Tag Archives: call center

Psychic Pizza: Delivered To Your Customer Before They Even Ask

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Have you ever delivered ”psychic pizza” to your customer?

Psychic pizza is the most nourishing and delicious dish you can delight your customers with, even if you don’t hail from the restaurant industry.

The term comes from  John Goodman who defines “psychic pizza” as something delivered to the customer before they even ask for it.

Goodman wants organizations to prevent unnecessary customer calls, repairs, claims and lawsuits. Goodman encourages customer education on how to service themselves. The most shocking customer service statistic is 30 percent of the customer service workload is preventable.

By reducing the workload of your customer service department, you can not only lower costs but achieve higher customer satisfaction.

Prevention is the New Black

This is a formative period in healthcare. In the news we read about a new focus on preventative medicine.  Preventative medicine is referenced in considering healthcare problems brought on by obesity. Obesity costs the U.S. 147 billion dollars per year. 

Similiar to psychic pizza, preventative medicine cuts costs in the long run.  If we spent a little more time taking care of ourselves now we would decrease our healthcare costs later.

Great companies focus on product functionality and customer education increasing their customer satisfaction ratings in addition to the overall happiness of employees. It’s a win win!

When I Grow Up I Want To Work In Customer Service

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Most children dream of growing up to be astronauts, doctors, and firemen. Not many of us grow up saying, “when I grow up I want to work in customer service.” But hey–there is no shame in this industry–it’s gratifying work, and today in the age of social all eyes are on the you in the contact center. For the first time you are the star of the show.


Today a lot of people in marketing, public relations or even corporate communications, find themselves in social customer service roles, and a lot of people in social customer service find themselves doing public relations, marketing or corporate communications work.

The boundaries are disappearing.

And the truth is you can’t put out these fires without the support of your people. Your employees on the frontlines. I promise you this seachange and investigative work will require a “can-do” proactive attitude–one in which your entire team is all hands on deck. You can’t afford to have people wearing the attitude of “that’s not my job.”

And the reality is the buck stops with your employees.
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Customer service, especially for those of you who work in healthcare, travel, telecom, banking, insurance, is an emotional activity for customers. It also puts a lot of strain on the humans who are fielding a high volume of negativity. This stress is tripled when they are not empowered to solve the customer’s problem. They feel powerless. They disengage.

What does not make sense, is most company’s attitudes toward their customer service departments, considering the opportunity at hand. Customer service is the biggest competitive differentiator today for your company.

Check out these stats from the May 2011 American Express Global Customer Service barometer as outlined by Shep Hyken on the Social Customer.

  • Stat: In a positive economy, 70% of Americans are willing to spend an average of 13% more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service – up from 9% last year.
  • Stat: 60% believe businesses have not increased their focus on providing good customer service.  That number is up from 55% last year.  Among this group 26% actually think companies are paying less attention to service.
  • Stat: 78% of consumers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of poor customer service.
  • Stat: 59% will try a new brand or company for a better service experience.

While there are many distraught customers on the other side of the phone, desk or cash register, there’s another group who need help, development and encouragement….your employees.

Smart recruiters are hiring for soft skills rather than experience. Strength in soft skills can be determined by value set, personality, empathy and ability to withstand change and adversity.

Anyone can be trained for technical skills. Training allows you to hire the right people, and bring them to the level that your organization demands, with your brand’s culture and style.

I know there are a handful of wide-eyed bushy tailed young people in your customer service arm who are looking for purpose. They want to do a good job. They are eager. They are searching for meaning.

So my advice for you is go talk to them. Make them feel needed. Teach them. Train them. And say thank you good work. Have I told you this is free?

By investing in your people, especially when they aren’t expecting it, you will improve employee retention. Throw out all of the mumbo jumbo that generation Y employees are not loyal. Employees that are engaged, trained and developed stay. They feel appreciated, become stronger and happy.

And happy employees make organizations thrive.


