What Emily in Paris taught me about CX

11/01/2022by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

Here’s what Emily in Paris taught me about CX

In the show, Emily in Paris, there’s a funny scene between Emily and her roommate Mindy.

Emily is trying to write a letter in French and Mindy, who speaks French well, offers to help. But Emily declines the offer, saying, ‘No thanks, I can do this, my French is ok.’

To which Mindy replies, ‘Ok good to know. Then maybe you’ll want to stop washing your hair with dog shampoo.’

It turns out that Emily’s level of French wasn’t actually quite there yet. She was washing her hair with dog shampoo.

The picture on the shampoo bottle wasn’t meant to evoke the warmth of owing a pet. It was actually a shampoo for dogs.

I laughed long and loud at that. Because that scene mirrored my own life experience.

Six years ago, when I first moved to Germany, I did exactly the same thing. I stood in a grocery store aisle trying to figure out which bottle of shampoo to buy.

And no, I couldn’t guess at the German words on the label with any level of confidence. It was one of many watershed moments.

It’s a humbling experience to reboot your life in a new language.

Put aside cultural assimilation for the moment.

When you don’t know the language it becomes tough to just do daily life stuff like figuring out what buttons to press on the ATM machine or how to correctly fill in the mailing label for a package.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/what-can-i-do-with-my-ccxp

There are parallels between rebooting life in a new language and implementing a CX strategy

To successfully reboot my life in German, I went through a number of steps.

And I think there are some direct parallels to the steps I took in my personal life and how I see Clients implement CX in their organizations.

Here goes –

1. My world had changed and if I was going to succeed in it I was going to need to change too (and speak German!)

The CX parallel:

At the heart of so many successful CX strategies is (drum roll)…dissatisfaction.

A realization hat the world has changed and that our organization hasn’t changed with it – or hasn’t changed enough to meet new realities.

Not paranoia.

But a recognition that what’s made us successful up to now isn’t going to make us successful going forward.

If everyone thinks everything is just fine, you don’t see the impetus for change.

2. I set a specific and ambitious vision for my future – I imagined myself speaking fluent German everywhere I went

The CX parallel:

The CX Vision is where it all starts.

Not the organizational vision though of course the CX Vision must map to the organizational vision.

Rather a specific and ambitious view of the future that answers this question – what kind of experience do we intend to deliver?

And no, that doesn’t come from senior people meeting in a room to craft pretty words.

Crafting a great CX Vision for the future requires us to artfully blend who we are as an organization – our brand, our value proposition, our financial goals – with what our Customers want and need from us.

Most Clients tell me that they spend six months, sometimes more, doing a deep dive into the world of the organization and the world of Customers to craft their compelling CX vision.

But once that’s done, it becomes the check against which next steps and actions are mapped.

3. I evaluated the gap between my current state (of speaking German) and my desired future state – how big was the gap?

The CX parallel:

Before launching into the CX ‘doing’ it’s helpful to evaluate where you are now.

A strategic gap analysis across all the vital CX competencies includes looking at the current state of domains like VOC, Metrics, Culture and more.

Only through knowing where you are now, can you determine what you’ll need to move forward. And what that roll out might look like.

4. I set my strategy – my plan of action to achieve my vision (of speaking fluent German)

The CX parallel:

Equipped with my CX Vision (point #2) and my readiness analysis (point #3), I can now set out the short, mid & long term activities needed to move forward.

Avoid complexity here – remember that short term wins build credibility for longer term wins.

As you progress the impact will increase – Rome wasn’t built in a day – but it was built.

5. I considered how speaking German would improve my life overall – which is the real payoff

The CX parallel:

I saw a CX Consultant once say, “It’s not about the money…”. And I remember thinking what terrible advice that was.

We all operate in the real world. And have a responsibility to our organization to help it do better ‘financially’ or business-wise (I also work with governmental & non-profit organizations as well).

As a CX professional, I need to articulate how the CX work we’re doing (and trying to get others onboard to do) is going to help my organization do better and be better – in real economic terms.

6. I allocated resources into my plan – including time and money

The CX parallel:

Describing and quantifying the specific resources you’ll need is necessary to win budget approval. It’s overly simplistic to just say ‘CX is everyone’s job’ and hope your CX dreams come true. And it’s not about having a huge CX Team (those are rare).

You’ll be asking others to allocate their time and resources too. Don’t ever underestimate that ‘ask’ that you’re making.

