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September 03, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Labor Day and a New Call Center Paradigm
Since 1882, Americans have set aside a day near the end of summer to recognize the workers of the country. Interestingly enough, for those offering 24 x 7 x 365 service via contact centers, no such day off exists. Once you open your doors for business under an "always available" banner, no option exists to provide a day of rest for the contact center resources. More >>
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August 20, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Life Imitates Art in 3G
Having written about customer experience, social networking, and the Ultimate Question, I realized that I became a Net Promoter a few weeks ago after purchasing a 3G iPhone. Not that Apple needs any help after selling one million devices the first weekend it came out. More >>
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July 29, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Continuous Partial Attention, Cuil, Neurons, and L8r; Flattening an Interaction Near You
A spate of recent articles on the impact of technology on humans' ability to focus illuminates what many people have told me: they sense a profound change in the manner in which they acquire and process the increasingly amount of information readily available to them.
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July 01, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Seeing the Light During the Downturn – Insights from the Big Apple
I had an opportunity to attend Forrester's Financial Services Forum last week in New York City.
Looking back, there were three major topics that stood out in my mind. More >>
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June 25, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Back at Ya Andy
Andy, as an avid reader of your blog, I was very interested in your post regarding the challenges of random call arrival and random resource arrival in contact center operations. These well-known issues have been the bane of contact center managers’ existence since the first ACD was installed in 1974. Add multi-channel multi-segments and multiple sites, and you have big issues on your hands. More >>
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June 11, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Scenes from the Road: Part 1
Recent customer visits always both remind and amaze me how fast news travels and how hard sustained competitive advantage must be to create and deliver.
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May 14, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Doing Wrong Things Right, Part II
Yesterday, I met with a client and returned to the airport for the trip home. I was happy to see at the self-service kiosk that an earlier flight was available for a small change fee. Happy to get home four hours sooner, I paid the fee and proceeded to rebook the flight. Amazingly, the kiosk told me the new flight was overbooked and offered me a $150 voucher to get on my original flight. Not wanting to miss either, I accepted the offer. More >>
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April 29, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
I knew it when I saw it
We all appreciate when someone looks out for us. Phrases like "got your six" and others have become part of our vernacular. Even more formal terms like "customer advocacy" – defined by Forrester Research as "the perception on the part of customers that a firm does what's best for them, not just what's best for its own bottom line" – have been identified as critical to creating long-term customer relationships. More >>
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April 16, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Effective Practices for At Home Resources – Part 2
One of our recent posts discussed three best practices around the people, policy and working environment aspects of a home-based resources strategy. Let's take a look at the last three of the six insights we’ve uncovered in working with early adopters of this rapidly developing trend. More >>
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April 11, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
The New and Improved Suggestion Box
Unlike the TV show "The Office," where additions to the HR suggestion box are never forwarded to corporate, a new era of customer input is shaping up. More >>
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April 10, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Web 2.0, Social Networks and Customer Service: The New Reese's
A famous commercial from my childhood was for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Two kids – one holding a jar of chocolate, the other holding a jar of peanut butter – collided and created a new product. It was the birth of the peanut butter cup – "the perfect mix.” More >>
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April 03, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Effective Practices for At-Home Resources – Part 1
Our last post discussed the business, societal and technological changes that are making home-based resources an ever increasing percentage of the customer contact workforce. 2007 IDC estimates range from as few as 112,000 to as many as 672,000 contact center agents worldwide working at home. Avaya research indicates that more than 42% of companies are considering at-home resource deployments in order to attract and retain the highest quality resources. The good news? With at-home agents, the larger addressable work force available makes finding the right people easier, and the expenses associated with supporting premise-based agents shrink as much as 33%. It’s a classic win-win.
