by Rob van Herpen | February 26, 2019
How often have you contacted customer service and received a generalistic, completely useless response? Even though you clearly described the problem, included the troubleshooting steps you already took and even indicated potential causes for the problem you are facing?
In this article, I’ll provide you with five tips to shape your customer service organization in such a way that you can prevent your customers from experiencing exactly this.
Nowadays, there is an abundance of information available online to troubleshoot issues, either on the company’s website or forums. Technology is enabling us to solve issues faster and in some cases even proactively. However, in practice, very few companies are really utilizing their options properly. Why? I’m tempted to say that this is mostly caused by a lack of critical thinking.
As always, there is not one single cause, but critical thinking is the kickstarter of innovation in customer service. You need people who like to challenge the status quo, and continuously ask themselves: why are we doing things the way we do?
During my 12-year career in customer service (and well before that when I was working in a bar/restaurant) I was often that guy that asked questions, and wanted to change things for one single reason: improve the way we service our customers. Now, many years later, I still love to surround myself by critical thinkers. I’m also very lucky to be part of an organization where critical thinking is deeply rooted in the DNA of the company, so it’s easy to keep up.
Looking at Customer Experience, it is important to be consistent and offer customers a smooth experience in the entire customer journey. Customer service plays an important role, and it’s an area in which there’s still an awful lot to gain.
These are my five practical tips to shape your customer service organization in a way that supports critical thinking.
Technology enables us to improve self-service and provide support reps with all relevant information at their fingertips. Issues that make it through to a support rep become more complex and therefore need a more customized approach. Many customer service teams still rely on “script-based thinkers”: one-trick ponies who are trained to send out a ton of ticket replies based on templates with faked empathy. Instead, hire smart, critical thinkers: they may not be support reps for life, but take less time to get up to speed, and moreover: they’ll voice their concerns and come up with ideas. There’s no better source of information than the agents who answer inquiries every day! They may come at a higher hourly rate than the traditional support rep, but this will pay off on the long term.
Many companies still try to build up multilingual teams in one, often low-cost location. Reality is that this is a mission impossible, and I can vouch for this from my own experience. You often end up accepting mediocrity as your applicant pool is simply too small. Now, there are few companies that can afford the luxury of having teams located in different locations, simply because the volume and budget does not justify it. However, with the rise of remote workers, things have become a lot easier. Working remotely is increasingly popular and enables you to cherry-pick profiles in the location of your choice. Finding critical thinkers with the right skill set is now suddenly attainable for everyone, as long as you have the right set-up in place to manage remote workers. If you don’t, there are more and more outsourcing companies that can help.
A good Knowledge Base and integrated access to information from relevant third party systems are crucial. I still see too many companies struggling in this area. Action is taken ad-hoc, articles are not kept up to date and are badly tagged, so reps have difficulties finding the right information. Reps need to look up account or billing information in separate browser windows or applications. Moreover, if you aim to use AI/NLP technology to improve self-service and automation, well-organized content is a must. Assigning someone to be the owner of all support-related content is a good start.
Not only is it important to have critical thinkers in every layer of your customer service organization, the ability to do something with their feedback is obviously just as important. Nothing is worse to have people coming up with ideas and suggestions without the ability to act upon it. Making someone responsible for innovation is a strong recommendation. A single point of contact for people to submit ideas. Someone who aligns with relevant departments and manages a change process from start to end. Next to this, it pays off to reward people who come up with good ideas. Not with money, but recognition. If you want innovation to be really embedded in your organization, people need to feel proud of the things they have come up with.
Customer service teams often use a variety of different tools and systems. Ticketing systems usually come with built-in analytics, but in my experience, the available dashboards/reports are often too limited and don’t show what you need. Also, if you offer support in different channels, it’s crucial to be able to create insights across all these channels, instead of treating them as separate silos. What my organization started doing years ago, is setting up our own data warehouse which consolidates data from different systems and uses a flexible visualization tool for reporting, which has given us a real advantage in the industry. Once you have centralized reporting in place, the challenge is to get the right information out. Here critical thinking plays an important role again. Ask your data team the right questions, brainstorm about issues, all with one goal: how can we improve our service offering in the benefit of our customers?
I’m 100% convinced that Customer Experience is the new marketing, in line with CX experts like Shep Hyken. Luckily perception is slowly changing, and more and more brands start investing in CX. My advice to them: make sure you have critical thinkers in place. They’ll make the difference.
Rob is Chief Customer Officer at 5CA, responsible for everything related to our clients and always thinking of how we can optimize our customer experience. He’s located in sunny California, where he heads up 5CA’s USA offices. Most of his free time is spent on his wife and kids, but he can also be found frequently in the gym and enjoys cooking a good meal.
