Trends for 2012- IVR's

Number two on the list of projects that people are working on and I am hearing a lot about is IVR Replacement or Re-Design. And all I have to say about that is, THANK GOD!

For years now consumers have been crying foul on anyone that is using an IVR as a typical speed bump to getting to a live agent. Consumers have been incredibly vocal on social sites and even developing their own blogs or websites dedicated to making sure each other is aware of how to beat the IVR. I was watching a show the other day on CNBC callled "Customer Dis-Service", a supposed inside look into the world of customer service. The show itself was crap. But they did have a major segment of the program dedicated to talking to the guy that built the website that puts up IVR trees online so you know how to beat them. Not sure if that says more about CNBC's journalism or the state of our industry.

Anyway, IVR's need the makeover. They have needed it for many years, but there just has not been enough real headway made in the voice interaction space to really drive compelling and useful re-design or replacement. Most companies that I have spoken with just could not justify the investment with the "new" IVR tools that had been coming out.

But, in the last year or two there have been a couple companies in the IVR space that have come up with some truly valuable and unique ways of addressing the challenges that are inherent with voice interactions. This technology jump along with the addition of common sense best practices and a deeper set of analytical tools to actually measure the customer journey have produced some strong re-designs and replacements. So much so that those big companies that could not justify it in the past are finally willing to put their political and financial butts on the line to make a change.

Of course it is again a welcome replacement cycle for technology providers and integration companies, but I think it is an even more welcome change for all of us consumers. Someday in the next ten years, someone will nail down Natural Language Processing and Voice Reco so well that this will all be a punch line to a joke we tell at conferences about when we used to use those old systems back in the day. But till then, we will see a steady stream of refresh happening that will make us all happy!

Trends for 2012- Knowledge Management

As we kick off the trends to watch for 2012, the list would certainly not be complete without the inclusion of Knowledge Bases or Knowledge Management. Seemingly every company I am working with today has some sort of initiative to overhaul how the customer service group or the whole company views knowledge.

There are any number of views on what Knowledge really is and how it should be gathered, stored, accessed and used. Some on one end of the spectrum believe that KM is really nothing more than a storage facility for information and Microsoft Sharepoint will do just fine. Others on the opposite end of the spectrum believe that KM is critical to the way a company needs to run it's business in 2012 and beyond. These folks argue that with the reshaping of the customer experience and the new dynamics of co creation with customers, there is a real opportunity to change the way that knowledge is created, used and stored that will fundamentally shift the KM space.

I am currently unsure of where exactly we are at in the KM cycle and mind set shift, but my sense is that we are somewhere in the middle of those views. From my conversations, there are a number of companies that are just starting to understand the value of having KM as a key part of their customer service strategy. While there seem to be just as many that already have some form of KM and are just trying to figure out what their strategy should be moving forward.

The one thing that I am certain of is that everyone is talking KM in meetings. They are talking about the desire to figure it out once and for all. They are talking consistency with their communication. They are talking about the single source of truth. They are working through models of how social customers impact their strategy. They are asking questions about a single stand along solution versus something that maybe comes as a part of a suite.

There are some very exciting technologies that exist in the market today for meeting the need you have as a company. The one caution that I would lay down for anyone looking to invest in knowledge is to try to think about how you can make knowledge come to life. Knowledge or information by its very nature is boring and static and certainly not sexy. Whether that knowledge lives in a data warehouse, a CRM system, a KM system or in a BI tool. The key will always be to take the time to figure out how to surface that information to the right person, in the right format, at the right time and in a way that will engage them so they will come back for more.

Yep, KM is a big hairy monster that many companies are just trying to grapple with. Take your time and make sure the knowledge lives and breaths......

Trends for 2012 Technology

Being on the front lines of technology for customer service environments, I am afforded the opportunity to meet with many different people inside and outside of enterprise companies. I work with all sorts of different people at different levels in companies and with all kinds of industries. The neat part of that for me is getting to meet so many people, but the technology geek side of me loves it because I am able to see first had what people are doing to leverage technology for the betterment of their business and for the consumer.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I am going to post about the trends/technology that I am seeing organizations take a crack at deploying in the customer service operations and what they are saying about why they are doing it.

As a precursor, here are the items that seem to be jumping out as trends that I will be talking about more in depth:

1. Knowledge Management Overhaul

2. IVR Re-Design or Replacements

3. Web Site Refresh

4. Live Chat Deployments

5. Virtual Agents

6. Feedback Management

7. Social Tools

I will take one at a time and just see where it goes. Please let me know your thoughts....