Shep Hyken's Blog, page 114

Guest Blog: Why Customer Experience Is Essential to Your Bottom Line

This week we feature an article by Sabio who explains why developing a customer experience strategy is essential for your business to improve its bottom line.

Developing a customer experience (CX) strategy for your business has never been more important. Every business can benefit. Whether you oversee a large contact center or teams in various locations, creating a CX strategy that works will improve your bottom line.

As a consumer, how do you feel when you receive a poor customer experience?

You’re most likely going to become a detractor. This means you will be less motivated to engage with this company again. Further, you may speak negatively about your experiences with other people.

Conversely, if you have a positive experience with a company, you may become an advocate. When we advocate for a business, we recommend it to other people. Positive recommendations are extremely valuable, helping businesses to grow.

Salesforce conducted a survey in 2018. They asked 6,700 consumers and business buyers about their buying habits based on CX.

The results are eye-opening.

• 80% of customers think the experience that a company provides is just as important as its products and services

• 57% of customers have taken their business to a competitor due to unsatisfactory customer service

• 67% would pay more for a better customer experience.

Reflecting on these statistics, it is clear that nurturing positive relationships with customers will bring value to your business. People invest in businesses when they feel positive about them. A large percentage would even pay more for a product or service if they’re guaranteed great customer care.

Despite the initial costs, the benefits of establishing a robust CX strategy will pay off. Customer retention and procurement will help to increase your bottom line. Improve your customer experience and you’ll quickly notice the financial impacts.

But where do you start?

First, let’s think about the three key elements that underpin good CX.

1. Customer experience should elicit an emotional response

Often considered the most important factor, it is important to understand how your customers are feeling at every step. Acknowledge how the customer feels, validate these feelings and partner with them to reach a resolution together.

2. Customer experience should be easy

It is vital to streamline your CX. Slick CX will benefit the customer and your business. Good CX requires minimal customer effort but achieves maximum impact. This should be the case regardless of the channel they are reaching out from.

3. Customer experience should be efficient in solving problems

Brilliant CX leaves the customer feeling satisfied that their issue has been resolved.

True resolution means that the customer does not need to phone or message back. The solution was great and effective long-term.

If a resolution cannot be met, why? Do your services need to adapt? Are you missing a trick? Evaluate your current processes to improve the resolution rate. This will benefit your business financially.

We know that customer experience should fulfill the customer’s need in terms of ease, efficiency and emotion. But how can you make meaningful changes to boost CX and, subsequently, your bottom line?

Read Sabio’s in-depth customer experience guide to learn about the insights required and solutions needed to delight customers. The long-form piece delves into collecting and measuring customer feedback, building customer roadmaps, monitoring your touchpoints and applying solutions with proven success rates.

This article was written by Sabio who provides the expertise and solutions you need to respond to the ever-changing needs of your customers. With our analytics and insight, we’ll help you improve visibility, responsiveness and control across all your customer-interaction channels.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article:  The Executive Gender Gap

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20 Ways To Create An Amazing Customer Service Experience In 2020 (Part Two)

Last week, I shared ten ideas to drive a better customer experience in 2020. As promised, I’m back with ten more tips. If you haven’t read part one yet, you can do so here. Or, you can see all these suggestions at once by reading my recent Forbes article. Without any further delay, here are ten more ways to create a better customer experience in 2020.

