Thoughts on Twitter

With the explosion in social media that has led companies to try to define a social strategy and business, I was thinking about how Twitter can be used for service. Of course people are using Twitter today to stay engaged with their community and are using it to help solve problems, but I think there might even be a more fundamental use of the social media platform for Customer Service Execs.

When the topic of social media comes up in conversation around customer service, I tend to share an opinion that I have that people today are using Twitter today more as a "jump to the front of the line" kind of tool versus a true two way conversation. People feel that they can not or know that they will not get their question or issue resolved in a timely fashion in the other channels that are available to them. They have called the call center two times and not been helped in a way that resolved the problem. They have tried emailing but only got canned responses and no personal response for days. But, they know that because so many companies are so intently focused on managing their social presence and brand on social networks, they use those forums to tell the company their problem. Again, because it is such a new channel, the company has dedicated resources that are ensuring timely resolution to problems that arise. So, right now it is not so much that Twitter is where people are living for service, it is that they don't have trust or confidence in the other channels that are offered to them.

Now, someday in the near future, this dynamic may change and Twitter or other social networks may become the place that people go first for answers. But, for the large majority, the social networks for customer service are just the new, best way to get your issue resolved the first time in the fastest way possible.

So, now back to my original discussion point. I think that executives have an opportunity at this point to not only solve the customer problem with their social network strategy, but they have an opportunity to ask for customers feedback on why they chose Twitter instead of the call center. Or why they chose a forum on LinkedIn versus emailing a question to your company.

The feedback that you receive can then be additive to your strategy discussions around how you make engagement with your company easier, more pleasant, faster and successful.

No doubt that today executives are exploring how social networks impact service. I would challenge those executives to make it a point to use the engagement that social media facilitates to understand more about why people don't trust the other channels for support, because they aren't going away!

Not Just Call Center Talk

I tend to focus on customers from the perspective of the service experience in my posts, mostly because that is where my interest professionally sits. But, let me diverge for a short time and talk about the customer experience in a wholly different context.

I was eating lunch today and trying to catch up on a little news on the tube. I flipped over to CNBC to see if there was anything notable happening in the world of business. I just happened to pick up the beginning of a segment around the tensions and rhetoric that is growing between China and our great country. I was very interested to hear what thoughtful, insightful and interesting dialog was about to make it's way from the commentators lips to my ears. I really think this is an interesting discussion to have and am very serious in my desire to learn and hear more on the topic.

Problem was that after the intro to the segment, they brought on two guys that disagreed with each other and showed their class and respect for one another by screaming at each other so no one could hear what the other was saying. Classic cable news TV these days. Bring on two people that will shout at each other and really say nothing of substance. Draw people to the shows through shock and aggressive, 5th grade behavior and the sponsors line up. Or do they?

Here is a link to an article that talks about how CNBC is losing viewers like crazy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cnbc-ratings-still-inversely-correlated-to-market-performance-2010-2

I wonder if they treated their viewers more like intelligent, thoughtful and interested human beings if they would see a change in their viewing numbers?

Customers are talking with their remotes and it only takes five minutes watching their channel to understand why.

A Story

I was listening to a friend of mine the other day tell a story that made me cringe for the company she was talking about. She had taken the time to purchase services from a mobile service provider and was trying to contact them about a question she had with her bill.

As a background to this story, this service provider, like all others, has built out there service channels to allow people to contact them in any number of different ways. They have a call center, an email support group, a chat team and of course the good old fashioned IVR.

Now, back to the story.....

So my friend had a question about her bill and started out using the email service to see if she could get an answer in that channel. She emailed the company, told them her issue and was expecting to hear back in a "timely" manner as the issue was not incredibly pressing. She got a response, but not a resolution.

So she tried another channel, the chat function on their site. She did not get the answer she needed from that service either.

So she moved to the voice channel because that is the only place where she thought she could trust that she would be heard and get an answer to her question. She finally did get her answer and moved on with her day.

What can we learn from this story that applies to the broader service world?

1. People are trying to use alternate channels to connect with companies but more often than not, these alternate channels are not as responsive as customers would like.

2. When my friend called the call center, they did not know that she had tried to service herself in other channels. So not only did the agent not have all the background, the management was not going to see that my friend didn't get her question answered the first time in the first channel she used.

3. Broadly speaking, people will quickly gravitate to the channel that affords them the quickest resolution to their issue at that moment.

4. This company and others are training their customers to avoid the channels that they have spent so much time and money on creating to try to cut costs.

It is unfortunate in this case that the experience was difficult and cumbersome. The sad part of the story is that this company will likely never know that it took three attempts by my friend to get this single issue resolved, which means they will likely never know how many others are experiencing the same frustration.....

Age Old Argument

Efficiency vs Effectiveness.... Which is more important?

This has been a question in the world of customer service for years and never seems to be fully flushed out with a clear winner. Maybe because, there really is no clear winner and there needs to be a nice balance for a customer service group to be successful in terms of their customer experience and their duty to the company to keep costs in check.

Efficiency metrics have for many years ruled the roost when it comes to measuring the success of a service environment for most any company. How fast did I answer my calls/emails/chats? How fast did my agents handle the calls that they took that day? How fast did my service reps wrap up a call and document the results of the call? How quickly were agents able to roll a truck for service when they found out it was not something they could fix on the phone?

All of these items are important in measuring the costs of your service org, but do they really measure the success of your service org in terms of your customers perception?

The position that I would take in this age old argument is that effectiveness must be the foundation of your service organization and then when that has been put in place, you should move on to creating efficiencies that build on that effectiveness.

I have said this before, but I will say it again. What do customers want when they call your service group? They want their issue resolved then and there. As we all know, that is not always possible, but it becomes much more possible when you start using that metric as your baseline for how you are servicing your customer. If they want their issue resolved the first time they call/email/chat, then shouldn't that be the metric that we are tracking to?

I would never make the case that we should throw efficiencies out the window, but I would say that they only become useful, when we have set in motion with our service reps and our management that we are going to try to solve the problem the first time and then get incrementally better and faster at solving the problem.

The Power of Data

I was thinking about all the data that lives in the world of customer service and how that data is used to manage to the goals of the business. But as I was thinking about how we use all this tactical data to make decisions, I wondered if the data could be used for anything else.

One of the key elements of most customer service groups these days is to try to solve customer issues the first time around and avoid multiple contacts with the customer over the same issue. This is classically called First Contact Resolution. When someone reaches out to my company, in whatever form or channel, they get their issue resolved the first time. That is what customers want and that is what companies want. So if that is what both of the constituents want in the interaction, why aren't companies using that figure or data point to market their company?

We have heard from just about every company in this economic downturn that the lifeblood of their company is the customer and their experience is paramount to keeping that customer happy. So if the data proves that people just want their issues resolved and companies just want to resolve issues to keep their customers happy, why don't companies tell people about their FCR figures? Why don't they shout from the rooftops that if you come and buy my product or service, I will fix your problem the first time 85% of the time.

Obviously, there are better and more marketing friendly ways to say this, but if you are really trying to keep your customers, why not make sure your FCR is the best in your industry and tell your customers this as much as you can?