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March 21, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Best Practices for At-Home Agents: A Two Part Series – Prelude
At-home agents live and work at the intersection of business, societal and technology trends. I've recently spent time with companies that are beginning to embrace the use of at-home resources. Interestingly enough, employing remote contact center agents has been an option for more than ten years, but the recent surge of at-home agents is akin to the social epidemics described in The Tipping Point and largely influenced by three factors:
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March 12, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Spring Training
Baseball's spring training began a few weeks ago with teams reporting to camps all over Florida and Arizona.
One of my favorite pastimes during this season is to watch the averages of the players – especially those who are on the edge of making a major league roster. Because they’re generated in such a short period of time, amazing statistics can be deceiving. This makes it difficult for managers to assess the validity of these performances over the long term and determine which players make the final cut. More >>
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March 06, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Experts Agree: Maintain the Gain, Remove the Pain
Last week marked the release of two important assessments of customer service satisfaction. The first, BusinessWeek’s Customer Service Champs, is an annual ranking of companies that "know how to keep front-line folks happy, make tech investments that help rather than hinder consumers and have leaders who make service a priority." Not a bad recipe for customer service excellence! The second, the University of Michigan's ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index), is a "national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States.” More >>
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February 28, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
One Test, Two Books, and a Golden Thread
The Page 99 Test and books like The Tipping Point and Freakonomics are all examples of using shortcuts to reach an insight or conclusion. This idea of cutting through the clutter could be the key to providing excellent customer service. More >>
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February 13, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Facing Up - Social Networks Coming to an Interaction Near You
The ever-growing popularity of social networks is allowing sites like Facebook to thread their way into more mainstream brands. On January 30th, the Wall Street Journal added a feature that allows subscribers to see which WSJ stories are popular among their Facebook friends. More >>
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January 25, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
In Uncertain Times, Do Certain Things
The events in the financial markets these last few days certainly bring to mind one metaphor – a rollercoaster – as actions by the US Federal Reserve and other global entities target the current volatility. More >>
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January 18, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Hands-off Help
One of the biggest thrills I had as a kid was learning to ride my 10 speed with no hands. I also admit that I once took great joy in driving from Cleveland to Toledo using only my knees to guide the steering wheel. (For those of you familiar with the Ohio Turnpike and its terrain west of Cleveland, you know that’s really no big deal). More >>
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January 09, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Welcome to 2008: Don't try this at home, or in your contact center
Casey Stengel once said, "Never make predictions, especially about the future." In that spirit, perhaps it would be best to stay away from predictions for 2008, tempting though it may be. Instead, let's focus on what we know now. After visiting numerous call centers over the last several years, one thing I know is that behavior occurs in the call center that you'd never want to encounter in real life. More >>
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December 11, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Ultimate Blind Transfer
Since products tend to drift towards commoditization as markets mature, it's often been stated that the only sustainable differentiator over time is service. More >>
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December 05, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Monday, Monday
For years, the day after Thanksgiving has been the bane of contact center staffing and networking engineers. And now, an interesting new twist has emerged: Cyber Monday – the Monday after Thanksgiving.
More >>
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November 15, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
From Legacy to Loyalty - The Evolution of Outbound Applications
If you've ever had your oil changed by one of the 30 minute firms, you're probably familiar with the reminder sticker placed on the windshield indicating when the next oil change should occur – I always liked that. This concept plays off the notion that most people truly appreciate anything that can save them time, reduce the number of decisions they need to make, and simplify their lives in this hectic world we live in. More >>
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November 01, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
A familiar thought – but not sure if it’s a good one
In the 90's, I was made aware of a bank that became famous for charging its customers to see a teller. National news crews descended upon our city to show people in line with their passbooks demanding a better policy towards their branch operations. It ran in a national TV story under the title, "Bank Fires Its Customers." Emotions ran high as grandmothers were told indirectly they were no longer valued as customers. More >>
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October 19, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Mongoose, the Rat, and Customer Service
A friend of mine told me a story about his travels to a faraway country. Apparently, there was ongoing trouble with rats in parts of the city he was visiting. More >>
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October 10, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Customer Satisfaction and the Contact Center: Part III
In my last entry I talked about conflicting goals in the contact center, the kind that come about when a common set of higher order business outcomes are not pursued. More >>
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September 27, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Customer Satisfaction and the Contact Center: Part II
In my last entry I focused on two areas — the peaking of customer satisfaction based on the ASCI index, and the first of three challenges that impact a firm's ability to service customers well: the new consumerism and shift of interaction power to the initiator. More >>
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September 20, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Customer Satisfaction and the Contact Center: A Three Part Series
The respected University of Michigan’s “American Customer Satisfaction Index”, created in 1994, is an interesting example of correlating customer satisfaction to buying behavior. More >>
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August 28, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
On the road with The Ultimate Question
Last week, our family took its annual trip to Ohio to visit relatives and attend a series of major and minor league baseball games. My son and I refer to that as a vacation – my wife, well, she is very understanding after 18 years of marriage. More >>
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August 21, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Ultimate Question in Action - Part 3
Over the weekend I experienced an "Ultimate Question Moment" in person. In an interesting example of life imitating art...