Create your customer service mantra. This is a big one. We often spend a month preparing for a full-day meeting to help our clients create their mantra. For those that don’t have one, now is the time to create one. The mantra is a simple phrase—one sentence or less—that sums up your customer service culture. For example, ours at Shepard Presentations is “Always Be Amazing.” We want to be amazing to our clients and help them be amazing. Our friends at Ace Hardware have a simple one too: “The Helpful Hardware Place.” The Ritz-Carlton’s is a little longer. They call it their credo: “We’re ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Once you have your mantra, it’s easy to stay focused on what’s important in delivering an amazing customer service experience.
Give back. ’Tis the season of giving. Why not become part of a cause or participate in a charity? Customers love when the places they do business with give back. It’s good karma!
Have a weekly huddle with your team and spend five minutes sharing how someone created a great customer experience that week. Little reminders shared consistently with employees will help keep customer service front of mind. Plus, it makes everyone feel good to acknowledge team success.
Publish a report or white paper that will benefit your customers. Customers love relevant information. This could be a great opportunity to make sure you have the most recent and relevant information in your field. It also creates confidence in your customer base by proving your knowledge and expertise. This can be a great marketing piece to attract future customers, too.
Have everyone share an example of when they received a great service experience from a fellow employee. In this case, it’s better to receive than give. You get to recognize your fellow employees for what they’ve done for you. This serves as a good reminder and also builds stronger team bonds.
Do more on social media. Participate in conversations on social platforms and become part of the online customer community. However, this isn’t an opportunity to sell. It’s an opportunity to engage. There’s a big difference!
Have a contest where everyone submits a creative—even unusual—customer service or experience idea. As above, the prize isn’t about how good the idea is, but about the participation.
Ask your customers my favorite question, which I refer to as the One Thing Question: Is there one thing you can think of that would make doing business with us better? Read every answer and take action on some of the better ideas. It’s amazing what happens when you listen to your customers! When you listen to them, they feel valued and appreciated.
Have a contest to see who can deliver the best experience to an external or internal customer. It’s nice to recognize the best, but the prize should be a random drawing for all those willing to participate. Of course, you should share the best of the best.
Don’t forget that customer experience starts with employee experience. Remember, what happens on the inside of the organization is felt on the outside by the customer. If you want to have a great customer experience, you must focus on your employee experience. Take care of employees, and they will take care of your customers.

There you have it—by now, I’ve shared with you my top twenty tips and ideas to upping your customer service/experience game in 2020. I hope you’ve found them useful, and that they’ve perhaps inspired some business-focused New Year’s resolutions! I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our Shepard Letter subscribers and readers a happy new year. Here’s to 2020 being your best year yet, filled with revenue, profits and, of course, amazing customer experiences!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXIX, Shep Hyken)

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Amazing Business Radio: Rupesh Patel

The Hospitality Mentality
Tips to Creating an Amazing Customer Service Experience in Hotels and Beyond

Shep Hyken interviews Rupesh Patel. They discuss Rupesh’s “secret sauce” to creating an amazing guest experience across his hotels, and how those ideas can translate to the larger customer service world.

Top Takeaways:

Don’t make the mistake of caring more about money than customer service. Focus on customer service and the money will follow.
The first step to creating an amazing experience is raising your brand standards. Define the standards for your business and focus on improving your operations to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations.
Ask yourself what you can do to make your customers feel special and elevate the experience they have with you. Note: The answer doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming to be effective.
Find ways to personalize your customers’ experience. Customization can go a long way toward satisfaction and amazement.
Providing good customer service can be some of your most powerful marketing.
Invest in your team members; make them feel important and like they’re part of the process. When building your team, find people who genuinely care and are willing to go above and beyond.
Reviews are hugely important for any and every business. Create a great experience first and foremost, but don’t expect that to be enough to encourage customers to write good reviews.

Quotes:

“If you want to be amazing and take your business to the next level, get a team that actually cares, a team that will go above and beyond.” – Rupesh Patel

“Being amazing is about taking that one extra step in everything you do.” – Rupesh Patel

“At the end of the day, how you make your team feel and how they feel about their job is huge.” – Rupesh Patel

About:

Rupesh Patel is a hotel owner/operator and the founder of www.SmartGuests.com. He has over 20 years of experience and has held titles such as entrepreneur, investor, business consultant and more.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

How can I create an amazing customer service experience?
How do I define my brand standards?
How do I get customers to write positive reviews?
How do I avoid bad customer reviews?
How can I make my customers feel special?

The post Amazing Business Radio: Rupesh Patel appeared first on Shep Hyken.