All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual. -Albert Einstein

What Poisson Theory, Chocolate and “I Love Lucy” Can Teach Us About Contact Center Forecasting

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The words “Bleuel” and “queuing” have more in common than unique word properties.

Dr. William Bleuel of Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business is an authority on the mathematical study of queuing lines (queus) and two years ago showed me How to Make Better Call Volume Forecasts–a Non-Mathematical Approach Guaranteed to Improve Forecasting Accuracy.

In addition to case studies on Xerox and lessons on arrival rates, we heard about the episode of the classic show I Love Lucy from 1952 called “Job Switching.” In this episode Lucy and Ethel attempt to prove to their husbands that housework is tough. The two women get jobs at a candy factory and Ricky and Fred stay home and clean.

Lucy and Ethel, tasked with chocolate wrapping, prove to be loveably incompetent. In service delivery language the women experience more demand for chocolate wrapping than they can manage.

Dr. Bleuel tells us in statistical terms the arrival rate (lambda) of the chocolate was much more rapid than the service rate of the chocolate wrapping (mu).

This is an example of a common problem in call centers leading to long wait times and decreased customer satisfaction.

While Lucy and Ethel probably don’t know the “poisson” theory of queuing, they do know the chocolates were flying at them faster than they could wrap. At the end of the shift Lucy and Ethel’s cheeks, hats and braziers were stuffed with chocolate.

Do your call center agents have chocolate bursting from their seams?

We never find out why there was a demand for chocolate. We can guess it was new research suggesting chocolate was the magic pill for weight loss, happiness or love. The reason doesn’t really matter in the end–all that matters is  chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

Dr. Bleuel warns against the assumption that demand and volume are constant. Variation happens–it’s a natural part of life in the chocolate factory and life in the call center.

Walking Meetings? Pizza Parties? Fun At Work? Absolutely!

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I spent some time studying call centers-and when I did that I learned about what it meant to work in very difficult work environments. Call centers receive an inbound of negativity–and frontline staff has more pressure than anyone to absorb this negativity from customers. This is not just relevant to call centers, this is relevant for any company. It’s important to remember to be human.

Is Good Customer Service + Self Esteem Related? Coach Joe Thinks So!

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Last year I attended the  American Teleservices Association’s New Orleans annul convention. There I met a few interesting people including Senator Vitter (R-LA). I also met keynote speaker Joe Gilliam who wowed me, and his entire audience. I was so impressed with Joe that I approached him after his talk for a podcast interview.

Like me, Coach Joe Gilliam believes there is a customer service problem in this country. His remedy references a simple behavioral formula: all thoughts become behaviors that become actions.

Have you ever been waited on by someone who seems to hate their uniform, the world and you? Have you ever spoken to a call center representative who doesn’t seem to have any urgency in addressing your customer service problem? Gilliam makes the bold claim that at the root of these scenarios is “self-esteem.”

If people are negative it’s going to affect the way they respond to the customer. Negativity, according to Gilliam, is the biggest problem facing call centers or any customer service environment.

The people who work in call centers and other customer facing environments don’t generally brag about their jobs. Serving people and customers is generally not something to be proud of.

Of course there are always exceptions. For example Zappos has learned how to create an inviting environment and make the call center job something to brag about. But if you don’t throw parades for your employees like Zappos does there is still hope. However it will take an investment–one in training.

The training has to start at the top. And surprisingly it involves leaders taking an interest in developing themselves.

At Coach Joe’s senior level seminars he routinely asks the audience if they’ve picked up a self-improvement book in the last month. He says in twenty years he has never seen more than 10% of the participants raise their hand.

One day, long ago, Gilliam asked author Stephen Covey about the idea of “life purpose.” Covey told Gilliam the individual has two purposes in life: to develop themselves and to develop other people. If they aren’t doing either of these things they are just taking up space.

Now that you know the world is driven by events that are driven by behaviors that are driven by feelings that are driven by thoughts, does it look a little different?

To Serve Man

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As our train screeched to a halt dirt kicked up in a fury clouding our windows.

