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.

Comments

[BPO Manila]

This is great way to test your skills in terms of engaging your customer. If you are successful in doing this for 3 minutes, you are a professional salesperson.

[Cody Barns]

While there are obvious ways to gain significant customer understanding, such as surveys and focus groups, some of the most interesting insights come from less direct analysis.

[call center]

We have been trying so hard to instill the 3-minute rule in our operations. We are getting a lot of resistance to these changes though!

[Telemarketing]

The 3 minute rule is an ingenious idea! There is some truth to the fact that you get a truthful reaction from the first few seconds of a reply or a conversation. This rule pretty much works on marketing as well. If you are unable to grab the attention of your market the first few seconds they are not likely to get interested.

[Telemarketing Services]

This is an effective way to guide the customer when it comes to decision making. Rules like these are important so companies will know what to improve in their business.

[Richard]

Never heard about the 3 minute rule...is there any link?Is it such an effective way for call centers. Or just one of a million ways for guiding the customer to the process of decision making?

Thanks Richi