5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of December 16, 2019

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

7 ways to Use Social Listening for Customer Service by Steven MacDonald

(SuperOffice) Your customers are contacting you in a channel that they prefer – and they expect you to respond. But, what happens if you don’t respond? Well, simply put – your customers will stop doing business with you.

My Comment: Let’s start with this stat: A study by Gartner found that companies that don’t respond to their customer’s social media messages risk up to a 15% increase in customer churn. If you’re not already “listening” to your customers, as in monitoring their comments and reviews on social media, you’re at risk. Pay close attention to number four, which is to respond, and might I add that you should respond quickly!

153 Customer Service Quotes to Up Your Customer Experience Game by Jared Cornell

(ProProfs) Here are 150+ customer service quotes that’ll give you insight into a customer’s mind.

My Comment: Want a little inspiration? Look no further than here as the author has compiled a list of motivational, inspirational and just plain, good, old-fashioned advice from customer service and experience experts from around the world. A hundred and fifty of them! I found the 52 you like the most and sharing them once a week with everyone in your organization.

Twenty Mobile Trends For 2020 by Thomas Husson

(Forrester) I have just published a post sharing some of our marketing predictions for 2020. It made me realize that Forrester no longer publishes dedicated “mobile” predictions. Why? Because mobile has simply become a key driver and enabler of business transformation. Mobile is embedded everywhere.

My Comment: “Mobile” is a big trend for 2020. Mobile phones are now referred to as “mobile devices” as customers are using their phones less and less, but instead using apps, email, messaging apps and more. Almost every company in any industry can take advantage of the “Mobile Revolution” (as I like to call it). Are you? If not, and even if you are, you’ll enjoy and learn from this list of the top mobile trends we need to be paying attention to.

Employee Engagement: 4 Keys to Delivering Exceptional Customer Experience by CIO

(CIO) With a customer-centric perspective, along with the right training and processes in place, every single one of your employees — from interns to the C-suite — can be a highly engaged employee. There simply needs to be an organization-wide sense of ownership of the customer experience. To take your company in that direction, follow these four steps.

My Comment: I always appreciate an article that focuses on the inside of the organization (internal customer service) – almost even more than ones that focus on the outside customer. Why? Because a great customer experience starts on the inside. Not just with front-liners, but with all employees. The opening line of this article sums it up: Engaged employees drive better results. Customer service needs to be embedded in the culture. Here are four ways to focus on the inside of your organization that will have a direct impact on the customer.

A 3 Step Approach to Higher Employee Engagement Within The Contact Center by Matt Wujciak

(CCW Digital) Engaged employees are better workers, generating more revenue for the company and creating a better office culture while doing it. The question is, how do we go about improving employee engagement?

My Comment: Here’s another article that focuses on employee engagement, but this time on the front-line customer support agents. My favorite of these three points is number three on “micro-coaching.” (And, not because it includes a quote from me.). One-to-one coaching from a manager is powerful. Catch people doing the right thing, help them improve on their strengths, and more. And, the other two ideas are pretty darn good, as well.

BONUS

Visibility, Credibility, Loyalty: The Benefits of Online Reviews by Robert Morrissey

(RingCentral) 85% of consumers believe reviews older than three months aren’t relevant. So, businesses should consider having new reviews coming in if they are to influence possible customers. To stress the value of reviews, we breakdown the various aspects that they can cater to and also what platforms are thriving.

My Comment: This is an article from RingCentral that features a number of comments and quotes from me regarding online reviews. Here are plenty of good insights about why you should pay attention to reviews. Just look at the title and you’ll see three benefits listed. And, what organization wouldn’t want all of them!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: Winning Tactics for CX Vendor Selection

This week we feature an article by Darcy Alexander who shares a checklist to guide us through the process of selecting the best CX vendors for our customer experience initiatives.

When embarking on a customer experience (CX) change initiative, there are few decisions more critical to success than selecting the right vendor. Get it right, and you give the initiative the very best chances for success. Get it wrong and, at best, you are in for a tortuous journey with an uncertain outcome – you may even be forced to restart the process at twice the cost.

