The Contact Center Blog

The 3 Minute Rule

Sometimes the most brilliant, transformative ideas are the simplest. Take, for example, the ‘Three-Minute Rule’ that Anthony Tjan at the Harvard Business Review talks about: engage customers to find out their actions 3 minutes before and 3 minutes after they use your product or service. The three-minute rule is a great way to find out what you can do to improve your customer service, and in the contact center world, this is crucial for growth and sustainability.

Using Live Chat, we can talk to our customers while they are in the midst of product or service usage. We can find out what brought them to a particular site, or what drove them away from it. As Tjan points out,

The three-minute rule reminds us that rearranging the context of a shopping experience to better meet customer patterns can be extremely effective. Customers seek solutions, but it is likely that your offering is only part of one. The three-minute rule is a forcing mechanism to see the bigger picture and adjacent opportunities.

There are opportunities on both sides here - For the customer, a better experience and for your business, a better chance at a sale. For example, if your customer is having trouble finding something on your website and a contact center agent manages to engage them in a live chat, they should ask the customer what made it so hard for them to find that product in those minutes before help arrived. Then, the agent should find out what their next step will be with the desired response being that they will finalize the sale and checkout online. It is the hope that this attention to detail and level of customer care will make the customer realize just how worth it the business is to invest in.

So, taking a moment to chat with customers and finding out how to make their experience a more satisfactory one all-around will benefit everyone in the long run and make for a much more satisfactory experience.

A Call for Help in Haiti

In light of the earthquake this week in Haiti, the importance of aid and emergency communication lines becomes a prevalent topic of conversation.

These are not your regular 911 calls I’m referring to, but calls in response to an emergency on such a vast scale that very few people can imagine the devastation.  It is times like these when help lines, donation lines, and phone lines for inquiry become important to aid in the relief of an entire country.

Campaigns have begun on Facebook and Twitter, text message lines set up, telephone numbers posted to donate, and much more. 

From a humanitarian perspective this tragedy is extremely devastating and it’s comforting to see the support of so many people through various donations.  From a contact center perspective, I give my thanks to those who are behind the social media campaigns, answering the calls, and organizing the emails and tweets.  This is the finest example of the ability of a contact center to ramp up on queue – and proof of the capabilities of great call centers.

* To learn more on how you can donate, visit the Mashable Social Media Guide blog at http://mashable.com, which has an extensive list of options including updates from participants.

IRCE 2010 Website is Live

Internet Retailer announced today that the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE) website is now live with complete details of the event.

This years’ Conference & Exhibition will take place June 8 -11, 2010 at McCormick Place West in Chicago.  With 5000+ attendees, 375 exhibiting companies, and 175 speakers, this is definitely an event to attend, and the world’s largest e-commerce event.  Plus, if you register between now and January 15 you will receive a $100 cash rebate (presented to you when you pick up your pass at the show) in addition to the $200 early-bird discount!

Visit http://www.internetretailer.com/IRCE2010/ for more information and to register today!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales Up - Are You Supporting These Sales?

The results are in, and online sales from Black Friday and Cyber Monday are up compared to one year ago. 

According to comScore, a company that monitors online consumer behavior, Black Friday experienced an 11% increase in sales to $595 million compared to the same day in 2008.  Meanwhile, Cyber Monday rose 5% from the same day in 2008, reaching $887 million and matching December 9, 2008 for online spend, which is the heaviest in record.

These statistics speak great for a recovering economy, and definitely shed an optimistic light on the upcoming holiday season.  But, before we get ahead of ourselves we need to explore the full scenario and ask ourselves – how are these sales going to be supported into the New  Year?

See, the sale doesn’t end when the credit card is processed online.  After this is complete, retailers must shift focus to the after-sale experience in which the customer uses the product and seeks help setting it up, trouble-shooting, exchanging for an upgrade, or simply making a return.  Each of these can have a further positive or negative impact on the customer’s experience.

Many businesses today rely on repeat customer purchases, and therefore building a good rapport and reputation for beyond-the-sale service amongst customers is critical.  This is where contact center services – done in-house or outsourced – will have a huge benefit to any company.  A 24 hour help line to trouble-shoot on Boxing Day can mean the difference between a happy child, and therefore happy customer, or a disgruntled individual who will go elsewhere for a purchase in the future. 

So, while the numbers stand to be beneficial to retailers right now, will you follow-through and support these sales in 2010?

Managing Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is important. Collecting this information, analyzing and responding where necessary is equally important to ensure the demanding needs of today's consumers are met.

The traditional channels still exist, but add to it the social media networks and we now have a wealth of useful information to help us make strategic decisions. The challenge is making a conscious effort of managing these well. An article in the E-Commerce Times outlines some best practices for companies to  manage customer feedback:

1. Create clear objectives and garner company support. Objectives for the management of customer feedback should be aligned with the company's overall goals.

2. Actively encourage and promote customer feedback. The more feedback companies receive from customers, the more insights they will have about their business.

3. Offer customers multiple feedback channels. People vary greatly in the way they prefer to communicate, so be sure to give your customers several options in communicating with you.

4. Centrally collect, store, manage and analyze customer feedback. By consolidating all feedback and survey data into a single centralized system and using that system across the organization, feedback managers are able to gain valuable insights into what customers need, want and value most, as well as identify important trends and patterns in the data.