7. I set appropriate metrics to track my progress along the way (such as passing the language certification exams)

The CX parallel:

Metrics inform me of my progress – and keep our CX efforts headed in the right direction,

Of course it’s important to look at all the many metrics and determine which ones support CX, which ones actually damage CX and which ones are function or departmental specific and may not have significant impact on CX.

Choosing and then measuring the right things is one of the most important decisions you’ll help your organizationn make.

And of course you have to take actions based on what your metrics tell you.

I’m not going to get into the ‘Organizations obtain scores and then don’t do anything with them’ discussion in this post.

It’s pretty obvious that if you’ve chosen the right metrics, you make the effort to help them move in the right direction.

8. I shared my vision and progress with my family & friends – to help build a culture of support & accountability

The CX parallel:

It’s amazing how much easier things ‘go’ when everyone is rooting for success – and pulling in the same direction to get there.

When you hear people talking in meetings about what they’ve done or are planning to do to make people’s lives better.

One of my favourite CX people told me that she knew she had been successful when people from around the company started coming to her office to tell them about what they were doing.

As compared to her first couple of years where she spent so much time ‘out in the field’.

Share your CX successes. Share those failures. There’s a teachable moment in nearly any experience.

In closing

These days I can visit the dentist, buy new eyeglasses and make a dinner reservation in German. I’m not where I want to be with my vision yet – but I’m closer than I was when I started.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/04/words-worth/

It will be the same for your CX work too. Your successes will begin to accumulate. And people in your organization will come to you for advice – perhaps one of the best signals ever that you’re on the right track.

So thanks Emily in Paris for that resonant moment with the shampoo bottle – and for helping me consider lessons around Customer Experience.

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read this. And if you’d like to follow along with our articles and other information just leave your email address in our contact form!

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

How to get better at writing

04/01/2022by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this article I talk about how to get better at writing.

I wrote this as a response to a recent article written by Maurice Fitzgerald in which he wrote –

“The two most critical skills for managers”

“Quite simple really. We can have all the knowledge in the world. Unless we are able to communicate it effectively, we can’t get anything done.

The only ways we can get our teams and organizations to do what we want are:

Writing.
Speaking.

There is nothing else. There is no other way we can communicate. There is no other way we can get things done. The better you are at these two skills, the easier it will be for you to get things done.”

I’d recommend the entire article which you can find here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/only-two-ways-managers-get-things-done-2022-every-other-fitzgerald/?trackingId=CNRXgVmMQgWJ9CsXWUhfWA%3D%3D

Via the comments section on his article, Maurice asked me if I had any suggestions on how folks can improve their writing skills – largely because I spend so much of my time teaching communication skills.

And in this short article I respond to his question.

Let’s start first with context

It’s unlikely the people reading this are planning on writing the great American (or Malaysian or Irish) novel.

I think for most people at work, it’s about upping the levels of clarity & effectiveness in written communication.

So to get better at writing, I’d suggest starting off by improving how you write emails.

Because nearly everyone has to write emails – and yet the calibre and clarity of the email writing that’s out there is all over the place.

What I’m seeing in email writing

I’ve taught email writing for 20 years.

But what I’m seeing in the last couple of years or so is how Clients are embracing new ways of thinking about how their people communicate with Customers and with each other.

In the past, the training request I’d receive would sound like this – “Dan, we have a big Customer Service Team. Please help them improve their email writing skills.”

And that was all fine and good and I’ve very much enjoyed this work (and still do).

But these days, I hear a new variation on this request. It sounds like this –

“Dan, of course we want to improve our email writing with Customers. So much of how we communicate with Customers today involves writing – email, chat, text, social media and so on. So yes – let’s help Customer Service improve.”

“But we also want to improve how the people in our company write to each other. Because it’s not enough for us that our Customer Service folks can write well.”

They continue…

“To build our Customer-centric culture and our organizational effectiveness, we want everybody to write well – it’s that important to us.”

That’s the single biggest trend I’ve seen in email writing classes and I think it’s a terrific one.

If you truly want to build that desireable Customer-centric culture, then everyone should be able to write as if they were writing to a Customer.

A point I highlight, early on in email writing workshops, is this one –

Why would you write differently to a Colleague than you would to a Client or Customer?

Doesn’t your Colleague deserve clarity? Don’t they deserve ease or recognition of their emotion? And doesn’t everyone deserve more than an abrupt one word ‘noted’ in reply to their note?

Because everyone is a Customer.

And the way you write is a direct reflection of how you think and how you see the world.

When your Colleague opens your reply and reads it – how are they going to feel? What perception have you created? How are they going to remember you?

