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Whitepaper: Service and Support, Made to Measure
Using Analytics to build a Roadmap to Success
Traditionally, measuring support operations has been straightforward. Shorter hold times are better; higher abandonment rates are worse.
Adding knowledge management to case management makes service and support harder to measure. For example, how many articles should be written? As anyone who has waded through an overgrown, under-maintained knowledgebase can tell you, more content is not better, unless each article is a high quality, unique, findable, usable solution that answers a question users really ask. It's difficult to know what the right amount of content is in advance.
There's no simple trick to using metrics to optimize today's increasingly complex service and support operations. But, in conjunction with our customers, we've developed five measurement principles that lead to success.
Read the free white paper now.
New IBM Service Plays Real-Time Matchmaker In Call Centers
IBM announced a new service which uses advanced analytics to match a caller with the optimal customer service representative (CSR) in real-time. IBM has collaborated with specialty insurance provider Assurant Solutions, part of Assurant, Inc. Using techniques invented and patented by Assurant, RAMP combines data about the individual customer with each contact center agent's specific skills, expertise and past performance to optimize the routing of calls. IBM Global Business Services consultants designed a "matching-engine" which leverages this combination of customer insight, agent profiles and real-time analytics to provide “individual-level” decisioning and assignment of calls not available in most contact centers applications.
Calabrio Unveils Industry's First Software-based Contact Center Suite in Web 2.0 Framework
Calabrio, Inc., a provider of customer interaction and contact center management software, introduced Calabrio One, a software-based contact center suite to deliver workforce optimization (WFO) applications in a Web 2.0 framework. New applications in the framework include Calabrio Call Recording 8.0 and Calabrio Quality Management 8.0, which provide application widgets for call monitoring, call recording, quality management, and performance management dashboards and reports.
Envision Telephony Unveils Browser-Based Envision Workforce Management with Centricity 10.0
Envision Telephony, Inc., a provider of workforce optimization (WFO) solutions for the contact center, announced the launch of a completely new version of Envision Workforce Management, an easy to use scheduling, forecasting and staff adherence solution built to simplify the complexities of managing contact center personnel and activities. Envision Workforce Management enables contact centers to enhance customer service while minimizing operational costs by constantly maintaining an optimal level of skills-based staffing based on the specific service level agreements and key objectives of the organization. The product is highly scalable and flexible to meet the needs of centralized, multi-site and remote agent centers. Because Envision Workforce Management is completely Web-based, it can be accessed 24x7 from anywhere, and easily supports multiple time zones.
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SupportIndustry.com Research Insight: First Contact Resolution
The results of SupportIndustry.com 1-minute survey are in! We tackled the topic of First Contact Resolution, and we want to thank the nearly 100 people who participated.
We took the results and created a SupportIndustry.com Research Insight on the topic of First Contact Resolution, which found that 59.7% of support professionals responding indicated their company currently measures FCR.
"Show Me the Value," Say Recession-Weary Consumers
The late '90s mantra of "Show me the money" has morphed into "Show me the value," reflecting a new focus by consumers hungry for value in all its forms, according to Convergys' recently completed 2010 Consumer Scorecard Research study. Recession-weary U.S. consumers want the companies with which they do business to value them, value their time, value their money, and value their preferences, say the study findings.
Results from Convergys' second annual consumer research study demonstrate that the recession has increased consumer demand for excellence in customer service. 46% of the study respondents reported that they are worse off than they were a year ago, and the key word for today's consumers is "value:"
Value my time: Consumers continue to expect superior customer service experiences, with 33% of survey respondents choosing "addresses my needs on first contact" as the top customer service attribute, up slightly from the 2008 pre-recession research. Since they are key to first-contact resolution, "knowledgeable employees" also ranked high, chosen by 25% of consumers as the third most important customer service attribute, up from 22% in 2008.
Value my money: Recession-weary consumers are not just looking for the lowest cost but the best value in their customer transactions. 31% of survey respondents chose "good value for the money" as the second most important customer service attribute, up significantly from 2008. 33% of respondents rated reliable service as more important than price in their definition of what constitutes "good value for money." Only 5% of customers defined good value as "paying the lowest price."
Value me: "Treats me like a valued customer" was the fourth most important attribute, cited by 22% of survey respondents, up from 13% in 2008 and the fastest growing attribute of choice for consumers who want positive acknowledgment from the companies that win their business.
Value my preferences: Survey respondents' contact channel preferences point to an increasing need for multiple customer care solutions that combine agent-assisted service with automation and self-service options. While consumers still prefer to speak with a customer service agent, customer service via self-service, live web chat, automated phone systems, and e-mail with response is also gaining traction.
Despite consumers' clear preferences for value and efficient issue resolution, bad customer experiences continue to frustrate consumers, 57% of whom reported having a bad experience with a company, up slightly from 2008. In response, today's value-minded consumer is more likely to speak with his or her wallet: 44% of the survey respondents who had a bad experience reported that they stopped doing business with that company, up from 38% in 2008.
Those who stay are more likely to seek and expect resolution from a company when they do not receive the service and value they expect. Survey respondents reported that they informed companies of their bad experiences 66% of the time, up from 58% in 2008.
Companies that were not equipped to resolve or respond to customer complaints paid the price in customer defections. 57% of survey respondents who reported a bad experience and did not receive a response from the company stopped doing business with the offending party, as did 50% of respondents who received a response without resolution.
80% of survey respondents who had a bad experience with a company also told their friends and colleagues about it, spreading the word through face-to-face chats, e-mails, text messages, and social media, which has immense power to amplify the voice of the frustrated consumer widely among a company's customers and potential customers.
More...