5. Use and take action on customer feedback. Many organizations collect customer feedback, but tend to fall short when it comes to actually using and acting on that data..

6. Resolve outstanding customer issues promptly. Nearly all businesses have some customers who complain about something at one point or another. What's most important is how your organization handles those complaints.

7. Close the feedback loop with customers. Inform your customers whenever your company initiates change as a result of their suggestions or feedback, and let them know what changes you made.

8. Create a company culture that is committed to using customer feedback. To maximize awareness, build an employee rewards program around the positive feedback that your company receives from customers.

Not Surprising, but Less Spending Predicted This Holiday Season

Just released, the National Retail Federation's 2009 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey announces a decline in spending for US shoppers this 2009 Holiday Season. According to the report, U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $682.74 on holiday-related shopping, a 3% drop from last year’s $705.01.

This does not mean less gifts from a quantity perspective, but will definitely be looking for better deals to spend less overall.

MultiChannel Merchant reports, "According to the survey, conducted by BIGresearch, 66% of U.S. Shoppers say the economy will affect their holiday plans this year, with 84% of respondents say they’re adjusting by simply spending less. To ensure that they will spend less, 55% say they'll be shopping for sales more often, 42% will be using more coupons and 34% are putting up last year’s decorations."

Retailers will have to look for ways to gain new customers or repeat customers, not focusing only on discounting. This is the season where the customer experience is key to ensure companies bring in decent numbers for end of year results.

With Thanksgiving weekend only 5 weeks away, Retailers must act now to get what they can out of their customer's tight budgets this year.

As Twitter’s dominance continues, how will retailers and contact centers react?

Twitter has emerged as a dominant form of communication online.  It connects with your Facebook status, it can be updated by various different platforms on a cell phone, desktop or through a good-old web browser.

I was reading the paper this morning and was somewhat surprised to see that even the Berlin Wall has made it onto Twitter – quite literally.  The Berlin Twitter Wall went online Tuesday, inviting anyone to share their memories of the wall and its collapse on November 9, 1989.  This struck me as interesting – and really hit home how significantly Twitter and other social media impact our every day lives.

In reality though, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.  We are no longer in a world where we must seek out the news – with RSS feeds, following specific people on Twitter, Facebook Communities and the like – the news is coming to us.

So how are businesses using it?  How has Twitter changed the way we do business?  Businesses have begun to adopt live chat as a means of communicating with customers, however this cuts out the IVR greeting used to welcome  customers when they call for help – the automatic greeting that could,  for example, inform customers of new promotions or current problems with service.  I think that there is great potential for Twitter to pick up the slack here, and work simultaneously with live chat and email customer service.

The question is, have businesses really caught on to this idea yet?  And since it is in the realm of good customer service – how is this going to affect the contact center industry?

"OneApp" Helps Enhance Lower End Mobile Devices

Microsoft OneApp has been in development for a while. The biggest thing that stood out to me was in the first sentence of an article I just read, "Microsoft on Monday announced plans for mobile software that aims to allow people in emerging markets to access various Internet programs using lower-end feature phones." 

The article goes on to talk about how OneApp will let users with older cell phones access the same popular social apps being used today, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MSN Messenger. OneApp makes things virtual, or follows the "cloud" concept - meaning apps aren't stored on the phone but accessed virtually.

I talked about it briefly before, "Cloud Telephony". From a user standpoint, it makes it easier for people's everyday needs (shop, socialize, etc). From a  service standpoint, businesses and companies can take advantage and have another channel to effectively serve their customers. Especially with a market and demographic that can be predominantly found in the virtual world.

Texting the New Calling?

I’ve never been one for texting.  It’s effective for the quick message of where to meet and what time, but a full-on conversation texting has always seemed arduous to me – although maybe that’s because until a couple weeks ago I had an old cell phone with the traditional word pad.  Now with my BlackBerry, I see how efficient and easy it can be to type.

 

Having joined the new age of Smartphones, I now see just how easy it is to text and type into the device.  Maybe this is why I’m not surprised to hear that there is now a call center that is accepting text messages.

 

The center is located in Iowa, and the text messages are for 911 emergencies.  While this is a very specific and localized practice for the time being, it is also a huge leap forward in an ever-evolving world of communications.

 

You can email, Tweet, Facebook, MySpace and blog through your Smartphone.  You also have the option to call, chat or email companies today for assistance.  Therefore, it is a logical, progressional step to be able to text to receive help – especially from 911.

 

So, how long will it be until you can BBM or chat with a representative from your phone?  Only time will tell, but that time is coming. 

 

Tell us what you think – is texting in the near future to be included in call center services?

First Online Store on Facebook

1-800-Flowers.com is staying well ahead of its competition by launching a store within the Facebook community, allowing visitors to make complete purchases without leaving the page. It'll be intersting to see how many retailers will soon follow, as 1-800-Flower's track record of helping pioneer Internet and telephone retailing proves they know what they're doing.

I personally think that this will be the spark plug and tipping point for others sitting on the fence, to make the decision to move forward with their social media strategies. The longer retailers wait, the more likely they'll be playing catch up down the road.

Read more about this story in the following article.