“Business writing” has ruined some of us

One of the hallmarks of a great email is that it sounds the way we speak (as our best selves obviously).

Yet so much of what we see when we evaluate email transcripts is the use of heavy words, lengthy expressions, jargon, buzzwords and even the dreaded ‘we regret to inform you’ or ‘we would greatly appreciate if you would…’.

Some Participants tell us they learned to write this way in school – often under the heading of ‘business writing’.

That to dress up the email with fancy words & phrases somehow made it more ‘professional’. Oh dear.

Where business writing refers to recognizing the tone and content of the Customer – I say yes – go for it. That’s an approach to ‘business writing’ I can get behind.

But where business writing refers to being murky in word choice and stilted in how we present our ideas and suggestions – I’d say that’s an approach to ‘business writing’ that’s not doing anyone any favours.

It’s a strange turn world we all live in when a Chatbot ends up having more personality and better word choice than a human being does.

We actually came across such a case in a Mystery Shopper program we undertook last year. And it still haunts me.

In an increasingly digital world – when one human being chooses to reach out to another human being – don’t we have an inherent responsibility to be human?

Some ‘lenses’ you can use to better see your emails

This short article isn’t a replacement for a formal workshop or learning program. There’s just too much ground to cover.

But there are a number of great lenses you can use to review your existing email writing and improve.

What I find is that people ‘look’ at their email, but don’t always ‘see’ their email.

What lenses do is provide new and powerful ways to relook (and rethink) how you write.

Here are three of my favourite lenses

Lens #1: The 9 Step Pattern

This is the essential pattern we teach in our email writing workshops and covering these steps:

1. Interpret Tone & Content

2. Choose the right Response Action (Clarify, Response Template, Free Form)

3. Write the Opening

4. Craft the Affirmation or Empathy Statement (this is where we spend a lot of time on empathy and what it sounds like).

5. Structure the Response

6. Invite Interaction

7. Conclude

8. Re-read

9. Send

Having a chronological step by step framework makes email writing both better and more efficient.

And the 9 Step Process is effective as well – it helps ensure that the Tone & Content of the Customer have been considered and where appropriate ‘matched’.

It’s not meant to turn writers into robots.

Rather – like a great recipe – it ensures that all the key ingredients are gathered and blended together for a great outcome.

Lens #2: The Customer Experience Pyramid

The CX Pyramid is so simple and yet so powerful.

It’s part of our CX workshops and we often use the CX Pyramid in our Mystery Shopper and Contact Audit work for Clients as well.

The pyramid covers 3 levels – each level with it’s own question to answer.

1. Meets Needs – Did I help my Customer accomplish their goal?

2. Easy – Did I make it easy for and on the Customer to understand and use my email reply?

3. Enjoyable – What kind of emotional perception will be left in the mind of the Customer once they read my email reply? Is that the emotion I was going for?

Considering the answers to these three questions is pretty much guaranteed to make your email better.

Lens #3: The Customer Journey approach

This lens helps remind me that the Customer is on a journey to accomplish something. And that I’m just one point in that journey (something for Customer Service people to remember).

By stepping back and looking at the ‘bigger’ chronological picture – I can serve them better. And here are the questions I ask myself using this lens:

Sometimes people get very factory like when they’re handling email. Head down, fingers flying, responses sent.

But taking a few moments to consider the Customer journey starting with what motivated them to write, what their goal is (and how my reply addresses that) and where they are likely to go next (including what I can share with them about what comes next) leads to better outcomes.

Including reduced ‘back and forth’ email trains and improved Customer perception (I was listened to).

Are there more lenses that we can possible use?

Absolutely.

In CX we talk about data architecture. How different layers of data can be combined to provide a full picture of Customer perception & outcomes.

I think that idea works for email writing too. Different lenses can be ‘layered’ and combined to provide a complete quality framework for an email.

Another lens we could use is the Cultural lens. How does a German national prefer to receive their message as compared to a Japanese national for example.

Or how about the Value lens – in what way does or should our organization’s core values make their appearance in our communications.

But I’d still start with the 9 Step Pattern as my primary lens first. And then layer on the additional lenses that I’ve chosen as the most relevant and meaningful for my work communication.

In closing

Thanks Maurice for what you wrote. I think that in today’s world, being able to speak well and write well matters more than ever.

So does Warren Buffet by the way – here’s an excerpt from a business article I came across –

Legendary investor and billionaire Warren Buffet has a tip for young people: Focus on learning how to write and speak clearly.