Our train car was hot and dark. Babies were crying, tourists were sweating, and there was no employee in sight to explain why our train wasn’t moving.

I was on an Amtrak train from Philadelphia en route to New York City excited for an afternoon of Kentucky Derby, Mint Juleps and ”ladies who lunch” hats.

Twenty five minutes passed. I was shocked by the apathy from the train staff. Not one employee had come to our car to announce the reason for the abrupt stop or when we could expect to move.

So I did what any curious customer service blogger would do. I called customer service and asked for information on the status of the train. The agent had no information for me. So I decided to do some informal research on Amtrak. I asked the agent where he was located? Was he a student? How long did he work at the Amtrak call center?

As we briefly chatted he explained his own frustration with the company. He explained that customer service and operations do not communicate and when problems happen out in the field agents like him are left empty handed.

Who would have thought the gold standard for trains has nothing even resembling a knowledge management system.

Deaf Ears

And the agent, an employee for Amtrak for 15 years, even vocalized his concerns to the President of Amtrak. But his words fell on deaf ears.

As we made our way back to New York City my eyes traced the big box retail stores, post offices and abandoned warehouses flying by. I contemplated the state of the customer service industry. We have forgotten what it means to serve.

I also thought about the sheer scope of opportunity to improve customer service all over the world.

http://misterchou.com/img/102008/1.jpg

One of the bridges on the Amtrak route from New Jersey to New York City*

All organizations, big or small, should remember to leave the lights on for the customer. We need to remember the importance of being present (if nothing else) when things go wrong. There is no shortage of people in need. Let’s commit to being there to serve.

Does your staff make appearances for those in need when your train shuts down? Or more importantly do you?

image source

Next Generation Call Center Technology for the Next Generation of Purchasers

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In San Francisco, the streets are always bustling with multi-taskers—they are eating and walking, texting and walking and reading and walking.

It’s not a rare day that I hear someone walking in the street on the phone with customer service—New Yorkers are loud as it is, but their voices are earsplitting when they are screaming into their phone: “AGENT, AGENT, AGENT!”

Fortunately the recipient of this anger is not getting their feelings hurt. That’s because it’s an automated attendant at the other end of the line. Most companies today use an IVR (interactive voice response) to answer customer service calls. As consumers, we come to begrudgingly accept these as a fact of life.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If the customer service department would look at some of the next generation technologies available today, like those that make the most of web and smart phone user interfaces, their customers would have a much different experience — one where customers gained a faster connection to a real human and without the IVR frustration. And one where the service interaction starts off on a pleasant tone, making the process of providing and receiving satisfactory service that much easier to achieve.

A Maze Here, A Maze There

Widespread adoption of IVR started in the 1980’s along with Nintendo video game Zelda. One was invented for amusement, and the other was invented for…well most of us actually still don’t know why. Both Zelda and IVR have Web sites devoted to cheating—Zelda has hundreds of pages on cheatscodesguides.com and IVR has the notorious GetHuman.com—created by Kayak.com’s co-founder Paul English when his elderly father had so much trouble navigating the phone menu trees on his own.

Ever notice that many IVRs have a disclaimer reading “please listen carefully as our menu options have changed” only to find out that they haven’t? Customers have stopped listening. Still, in 2009, the call center industry spent more than 2.5 billion dollars on speech recognition technology alone.

IVR: The Black Plague of Customer Experience?

Purdue University conducted a study on 18-25 year olds and found 100 percent of customers who were unsatisfied with their call center experience said they would refrain from purchasing from the company again. For all other age groups the number dropped to 63 percent. Call centers should consider this a call to arms. Gen Y’ers expect their customer service encounters to mirror the speed, agility and simplicity of their smart phones, iPods and flat screens. But so far the call center industry has failed to do so.

