Organizations that have optimized engagement have outperformed their competitors by 26% in gross margin and 85% in sales growth

Or so says Gallup in their description of world-class companies that utilize Customer Engagement (CE) strategies and measure their CE efforts. Furthermore, Gallup has developed an Engagement ratio that can provide companies with "a macro-level indicator of an organization's health that allows executives to track the proportion of fully engaged to actively disengaged customers".

"I Quit!" Fantasy was Funny, But Jet Blue Isn't Laughing

You've surely heard about the Jet Blue flight attendant, Steve Slater, who recently quit his job in grand fashion after a bust-up with an apparently rude passenger. If you're unaware of this story, then you're living under a rock, or your tv is broken and your internet connection is down, or you have no friends, or you're not alive!

As much as I can understand the humorous nature of the act, and the "hell yeah!" accolades that many are bestowing on Steve's "take this job and shove it" moment (everyone has such fantasies at some point, don't they?), this was an incredibly uncool, selfish thing to do.

Steve obviously - and understandably - felt victimized by the rude customer who ignored his instructions, used offensive language and even hit him on the head with an overhead compartment door.

So he got his revenge by doing what he did. And by the smile on his face shown in countless news reports, and the massive outpouring of support he's received from many, he feels good about what he did.

But Jet Blue doesn't feel good about what he did, and they're the real victims here. While Slater jets-off (pun intended) to internet celebrity and probable visits with Leno, Letterman and the rest, JetBlue is left to deal with the fallout of damage control.

File under "Need to Know" regarding Customer Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction

Every business owner needs to know these 23 facts about customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, as compiled and presented by Adele Somers at Return on Behavior Magazine.

Organized in five categories, Somers provides compelling information that business owners need to keep in mind as they develop or enhance their customer engagement strategies.

• Facts about customer experiences and referrals
• Facts about customer retention and churn facts
• Facts about customer service and contact centers/call centers
• Facts about phone service
• Facts about customer service and contact centers and call centers

Will the "real" definition of Customer Engagement please stand up?

Theo Papadakis, customer engagement consultant at cScape, London, UK, provides an overview of customer engagement definitions where he begins with definitions of CE created by companies and then offers definitions from "individual thinkers".

While Theo and others define customer engagement as a concept, Interactive Softworks has developed software that enables customer engagement through direct and personalized multi-channel engagement; helping businesses and customers interact more effectively.

In spite of how one defines it, customer engagement should be about creating exceptional customer relationships through better business conversations and interactions, optimized business performance and improved customer acquisition, loyalty and retention campaigns.

A New Model for Customer Engagement

A new white paper from my company, Interactive Softworks, discusses a new model for customer engagement that is increasingly relevant for call centers of every size and focus.

Download it.

This white paper will discuss the six steps to effective customer engagement, including embracing a true multichannel strategy, having smarter conversations, delivering seamless experiences for delighted customers, enabling business collaboration, leveraging affiliates, partners and bundled offerings, and measuring customer retention, loyalty and revenue potential through real-time business analytics.

Additionally, this paper will take a closer look at ‘relationship architecture’ – the technology foundation that streamlines and helps manage all aspects of customer-facing business initiatives. Establishing a relationship architecture will provide lasting benefits to the company, partners and the customer, ultimately leading to success for the business.

Been Kinda Busy

Sorry folks - I have been swamped and simply haven't had the time to blog recently. Hopefully I can get back to it soon. Until then, all the best.

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Smart New Year’s Resolutions for Your Call Center (First of Three)

1. Expect more from your dialer

For companies that place a premium on outbound calls, a predictive dialer makes agents more productive by auto-dialing, detecting answering machines, and connecting live agents to the right party. And while many call centers already have some type of system to accomplish these tasks, they must resolve to ensure they are using a system that cost-effectively meets their business requirements today and well into the future. 