Once seen as a competitive advantage, CX is now evolving into a survival imperative that is especially applicable in the demanding world of telecoms. A world in which service provision is expected without interruption at any point and the customer experience is expected to be delivered seamlessly and intuitively.

It is easy for CX professionals to be overwhelmed when they seek support from CX solutions as they often find themselves surrounded by countless vendors offering “better, smarter and faster” solutions. CX Network has comprised these checklists to help and advise telecoms firms on how to select the best CX vendors for their company and secure financial backing for their CX initiatives from stakeholders.

Preparation checklist

Know your limits

CX programs, especially widespread ones that cut across divisional boundaries, have the potential to engender all sorts of naysayers from across the business, so lobbying allies and garnering support is part of the successful roll-out.

The stance your business takes on CX will determine how you approach vendor selection. Your company and stakeholders can fall anywhere along the spectrum from CX champions who appreciate the process and allocate sufficient funding, to the other end, where because they fail to spot any direct results, they deem it pointless and a waste of funding. This awareness is highly valuable because it informs your choice of projects; do you need to implement a program designed to prove the case for CX, or should it be a magic fix to a pressing problem? You may need to figure out who are the main blockers and choose a project close to their hearts. Whoever you’re trying to convince, try to link your CX program to the business objectives.

Map out your journey

Establish a timeline and define your goal/s and philosophy, plan your strategy, create realistic targets and decide if you want to focus on quick-wins or long term ROI. Are you looking for a point-solution or an enterprise-wide platform, will you embark on your journey via an invitation to tender (ITT)? Know the difference between what you need and what you want, and know your bottom line.

Importance and performance score formulas

Use a scale to assign importance values. If a unanimous decision is not possible, accumulate everyone’s score into an average – then you know which aspects are mission-critical and which are simply nice to have. Then, assign a “performance value” for how each vendor performs on every requirement. To calculate the total score: combine the performance and importance value by multiplying the individual importance value by the vendor’s performance value. Leslie Cottenje, CEO of Hello Customer emphasizes the importance of stress testing AI as most vendors are likely to assert they have the strongest capabilities. “Find a way to quantify and qualify how well it really works.”

Potential risks and liabilities

What will happen if unforeseen costs are encountered? Who will be responsible if government regulations are violated? Whose insurance will cover contract workers? Get ahead of risk management before it strikes.

Key buying criteria checklist

Reliability and stability

Good suppliers deliver on their promises, on time and within budget. Look for suppliers who have been in business for a while without changing firms every few years. Reputations always have a backstory, trust reputable indicators. If you notice that some elements of the project are arriving ahead of schedule and out of sequence, this could reveal that your vendor is short on orders and needs to accelerate cash receipts.

Vendor location

Distanced suppliers require careful planning if onsite support is a requirement. If you need face-to-face interaction in the planning stages and fast resolution in the implementation phase, distanced suppliers could cause a real problem. Remember to factor in differing time zones or a requirement for 24 hour support. It might be worth finding a comparable supplier with localized support systems that are closer to home.

Technology competence

How stable is the vendor’s technology? Is it robust enough for your scale and complexity of operations? Does the vendor have a proven track record with your legacy systems? Consider the number of critical APIs that are embedded. Double the APIs – quadruple your problems!  Leslie Cottenje notes that it is important to question: how real is the demo? Demo environments are at risk of being engineered to appear perfect. Always ask to do a test with your own data, for instance, in real life you may not always have data that is of good integrity, how will the platform fare then? Also in regards to textual data, test in several languages, not just English.

Onboarding lead time 

Lengthy onboarding times attached to some of the larger CX platforms have caused many in telecoms to lose their appetite to pilot and experiment in the name of customer experience. Leslie Cottenje explains that newer technologies can have a short as a five-day setup; this reduces the barrier to entry as there is more flexibility to adapt to the business’ needs and run small pilots across departments.

