What is the Cost Associated with Failing to Meet Customer Service Level Expectations?

Providers of next gen communications services often find it a challenge to meet customer expectations. Because life is so busy and fast-paced for consumers, the key to winning, serving and retaining clients often boils down to quickly and effectively responding to customer calls—especially calls originating from mobile phones.

A recent Opus Research report authored by Senior Analyst Dan Miller (News - Alert) explores the topic of meeting customer service level expectations, and introduces the concept of intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD).

Miller describes iCFD as “a set of applications and technological resources that enable businesses to identify callers and quickly aggregate information about them to assist in successfully resolving their needs.”

Implementing iCFD is typically an incremental process, involving the integration of intelligent routing and self service into contact center applications. This process is grounded on the idea that, every time customers visit an e-commerce website or call, they reveal information about themselves that can be captured and stored using a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The key is intelligent use of this information.

“This only works to the customers’ advantage when access to the metadata is made as soon as a new call lands in the companies’ interactive voice response (IVR) system,” Miller said in the Opus report.

The Opus report lays out four phases to implementing iCFD and achieving timely, effective responses to customer needs.

In the Establishment Phase, the customer service organization has in place an IVR capable of routing callers using prompts tied to quick database queries. (This covers information like store locations, account balances and order statuses.)

In the Consolidation Phase, basic IVR functions are enhanced with technologies that transform the phone into a consolidated point of entry for excellent service. An example is the Genesys (News - Alert) Voice Platform from Alcatel Lucent, which uses SIP-based routing to allow consistent point of entry and supports natural language dialogues.

In the Performing Phase, customer service is raised to yet another level by integrating business logic, rules and practices to customize the experience related to each specific call. Stored metadata enables personalized prompts, references to past transactions and routing based on previously selected preferences.

Finally, in the Optimizing Phase, the full dynamic of iCFD is enabled through multiple channels of customer care, robust monitoring capabilities, and sophisticated analytics and tuning resources. Constant improvement and refinement is possible at this level.

By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

A white paper from Genesys, an Alcatel Lucent (News - Alert) company, also explores the topic of customer service levels. Case studies and other examples illustrate how concepts like iCFD are being used to provide excellent customer service.

The Genesys paper identifies four barriers to excellent customer service: expensive, underutilized workforce; backlog of work; proliferation of customer-facing systems and channels; and lack of operational insights.

To overcome these challenges, customer service organizations must increase employee performance, adhere to internal service level objectives, increase visibility into operational performance and compliance, and increase overall enterprise agility.

For much more on iCFD, including case study examples of how strategies and technologies are being used to improve customer service levels, read the full Opus report.

People Plus Technology Equals Superior Customer Service

There’s a great ad out right now for an online insurance company. The tagline is “Technology when you want it, people when you don’t.” I like this tagline because it captures the conundrum most folks face when they need customer service: people or technology? This company’s answer is: both.



And, really, ”both” should be the answer for all businesses. Technology should enable people to provide excellent customer service, regardless of company size or industry. But all too often technology replaces people or is implemented in a way that creates more work for customers.



This marriage of technology and people is especially important for small businesses, which often face customer service challenges that larger companies don’t. Following are three ways tech can help your customer service efforts.



1. The right info at the right time. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help people deliver superior customer service by providing relevant customer information in real time. They give customer service representatives the information they need to diagnose and solve problems.



“Anytime you can make your customer feel that you know about their issues and are in tune with what’s going on, it makes them know that their business is valued,” says Nancy Sattler, Principal Owner, Sattler Insurance Agency.



Sattler provides a variety of commercial and personal insurance products. Located in Lewiston, Idaho, the agency specializes in property and liability coverage for recreational outfitters and provides coverage in 38 states.



Sattler has seen great improvement in the efficiency of its customer service, and the CRM system also provides a means to capture new customer information for future sales. “For example, during a phone conversation we might discuss discounts for packaging some of a client’s policies together,” says Sattler.



2. 24/7 availability. In this slow economy many small businesses have cut back on staff, which can result in missed phone calls from prospects, increased time to return calls, and frustrated customers.

Andy Murphy, of Dunster House, a leading DIY log cabin retailer in the U.K., knows this all too well. “With our old phone system, our receptionists couldn’t tell if someone was engaged and customers would get bounced back time and time again which was frustrating for both parties.”

Unified communications, however, can help fix these problems. Features like call grouping and hot desking ensure that customers reach a company representative no matter where they are—in the office, at home, or on the road.



3. Face-to-face communications. Video Conferencing may not be first on a small business’ wish list, but this technology can not only improve internal communications, it can greatly enhance customer service as well.



By using video conferencing, you can provide support to customers more quickly and improve your success rate in resolving customer issues. Some video conferencing solutions, such as Cisco WebEx, let you remotely control customers’ desktop, reducing the frustrating back and forth of walking through a solution verbally over the phone. This not only takes up less of your customers’ time but also makes your employees more productive and allows them to help even more customers.



The combination of people plus the right technology can help your small business deliver excellent customer service. Do you think your business is too small for these suggestions? Take a look at how Larry’s Foreign and Domestic Auto Repair in San Jose CA (5 employees) is using a CRM application integrated with their phones to improve service.

Have any stories of how technology has helped improve your customer service? Send them over!

ShoreTel Keeps Communications Healthy at Busy Clinic

Authored by: Gina Jacobs, Senior Director, Marketing Communications, ShoreTel

A highly connected world requires highly efficient communication connections. ShoreTel’s brilliantly simple solutions are not only eliminating IT complexity, but they’re helping to keep people connected and communicating, regardless of industry, market segment or geographical location.

An excellent example of this is in the healthcare industry. A recent article in Health Management Technology, highlighted the case of Urban Health Plan, a community health center in the South Bronx faced with an outdated and failing phone system.

Working with Lou Person from ShoreTel reseller, Brightstack, the health center discovered first hand the brilliant simplicity of ShoreTel when a power failure brought the old system down and Brightstack helped deploy ShoreTel from scratch over a weekend and under emergency conditions.

Delighted with both the product and the service, the health center now has implemented ShoreTel’s highly cost-effective yet state-of-the-art contact center, added video conferencing and is improving communications across all sites so that patients receive the best possible care when they need it.

For more information on how ShoreTel can help your organization stay constantly connected, contact your local ShoreTel reseller today.