I was in a social setting with a few other people when a specific subject came up regarding services for elderly parents. No sooner did the subject arise than... More >>
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August 08, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Fred Reichheld Interview, Part 2
The Ultimate Question: Passive Satisfaction and the Role of Contact CenterOur discussion with Net Promoter Score author Fred Reichheld became very interesting when we decomposed the typical customer base into the three NPS constituencies: A) New Promoters — customer "assets" who are wildly satisfied with a product or service, B) NPS Neutral — those who are passively satisfied and therefore at risk, and C) Net Detractors — unsatisfied customers who actively try to ensure that your business does not succeed. This last group may even categorically represent a term known as "bad profits". More >>
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July 31, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Fred Reichheld Interview, Part 1
The Ultimate Question: Valuing Your Profit ProfileSometimes, if you're lucky, you get a chance to meet one of your heroes. I recall as a kid going to Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio and almost colliding with Jack Nicklaus as he moved between holes at the World Series of Golf. Just the memory of Jack and his caddy, Angelo Argea, walking past me is something I'll never forget. More >>
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June 28, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Doing the Wrong Thing Right, Part 1
I used to live in Chicago and always enjoyed visiting the trading floors of the commodity exchanges. If you've never seen a commodity exchange in action, you're missing a real treat. Upon the opening bell, a cacophony of shouting begins by the traders as they pursue a price for the commodity in question. It's entertaining in some ways, but in others, it's a reminder of how we need to question our assumptions when it comes to customer contact.
We hear a lot about companies that have "relationships" with their customers. Their advertising and web sites speak about it extensively, but underneath the hood of the contact center... More >>
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June 07, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Wisdom of Lines
Unlike most people, I like waiting in line. No, not because I wouldn't prefer to be served faster, but because I get a lot of ideas on how to improve customer service experience by observing the dynamics of what occurs while waiting. More >>
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May 30, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The "Aha Moment" on Home Based Resources
Watching a recent readout on a test of home based resources was a fascinating and educational experience for me.
We've long said that someday, the traditional contact center will, in part, "go away" – not from a business process standpoint, since customer care is in the long term one of the few sustainable differentiators, but more from a physical footprint standpoint. More >>
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May 25, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Platinum Rule
The last I checked, platinum is more than double the price of gold. Basic economics states that the rarer the commodity, the higher the price will be to obtain the item.
The same holds true for what we refer to as "The Platinum Rule" in customer service. We've all heard of the Golden Rule – "do unto others as you would have done unto you" . . . simply put, treat others the way you would like to be treated. More >>
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May 09, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor
Transmutation
Are you thinking of your customer contact strategy in these terms?In nature, an observable phenomenon called transmutation finds one object converting to another over time. As business tends to mimic nature, perhaps you should be considering your customer contact strategy in these terms. I've often met with companies who love to benchmark. They'll buy reports on contact center metrics, they'll attend "birds of a feather" user groups, and they may even hire "mystery shoppers" to assess customer experience for both themselves and their competitors. More >>
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