Size matters

Has this vendor worked with organizations of your size? They may have previously handled a 100 seat contact center, but they may not have the capability to handle one of 1,000, or 10,000. Considerations must also be made if they are a large enterprise and you are much smaller. Vendors must have a realistic, positive attitude towards your brand – they should be eager to work with you and help grow your business. If you are not important to them, you could end up second best if they have demands from ‘more important’ customers.

Less is sometimes more

Relying on only one vendor can be risky – not everyone is great at everything. Relationships can sometimes be hard to maintain and because the customer/supplier balance of power shifts as the project progresses, rifts can appear – so consider your ‘backup’. But be careful of engaging too many vendors – it is more than just cutting administration costs: closer relationships with fewer vendors allows you to work together to control costs and deliver seamless projects.

Value for money

Price is often a factor, but “the lowest price is not always the best value for money” – ‘Buy Cheap, Buy Twice’ – strike a balance between cost, reliability, quality and service.

Communication style, service & philosophy

Every organization has a philosophical culture and style of communication. Do yours match? Do you share the same vision for what the end goal looks like? If you are a company that believes in transparency and your vendor prefers to keep most information private that could become a cause for contention.

Supplier assessments checklist

Create your shortlist

Refer to recommendations, reviews and compare each supplier. Talk to friends or associates in similar industries who you trust for honest vendor reviews. Does the vendor have proven case studies in your sector? Remember, not all experience is fungible. Most vendors’ websites will have vanity pages highlighting the great work they have done with a variety of customers. Ask your contact about adherence to timescales, budgets and SLAs.

Meet face-to-face

If you can, visit their offices and watch how they operate in person – seeing how things work internally can inform both businesses how they can best work together. You can also gain valuable insights behind the scenes, away from their salespeople. Check if they have the depth in their squad to support you around their other clients. Overtrading is not unusual, question their key staff turnover and look on Glassdoor to see what their employees are saying.

Credit Check

Ensure that your supplier is not at risk of suddenly going out of business, do they have a steady cash flow and the ability to deliver products when you request them? What is their funding model? Many tech players are funded by venture capital – what round are they currently on and when is the next round due? Are they hitting their funding KPIs? If they are self-funded, do they have the capacity to handle your project?

Negotiate terms and conditions

Your business’s reputation may be judged by your supplier’s labor practices. Choose wisely, find the right fit for you, and negotiate what your business needs are. Know beforehand what you are willing to negotiate on and what you are not.

Maintaining great partnerships

Try to empathize with your vendor. Consider what areas you think are most important to them, their risks and concerns – vendors can be a driving force behind your success and be potential partners. Ideally, the relationship is collaborative, not adversarial.

The ever-growing necessity for CX is undeniable. Whatever your chosen strategy, selecting the right vendor is irrefutable. Whether it be by implementing technology to enhance your customer’s experience or gaining insights, your vendors can be crucial to your company’s success.

Darcy Alexander is a content writer for the CX Network. CX Network is an online community focused on building an intelligent enterprise.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article: 20 Ways To Create An Amazing Customer Experience In 2020

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20 Ways To Create An Amazing Customer Service Experience In 2020 (Part One)

With all the focus on how technology—including AI, data, personalization and more—can drive a better customer experience, I wanted to shift my focus back to basics. To this end, I recently published an article in Forbes about ways to create an amazing customer experience in 2020, and I thought it would be enjoyed by our Shepard Letter subscribers as well. It was quite long, so I decided to split it into two parts. If you want to read all twenty right away, you can do so here. Here are the first ten of twenty ideas as to how you can up your customer service game in 2020.