While the cost savings are steep and the importance of ‘triaging’ inbound calls is understood, it’s no secret that IVR is the black plague of the customer experience. So why do we continue to plague customers with legacy IVR technologies and menu trees that mirror a Zelda maze? One problem may be that individuals responsible for customer experience are not always those overseeing call center operations. When performance is measured by the rate at which callers use self service tools, customer experience can get compromised in the decision tree.

Who Is Doing It Right?

Shai Berger, CEO of Fonolo, has started to generate major buzz in the technology world. His company Fonolo, was named a “Top 25 Canadian IT Up and Comer” by the Branham Group, “Best New Product” from Emerging Communications Conference, and “Fierce15″ from FierceVoIP.

Fonolo is an enterprise service that turns any phone menu into a visual interface. This allows customers to navigate phone menus in a more natural way—visually from their browser or mobile application screen. The paradigm here is that callers, like visitors to a standard or mobile web page, get to click or tap on the box that best represents what they need. From there, the Fonolo application connects them directly to the agent that can best serve them.

In this Fonolo scenario, the structure of the IVR itself stays unchanged. Callers get directed to the right agent on a first try, instead of ‘mis-directing’—but no longer interface with the plague of DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) or speech driven menus. Nirvana!

Shai’s mission is not to dismiss or replace the IVR, but rather to make it work better by inserting more intuitive interfaces between the call center and the customer to better both sides of every manager’s equation—customer experience and cost control.

Aren’t Call Centers About the Caller?

A pleasant customer experience makes for happy city dwelling multi-taskers, happy customer service managers and happy shareholders. When you imagine your customer walking around the city, perhaps on their lunch break or after work, trying to fix a product or service, do you see palms sweating, furrowed brows and clenched teeth?

If we continue to see the call center as a cost that is exactly what it will continue to be—we continue investing in technology that increases profit quarter to quarter. However, if you plan on your company being around through the next 20 years as Generation Y gains purchasing power, you need to get educated on the next generation of call center technology.

Innovative systems like Fonolo help companies score higher customer satisfaction and loyalty and that means more revenues and profitability.

*First published on Customer Management IQ.  For more information on Fonolo you can visit them here.

Winning Over Antonio Banderas With a Very Social Contact Center

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Have you ever tried to talk to a robot? I have and let me tell you it’s quite frustrating. I don’t think I am the only one who wishes every IVR a long slow death.

[vodpod id=Video.4405909&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Amtrak Julie Operatory Lady on SNL, posted with vodpod

In the early nineties we got a little “automation-happy” in the contact center. The more “happy” we got in the contact center, the more unhappy our customers were.  We saw the quick cash we could save with IVRs, and laughed all the way to the bank never looking back. But guess what? Now as an industry we are paying the price. When was the last time you were at a party and the topic of call centers came up–and everyone started cheering? Yah that’s what I thought.

Contact Center: the Undiscovered Land of Opportunity

All eyes are now on the contact center.

It’s only a matter of time before before call center directors figure out the right way to convince leadership to invest in  unorthodox customer channels–non-traditional touch-points. Non-traditional customer touch-points will soon become traditional.

Get excited!

Customers want answers where they feel coziest. That means Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn–you need to be there. And sooner than you know all call centers will have successfully bloomed into fully capable “contact centers” doing just what they should be doing–offering a place where the customer can “contact” help. I’m not talking automation.

That means human beings on the phone, human beings (geniuses or geeks) behind some kind of bar or on a squad or human beings on the other end of a computer. Phew that was a mouthful!

Today the contact center has an opportunity to prove its value. The contact center can push its head out of its turtle shell and support marketing to co-lead the social business charge. Soon you will forget the contact center acronyms AHT, ACD, FCR, IVR and all the rest.

As someone who has a kind of strange love for call centers, I sincerely hope none of us ever have to watch a video like this ever again!

Pretty scary right?

For an introduction to social business tools and methodologies please join us for this free educational webinar sponsored by blueKiwi “Social Business: The Business of Being Social” on September 23rd, 2010 featuring Martin Schneider, Senior Director of Communications from SugarCRM and Jacob Morgan, Principal, Chess Media.