IDC Survey Finds Broad Satisfaction with Software Support Services Offered by Large Enterprise Application Vendors
A recent International Data Corporation (IDC) survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals worldwide found a high level of satisfaction with the software support services offered by five of the largest enterprise application vendors. The small differences in the average satisfaction scores among these vendors indicate that software support services remains a highly competitive market.
Software support services play an important role in maximizing the performance and reliability of the mission-critical applications that most enterprises have come to rely on for their day-to-day operations. Yet organizations often underestimate the importance of support services when evaluating which applications to purchase and implement.
Most enterprise software vendors recognize that the customer support experience is a crucial element of client satisfaction and retention. To meet the varying needs of their customers, support providers typically offer at least three levels of support services -- and some offer significantly more than that.
When the survey's average overall satisfaction scores were ranked, HP came out on top followed by Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM. The vendors that ranked highest in overall satisfaction also received higher satisfaction scores for the individual features of their support services offering.
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Complaints to Better Business Bureau Up Nearly 10 percent in 2009
According to an annual report released today by Better Business Bureau, consumer complaints to the organization increased by 9.7 percent in 2009. Not only did BBB receive nearly 1 million complaints filed by disgruntled customers last year, consumers turned to the non-profit more than 65 million times for help researching businesses across North America.
The cell phone industry received the largest number of complaints in 2009 with 37,477, a 2.1 percent increase over last year. The cable & satellite TV industry ranked second with 32,616 complaints, an 8.7 percent increase over the previous year. Rounding out the top three, banks received 29,920 complaints, a 42.3 percent increase over the previous year.
While the cell phone industry, cable & satellite TV industry and banks received a high volume of complaints, two of the three industries saw improvements in their resolution rates over the previous year. Cell phone companies resolved 97.4 percent of complaints; the cable & satellite TV industry resolved 97.2 percent. The resolution rate by banks declined slightly to 95.2 percent.
More...
Software doesn't build relationships; people do
One of the things on many people agree strongly on is the assertion that many of the IT failures, that at first appear to be technology related at their core, are in fact people-related. It's a complex topic, that deserves far more attention but if you are embarking on a customer-centric transformation these are some of the people-factors you should be considering.
Full Article...
"For a Happy Customer, Please Press 1"
We've all been there -- it's midnight and you realize you need to pay a bill, find out what time a store opens or check the status of an order. There was a time when you'd have to tie a string to your finger to remember to call the next day during "regular business hours." But no longer. Interactive voice response (IVR) has created a 24/7/365 contact center agent who doesn't take breaks, works every holiday and can help multiple customers at a time -- without any payroll. By integrating IVR effectively with your CRM tool, not only can you improve the quality of your customer interactions but also lower overhead by reducing the number of calls received by your agents as well as reducing agent burnout that often occurs when handling menial calls. Before you implement self-service IVR, however, there are a few tips for optimizing the project and avoiding common pitfalls.
Full Article...
Metrics Can Lead In the Wrong Direction
Is it really possible to use measurement -- or "metrics," in the current parlance -- to drive an organization? There are two points of view, one widely accepted and current, the other opposing and more abstract. The conventional wisdom on performance management is that our technology is perfectly capable of providing detailed, current and relevant performance information to stakeholders in an enterprise. Because we are blessed with abundant computing resources, connectivity, bandwidth and even standards, it is possible to present this information in cognitively effective ways. But there is an argument against measurement, too. People often come up with ingenious ways to distort measurement systems. Thus, metrics can not only discourage desired behavior; they can promote dysfunctional behavior.
Full Article...
10 Ways Organizations Can Cut Costs With IT Asset Management
Even though IT budgets are on the rebound, most organizations are still under pressure to further reduce operational costs. You may have already taken steps to consolidate and rationalize your IT assets, but chances are there are still savings to be found by improving the way you manage those assets. According to Forrester Research, an enterprise's IT estate can often account for 50 percent of the total enterprise asset base and sometimes as much as 80 percent of capital expenditure. For organizations to cut costs and improve asset management practices, IT organizations should keep these 10 things in mind.
Full Article...
When CRM Isn't Enough
The ability to engage with customers comes through understanding each one's various needs and motivations. As business and markets have evolved, CRM systems began filling the relationship gap with customers, unifying the organization's knowledge of the individual customer, allowing company agents to understand the pertinent details of that customer. But what has become obvious is that customer insight is not enough. It is imperative to be able to define actions -- or, more to the point, interactions -- with customers that are personalized for each individual within the context of the relationship.
Full Article...
8 Things We Hate About IT: How to Move Beyond the Frustrations to Form a New Partnership with IT
by Susan Cramm
How to build a relationship that puts you firmly in control and produces the business results you need? In The 8 Things We Hate About IT, Susan Cramm provides the answers. Start by understanding differences between operational and IT managers - in backgrounds, personality, pressures, and incentives. Cramm explains how differences prevent operational managers and IT from communicating what, why, and how they do what they do.
Brutally honest, provocative, and filled with sound advice, this book reveals that the key to solving the IT problem is decidedly un-IT: it's a deeper understanding of human behavior, including how to apply your leadership skills to the world of IT.
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2010 Service and Support Technology Showcase Now Available
SupportIndustry.com has released the 2010 version of our Service & Support Technology Showcase. This in-depth buyer's guide features the latest tools and technologies in the support services industry that enable support operations to deliver superior customer service. To view the listings,click here...
Visit the SupportIndustry.com Blog
The SupportIndustry.com Blog is another way stay on top of the service and support industry. Our blog, updated at least once a week, is dedicated to covering the latest topics related to service and support, call center management, customer experience management, web-based support, help desks, workforce optimization and more.
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