Stay in touch. Too often companies focus all their efforts on acquiring new customers instead of keeping existing customers. Don’t forget about your “sold” customers—stay in touch on a (somewhat) regular basis. Depending on the type of business, it may be as infrequent as once a year.
Send a surprise “gift” when your customers are least expecting it. Everybody sends gifts around the holidays. Find other times to surprise your customers with an unexpected gift. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Just a clever, thoughtful touch that gets noticed.
Eliminate long hold times. Don’t waste your customers’ time. If you must make them wait, let them know for how long and give them the option of being called back.
Send a thank-you note. When was the last time you sent or received a thank you note? Surprise and delight your customers by sending them an old-fashioned, handwritten note in an envelope with an address and a stamp.
 “Freaky Fast” Response Times. Who doesn’t love fast service? Jimmy John’s, the fast-food chain known for “freaky fast” service and delivery, knows how much customers appreciate speed. Take a leaf out of their book by finding ways to be freaky fast for your customers.
Do something special for Get to Know Your Customer Days. These days happen four times a year on the third Thursday of the beginning of each quarter (January, April, July and October). For more information, go to GetToKnowYourCustomerDay.
Use video. Video is an amazing tool. It’s inexpensive and can often be posted for free. Use it for online tutorials, a video version of Frequently Asked Questions and more. Check out this recent Forbes article on using video.
Call the customer instead of making them call you for appointments. It’s one less thing the customer has to do when doing business with you.
Celebrate National Customer Service Week (the first full week of October). You’ll have to wait until October, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start planning now. For more information, go to the official website for National Customer Service Week.
Share content that is all about the customer and not about the company. In other words, it isn’t a sales or marketing piece. Well, actually, it is, but it shouldn’t feel like it.

There you have it—your first ten tips to make 2020 your best year of customer service and experience yet. I’ll be back next week with numbers eleven through twenty, so be sure to check back then!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXIX, Shep Hyken)

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Amazing Business Radio: Joel Makhluf

The Empathy Machine
Using AI to Guide Employees Toward Better Customer Care

Shep Hyken interviews Joel Makhluf. They discuss the need for more awareness and empathy among customer service agents and how AI and technology can provide that.>

Top Takeaways:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool. When used correctly to support customer service representatives and call center agents, it can help humans be “more human.”
It’s important to identify the behaviors that annoy customers the most over the phone, whether it’s talking too fast or too slow, interrupting them, speaking in monotone, etc.
AI platforms now have the ability to search for and recognize the “empathy cue,” which occurs when a customer is in a heightened state of emotion and therefore needs more empathy from the agent.
Pay attention to the nonverbal cues your customers give you. It’s not just what they say, but how they say it that matters.
Because AI is able to handle many easy, basic calls, the calls that reach contact center workers tend to be more complicated and more stressful. This leads to agents experiencing cognitive overload and “compassion fatigue.”
AI technology and software can guide contact center agents through these pitfalls in real-time, empowering them to take better care of customers through empathy.
Identify your best-performing employees and mimic their behavior. Train the rest of your employees to that exemplary behavior. This will result in a more consistent customer experience.
Remember that everyone has bad days, even your top performers. Be there to empower and coach your employees through those bad days.
“Automation fatigue” is settling in across industries. There needs to be a balance between humans and AI. AI is great for handling simple tasks, but customers crave empathy when dealing with their most personal problems.

Quotes:

“Model the behavior of your best employees and coach the rest of your employees to that behavior.” – Joel Makhluf

“Strive for a more consistent customer experience with empathy baked into the formula.” – Joel Makhluf

“The way something is said—not just what is said—is an indicator of somebody’s true emotional state.” – Joel Makhluf

About:

Joel Makhluf is the Director of Demand Generation at Cogito, an artificial intelligence company that provides real-time conversational guidance and analytics.

 Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

What should the balance be between AI and human support?
How can AI empower my employees?
How can empathy help my customer service?
Do customers crave automation?
How can I best train my employees?

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5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of December 9, 2019

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

10 Customer-Centric Questions to Create Irresistible Value by Josh Linkner

(Josh Linkner) With our Thanksgiving feasts behind us, ’tis the season of 2020 business planning. Ironically, the theme of gratitude may actually be our best strategy in the new year.