Ask yourself, “Is my dialer…”

a. …all-inclusive, giving me all the needed features for a single price?”

b. …able to integrate easily with other business applications?”

c. …capable of providing true real-time access to data without IT involvement or downtime?

d. …open and flexible to accommodate frequent change and intensive customization without relying on costly and time-consuming professional services?”

e. …paying for itself in a reasonable timeframe?”

If, after taking a sober assessment of your current dialer investment, you answer “no” to any of these questions, then you should seriously consider other available options. This may seem draconian at first blush, but the crippled economy has given rise to numerous incentives and price reduction programs by hungry call center software vendors that, in many cases, can offer you a brand-new system for a lower price than you’re currently paying for your deficient one.

And for those contact centers who have hitched their wagon to “industry leaders,” make sure you are receiving a legitimate ROI, and not just the comfort of ‘being with a brand name.’ When you fairly assess multiple vendors, you are likely to find that some of the so-called leaders are offering products that are years behind in innovation, require additional hardware and software purchases, and all for a price much steeper than competing products.

Remember, it’s about expecting more from your dialer, not more from your wallet.

An Oldie But A Goodie - The Top 20 Contact Center Metrics

Penny Reynolds of the Call Center School is one smart cookie. Even though her list of the Top 20 Contact Center Metrics was originally published waaaaay back in 2006, it still holds water today and is worth a refresher here in early January, 2009. 

End of Year Deals

I get a lot of "end of year deal" offers where software and services vendors offer specials if I conduct business with them before the end of the year. I'm sure you get these offers, too - this is not a new sales technique.

But in a down economy there are real potential savings that can be obtained by taking-up such an offer from a vendor. 

Of course you have to go through the same vetting process to confirm feature and benefits align with your business and technical requirements, but if you're freezing the budget until the new year, make the most of this opportunity while you can.

ATA vs. SOCAP

While at the American Teleservices Association's annual convention & expo, held this year in San Antonio, I couldn't help but notice that the crowd was much, much smaller than previous years. I'm sure the troubled US economy played a role in making it a leaner affair, not to mention the fact that SOCAP's annual convention was taking place at the same time! But I did hear quite a few conversations where folks are considering increased participation in SOCAP instead of the ATA in the future.

Now, I am a member of both organizations, though I am more involved in the ATA where I serve as a board member of a regional ATA chapter. And I think that many other call center professionals take the same approach of participating in both organizations.

My company has attended two ATA conventions and we've had considerable success from each. But we've not yet attended SOCAP's shows, and we'd like to give them a try. With budget constraints ever-present, we'll probably chose one to participate in next year. That said, I'm looking for advice. Any of you who have been to both and have a frame of reference, please be a dear and let me know your opinion.

Chrome Already Tarnished

Chrome, Google's new browser, has not delivered a very shiny performance for me so far. In fact, it doesn't work. At all!

I eagerly installed Chrome as soon as it was available (after Google 'mistakenly' announced it a day ahead of its intended release), and all I have ever seen of it is the "Aw, snap!" error message.

I expected a lot better from Google, and this is a major disappointment.

Dialogic is the ONE!

Everyone knows that Dialogic is the defacto standard for call processing technology. Their "ONE EVENT" - which will occur October 20 to 22, 2008, in San Diego, California - is a great opportunity for call center folks to network with Dialogic executives and product specialists to gain technical knowledge, to obtain insights into technology transitions, and more.


Here are details for the event:
October 20 - 22, 2008
Location: San Diego, CA

The Hotel Del Coronado
1500 Orange Avenue,
Coronado, CA 92118
Registration Link

Save the Date for Avaya PDS Users Group Conference

Hey kids! The Avaya PDS User's Group is gearing up for their training summit and vendor expo coming in September.

My company will be there to inform Avaya PDS users how they can maximize their dialer and other technology investments through integration made possible by our software.

Hopefully soon I'll get a chance to interview one of the Avaya PDS Users Group board members and will publish a podcast. In the meantime, learn more about the event.

