers. Each agent can be designated with specific skills so they only receive calls that they have all skills and tools to properly help the customer. This is perfect for companies that have millions of Japanese speaking Canadian customers that spend thousands of dollars every year on the latest gadgets. This is perfect for almost any scenario actually.

Can I Get Your Account Number?

The most frustrating experience for a customer is to go all the way through the IVR system, answer a million prompts, wait in queue to talk to an available representative and finally talk to an agent that immediately asks “Can I get your account number?” Why do companies force you to input all of that information and then not share it with the agent? That is a complete waste of time for the customers and the agents.

CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) is the technology that bridges this gap. CTI takes the information gathered by the system and then passes it to the agent as the call is transferred. The agent can see who the customer is, where they are calling from, what information they are calling about, and can even be tied into other systems to reference the customers entire history with the company. Huge ROI.

Cell Phones, Emails, Web Chat, and FAX – Oh My

Customers are so demanding and if it’s not one thing it another. Pretty soon call you on the phone won’t be enough. They will want to send you a FAX, expect you to reply to emails and maybe even chat with you. Customers expect the same level of service from companies no matter how they contact the company. And to make things even worse if a customer has a great experience on the phone, but a horrible experience via email the experience they will always remember and tell all their friends and people they meet on the street is the horrible experience they had. Trust is a difficult thing to build back with a customer that has had a bad experience.

Some interaction management systems, such as Syntellect’s, allow companies to build custom business logic that encapsulates how to handle any type of inquiry from a customer. This is commonly referred to as a Universal Queue. Agents can be assigned to work with any combination of these contacts, even all of them for the super agents. Syntellect’s system allows the agent to use a single interface to handle all of the different interactions.

Cookie Cutters are Great for Cookies

Companies are often looking for a “packaged” solution that will solve all of their problems. Plug it in, turn it on and poof… instant happy customers. Everyone wishes it worked that way but it does not.

What does work? Flexible solutions that can be customized to meet your existing business processes and that can easily changed as your needs change. Scalable, modular solutions that allow you to easily add features. Open solutions that leverage existing IT investments. Solutions that can be shared across multiple business groups and provide complete independent solutions, and yet share platform and support costs. Future proofed solutions that are dedicated to open standards and provide upgrade paths that don’t involve forklifts. Committed, experienced vendors that will partner with you for the long haul and are committed to help you reach your destination.