My Comment: Innovation expert Josh Linkner moved into the customer service/experience area with this excellent article about creating (irresistible) value for customers. You’ll find 10 questions that will make for a lively discussion on how you can innovate and improve the value you offer.

How a customer service project is helping Southwest Airlines realise its 360-customer vision by Nadia Cameron

(CMO) VP of customer support services talks through its latest customer technology transformation.

My Comment: How does Southwest Airlines continue to deliver extraordinary customer service in the airline industry? Hear direct from their VP of customer support services, Jason Ashworth, as he shares how they use Salesforce’s Service Cloud to support the Southwest “three-pronged mission” of delivering efficiency, lovability and profitability to the business

5 Ways Elite Brands Are Setting the New Standard for Customer Experience by Janelle Estes

(CMSWire) Here are five strategies companies known for their stellar customer experience (CX) are using to create and maintain brand loyalty.

My Comment: The author of this article poses this question: In what ways are elite brands going the extra mile to keep customers satisfied? These brands know how to get customers to come back again and again. Here are five ways they do it – and all are important to just about any type of business in any industry.

4 Metrics Your Call Center Needs to Track in 2020 by Ben Ringshall

(Fonolo) As we head into 2020, data is becoming more crucial for successfully running a call center than ever.

My Comment: If you have just one customer support person or a huge team, you must have a way to measure success. Here are four extremely important measurements that you can’t afford to miss. Notice that number two is focused on not customer satisfaction, but employee (agent) satisfaction. If you aren’t measuring these four areas, it’s time to start.

How to Rock Customer Support During Holiday Season by Mansi Bhatia

(Ameyo) In the spirit of the holiday season, I have tried to prepare a guide to help you sail through your customer support and leave a happy and memorable experience for your customers.

My Comment: The holiday season is upon us, and for some companies, that means a surge (sometimes big) in sales. That also means more customer service issues to deal with. This excellent article has a list of six best-practices for properly managing the increase of customer contacts during the busy season. Keep in mind you can swap out the holiday season for any other time of year when business increases. Whether it’s seasonal or cyclical, this list will give you ideas for a busy time in any industry (not just retail).

BONUS

Customer-first: Lessons From Small Town Shop by Natalya Bucuy

(LiveHelpNow) Nate Brown discussed the customer-first initiative, 4 rounds of customer experience management, and how to win customers’ loyalty the way small-town shops do during the SmallBizCX conference.

My Comment: How can a small business compete with big business? Act like a small business! The same goes for big businesses. I’ve been pushing all clients in just about any type of business, big or small, to create a small/local feel. This article uses a small (as in local) ice-cream shop as a case study to showcase the ways any size business can take advantage of “playing small.”

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: How to Provide Fast and Personal Customer Support in a World that Cannot Wait

This week we feature an article by Valeriya Yordanova who writes about how customer support agents can deliver the fast and personal customer support that today’s customers demand.

Unfamiliar with the concept of waiting, customers want their problems solved now with minimum effort from their side. They don’t want to be put on hold, transferred to another support agent or requested to explain their issue over and over again. In fact, three-quarters of online customers expect help within five minutes. These growing customer expectations of superior service continue to drive companies’ efforts to look for advanced digital solutions to meet customer demands.

Live chat and co-browsing are two such solutions when used in combination can enable good and well-trained support agents to deliver the fast and personal support customers are looking for. The accessibility and convenience of the live chat platform combined with the user-friendliness of co-browsing will allow any team to effortlessly figure out what’s going on at the other end of the screen. Instead of wasting precious time asking what went wrong, agents will have the tools to help and guide customers right away. Here is how.



See it for yourself

When a customer opens up a chat, he expects immediate help. In fact, 79% of customers who prefer live chat said they did so because of the speed at which their questions are answered. However, oftentimes, it’s hard for the customer service agent to figure out the problem. They lack context. As a result, most of the chat time is wasted in identifying the issue instead of assisting the customer. Live chat in combination with co-browsing, allows agents to instantly gain access to the customer’s screen with just a click of a button from their live chat platform. Agents will be able to see what the customer sees and will be able to start working on the issue immediately.