It’s never been more important to update your CX strategy for e-stores. Read our blog to learn the seven CX trends we predict will take off in 2021.
After the events of 2020, it’s no surprise that the whole world is gaming longer and harder than it ever has before. Mobile gaming in particular has had a stellar year, as millions of us have turned to our phones to stave off lockdown boredom.
Gaming is the world’s #1 lifestyle choice, played by more people than any other form of entertainment. We’ve had a ringside seat for its evolution, working hand-in-hand with our clients to support their customers as they enter huge, new immersive worlds.
The times, they are a-most-definitely-changing. As seasoned CX veterans know, plenty of the received wisdoms of third-party contact center management have received something of a battering over the last few years.
If you were not able to attend “CX Strategy: What now?”, our panel debate from last week, then here it is. An insightful, thought-provoking hour with industry gurus Mark Hillary, Stephen Loynd, Peter Ryan and our own Robert Van Diem. Here are some of the themes that really stood out for us.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be participating in a debate hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? It’s going to be particularly topical, as one of the key things we will discuss, in the midst of this pandemic, is working from home (WFH) in the CX arena.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be participating in a debate hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? I know that there are a lot of webinars and online debates these days, but I really think you should make time for this one:
Following on from National Customer Service Week, our Chief Customer Officer Rob van Herpen reflects on the journey that customer service has undergone in the last decade, and the role it plays within the wider scope of the whole customer experience.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be moderating a webinar hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? I know you might be thinking “another day, another webinar invitation,” but as I’m chairing the debate I want to try making this one a little different. We can’t meet at conferences right now so the very least anyone planning a new webinar can do is to ensure it’s interesting and this one should hit the ball out of the park.
Gaming has been one of the few beneficiaries of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Global quarantine and stay-at-home orders preventing people from traveling, commuting, and socializing has resulted in a boom for the gaming industry. Maximize the value of your VIP players and discover how work from home (WFH) support helps you add more value to your gaming whales.
Game launched? Check. Player hype? Check. Champagne? Crack that bottle, you deserve it! But while it bubbles on your tongue, let me ask you this: Have you considered how to respond to players who need assistance or want to provide feedback? And when your player base grows (and let's be honest it will - your game is awesome), what will you do when those interactions start exploding in languages you do not speak? How will you manage the volume of requests coming in, but still provide the best possible user experience to your fans?
Yes…. Another thought piece on how COVID-19 is re-shaping life as we know it and what can we learn from it going forward. With people stuck at home and shops closed, several industries, such as e-commerce, streaming entertainment, and gaming, are experiencing hyperactivity. The influx is driving revenues but also customer support needs.
Did anyone see that Assassins’ Creed Valhalla announcement trailer? Of course you did. Chances are you did not discover it on your own, but instead it appeared on your social media channels, most likely shared by a fan of the franchise or an influencer. At least that is how it happened to me. Game marketing truly has changed in the era of digital, community, and influencers.
In BPO, we often talk about how we deliver the best possible customer experience. We focus on training knowledgeable and empathetic agents, we run and rerun staffing simulations to ensure minimal wait times. These things are important, but, for the most part, once a customer is reaching out to us, it’s already a ding to the overall customer experience. Customers want an easy experience that works as it should and is intuitive.
Last month, Vice ran an interesting article by Jess Morrissette on how games marketing invented toxic gaming culture by promoting toxicity and harassment as value propositions for gaming. While considered perfectly reasonable at the time, games marketing has luckily taken a turn for the better.
One of the most interesting things about the gaming industry is that gamers don’t behave like customers. Sure, they have no problem spending like customers, but their devotion and passion makes them more like super-fans.
With more and more companies providing work-from-home possibilities, and children spending more time at home during school breaks, many tend to fill the time previously spent commuting or at after-school activities on picking up new or old hobbies. It comes as no surprise that playing video games is one of those favored hobbies.
The World Health Organization and almost every national government has encouraged everyone in non-essential roles to stay at home. With millions of people in self-isolation, there is a real need to ensure these people have something to do.
In this new day and age where no one spends more than 67 seconds away from a screen without at least a hint of anxiety, recruiting and engaging this new wave of job seekers is no less complicated than swiping right, get a match and then not really knowing how to open a conversation anymore (sound familiar?).
In today's business world, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who does not agree that Customer Experience is an essential aspect when building and maintaining a profitable business.
We’ve probably all heard of quality assessment (QA) before, where a quality specialist goes over agent interactions and checks to see if there are any possible areas of improvement or development...
The most successful companies make listening and understanding their customers a vital part of their business strategy. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
When you think about Customer Experience I’m willing to bet you’ll typically think about the experiences customers have when evaluating a product or service, choosing and buying it, and then actually using it.