The Unified Desktop Isn't Just for Customer Service Agents

Contact centers are now beginning to realize the value of a single interface through which their various team members (agents, supervisors, executives, even IT) can do their jobs, or at least significant portions of their jobs. This single interface is known as the unified desktop, as I previously blogged.

The difference between my initial post and this new one is that previously I was focusing on the unified desktop solely for the agent - the person(s) interacting with the customer on a telephone call or via email or chat sessions. The unified desktop was a single, central place where data from disparate sources, and functionality from different systems, came together in an easy-to-use, recognizable screen that made customer interactions easier and faster to achieve.

I now realize that the unified desktop is really more like a unified interaction application which can be relevant for any and all users within a contact center operation. Supervisors can use this same interface, albeit with different capabilities based on their role as a supervisor, to perform their supervisory duties. Executives, too, should be able to use this same interface, again with information and capabilities that are specific to their user role and permissions. In this way, a well-developed unified desktop can provide a sort-of centralized operating system (OS) that literally allows everyone within a contact center to work within the same application.

More on this in future posts...

Contact Center Trends

CP Wire recently published an article outlining 10 trends in the contact center. They do a decent job of describing the activities of forward-thinking contact centers, and the ideas here are very similar to my own posts.

Contact Center Technology to Help Collections Cut Costs

Along the lines of what I described in my recent posts, Collection Advisor Magazine's columnist Brian Cutler lists voice broadcasting (basically the same as outbound IVR) as one of the top three methods for cutting the cost of generating collections in this troubled economy. The article, "Cutting Costs of Collection Using Technology During Hard Times" is a PDF, so you'll be viewing it in a separate window.

Right Party Contact Podcast

I hosted my first podcast for The Evolving Contact Center. This episode (about 5 minutes total) is all about right party contact for the collections industry. I interviewed Rick Novak, a long-time contact center consultant, and he offers some great info about how companies use RPC as a strategy to collect more debt. He also talks about integration with Avaya PDS (predictive dialer) systems.

Proactive Customer Service

Here's an interesting idea for companies to notch-up customer service efforts using their existing call center investments: proactive customer service using outbound IVR. When you bring on a new customer account, send an automated outbound call with a pre-recorded "thank you" message, and give the customer a menu of options to further interact with your company. If one option is to speak with a customer service representative, the new customer can either inquire further about other products, answer survey questions, or even voice a complaint.

Along the same lines of

Outbound IVR delivers automated collections and Right Party Contact during economic slow-downs

Times may be tough for many businesses in the current economic downturn, but collections agencies are thriving as delinquencies no doubt increase. And as debt collectors mobilize to collect from their delinquent accounts, the competition will be keen. Smart collections agencies can gain the competitive edge if they automate the collections process and adopt a Right Party Contact strategy.

Naturally, collections companies attempt to collect debt from all their delinquent accounts. But a priority is placed on collecting from accounts with high balances, as opposed to smaller balance accounts that are less cost-effective to pursue. By using an outbound IVR to automate their recovery process, collectors can deliver a self-service option to lower priority accounts so that live agents can focus on the big fish.

Outbound IVR can deliver personalized and pre-recorded messages to delinquent contacts and offer a variety of self-service options including payment or promise to pay or to connect with a live operator.

And because the outbound IVR allows the call recipient to verify their identity, when they request connection with a live agent, the right party has been contacted and lends to significantly increased efficiency.

I couldn't have said it better myself...

...so, I've copied the text straight from Fred's blog, FredonTech.

In effect, when a business organization is presented with a solution from their technology team which appears to be a proposal to build an entire infrastructure and not a proposal to start solving their business needs immediately, they need to be concerned about the total time to solution and the hidden costs associated with the foundation-building efforts.

Call centers aren't software development shops. They're... call centers!

Instead of building a call center operating system from the ground up, focus on customer service, increasing sales, retaining employees, maximizing revenue per paid hour, first call resolution, average handle time and whatever else truly drives your center.


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