Show, don’t tell

“Do you see that green button at the top right of your screen?”, would an agent ask a customer in a desperate need to help them out. And the answer to that most often is a clear “No!”. With the help of live chat and co-browsing, agents can now chat with and navigate customers through the necessary steps to fix their problems. Agents can click, scroll, write or draw for them. When necessary the agent can take full control over the customer’s screen. Sometimes, while setting up and configuring a solution might take a few minutes to a tech-savvy person, it could turn out to be a tedious and time-consuming process for a non-tech user. In such cases, the ability to show and guide customers throughout the process will save time and nerves on both ends

Goodbye back-and-forth

Often, a user inquiry cannot be solved in one session or it turns out the issue is a product defect. In those cases more often than not the support agent becomes the mediator between the customer and the dev team — communicating back and forth till he gathers all the details necessary for the dev team to solve the problem. With the help of a co-browsing solution, agents can save themselves the hassle. Some co-browsing solutions allow recording each of the support sessions so you can later forward it for further investigation to the dev team. With session replay, the support and dev teams will be able to watch a video of everything that happened to the customer. The dev team can easily reproduce the steps that led to it removing the unnecessary back-and-forth. On top of that, some co-browsing solutions can also show technical information such as crashes and network delays which speeds up the resolution time.

Regardless of the technology companies employ to serve customers, they should always strive to answer customers’ requests quickly without compromising on quality. Even though the majority (66%) of adults feel that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with a good online customer experience, it’s the quality of the service, the experiences and the customer satisfaction companies provide that will delight their customers.

Valeriya Yordanova is a Product Marketing Manager at SessionStack, a SaaS solution offering interactive co-browsing, session replay, reporting, and analytics tools enabling support teams to deliver better customer experiences.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article:  Amazon, Walmart And Target Go Head-To-Head

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You Shouldn’t Have Told Me That

The other day I went out to breakfast with some friends. There were eight of us, so we needed two tables pushed together. The restaurant was crowded. The hostess pointed to a table and said when that party got up, we could have their table and the table next to them, which was empty. It looked like they were almost finished with their breakfast, but we had no idea how long that might be.

I noticed that on the other side of the occupied table there was another empty table. It looked like there was enough room to bring that table over to the empty one she was holding for us. I asked if she could do that. Her response was, “No, we can’t. That table has a different server and I’m not sure how we would divide the tips.”

Interesting answer—she wasn’t sure how the servers could divide the tips…. What about dividing them in half? No, that would be too easy. I was surprised. While I appreciated her honest response, it seemed like she was more interested in how tips were split between employees than in taking care of customers. I thought to myself, “I probably didn’t need to hear that.”

I don’t run a restaurant, and maybe this is a smaller problem than I see it, but common sense dictates two things. First, let the servers work it out. Second, take care of the customers and move the tables.

There is an old saying about knowing how sausage in the sausage factory is made. You may like the sausage, but when you find out how they make it, you may never want to eat it again. This reminded me of the sausage factory metaphor. I liked the honesty of the answer but didn’t like the content of the answer, even if it was an accurate explanation.

I think you get the point. There are certain things employees should never say to a customer. How do they learn what not to say? Training. But the real goal of training isn’t to teach employees about specific things to share or not share with customers. It’s to teach the common sense that you shouldn’t say anything that isn’t customer-friendly. Think before you speak.

I’m reminded of the article I wrote earlier this year about Cameron Mitchell. His signature saying is, “Yes is the answer. What is the question?” He sees the word yes as an attitude, not just a response. He knows there are times you can’t say yes, so that’s when you come up with a creative solution that makes the customer happy. What you don’t do is say no and give the customer an answer that is the opposite of customer-focused.  Remember, you must constantly train your employees—and yourself—to stay customer-focused and customer-friendly.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXIX, Shep Hyken)

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