“The one easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now — at least — is to hone your communication skills — both written and verbal,” says Buffett.

I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for reading!

Daniel

[email protected]

What I learned from Thoreau about CX, Customer Service & Contact Centers

23/12/2021by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

What I learned from Thoreau came from stumbling across his quote in a science fiction book I was reading –

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

There’s so much wisdom packed into these few words. And for someone like me who teaches, it resonates. Because I think great teaching helps people ‘see’ more clearly.

In the domains of Customer Experience, Customer Service & Contact Centers, folks look at and see a lot of different things.

Let’s have a look.

Here are some examples of the difference between looking and ‘seeing’

Interpreting Quality

– When you listened to that call recording or read that email reply from Customer Service, what did you ‘see’ (hear)?

Quality opinions tend to be all over the place – even amongst folks who’ve worked together for years. Was that a good email or a not so good email? What was great about that call? What could be improved in that call?

Getting people to ‘see’ Quality and align around a common understanding for Quality makes Customer lives better (yeah – predictablity & consistency!).

And it makes Employee lives better too (yeah, we know what we’re supposed to deliver and we get quality help from our company to deliver that).

What a great Quality Assurance professional can do

Interpreting Metric results

– When you look at those 32 Contact Center metrics you report every week – what do you ‘see’?

Because I work inside so many Centers around the world, I see the level of variation in the ‘what’ people select and look at in their Contact Center KPIs.

So many Contact Center metrics are either unnecessary, secondary at best, interpreted incorrectly, are weighted too much (or too little) or are interpreted in different ways amongst the Team.

And because a Center is an ‘interrelated system of causes’, it’s important to understand the interrelationships and trade-offs that exist between metrics – not just metric performance in isolation.

Looking at a dashboard of metrics, and having the entire Team accurately interpret what they see – unlocks a world of potential.

What I learned from Thoreau? Don’t just look at dashboards – see and understand what they’re telling you.

Why are you still talking about Average Handling Time?

Interpreting how Customers behave

– When that Customer scolded you while you were serving at the Counter what did you ‘see’?

Don’t be surprised when some Frontline folks – after being scolded by a Customer – say they saw a ‘jerk’. Or that they were being ‘abused’.

Some discussion on how to better manage difficult Customer situations can change the way folks ‘see’ some of these situations.

Because there is a distinction between Customer behaviour that is indeed ‘abusive’ vs. Customer behaviour that we just happen not to like.

Helping your folks see that – and manage those situations better – is an important leadership responsibility.

And for those in leadership roles, our job is to help others see things too

In management workshops Participants ask the following questions:

– How can I get my bosses to ‘see’ that our Contact Center is a profit center, not a cost center?

– How can I get my Employees to ‘see’ that the values we’ve chosen for culture change really matter?

– How can I get other departments to ‘see’ how important CX is?

The cool thing is that when people see better, they do better.

They make better decisions. They align & unite around common language & goals. They improve their ability to influence & persuade others.

Not once in the 21 years I’ve been training has a single Client said, “Dan, we’d like to fly you halfway around the world and pay you some money to stand up and share your opinions with the Team for 1 or 2 days.”

Even writing that sentence makes me wince.

The way Clients put it sounds like this. “Dan, we have a challenge or an opportunity we’d like some help with.”

“Can you help our people see how to run our Center better? See what CX means and how to bring it to life. See how to be a better boss. See how to improve coaching outcomes. See how to communicate better with Customers.”

Not just look. But see

I like what I learned from Thoreau. And I came across his quote purely by accident – in a science fiction book I was reading.

But it helped me reflect on what I do in my own work. And see it more clearly.

https://www.biography.com/writer/henry-david-thoreau

I hope in some way it is helpful to you too. Thank you for reading!

Daniel

What lessons can Contact Centre folks learn from CX folks?

20/11/2021by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

Daniel Ord of OmniTouch teaches Contact Centre & CX

What lessons can Contact Centre folks can learn from CX folks?

I’ve written about lessons CX folks can learn from Contact Centre folks.

Here’s a link to my earlier article:

CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry

Today I flip the perspective and ask – what lessons can Contact Centre folks learn from CX folks?

Because the nature of the work between the roles is different – no matter how much Contact Center folks rebrand themselves as Customer Experience.

And there are so many lessons Contact Centre folks can learn from their CX Colleagues.

Here goes!

Is the work done in CX and in Contact Centres really so different? Yes it is.

When people ask me about what it takes to run a successful Contact Centre, I like to use the analogy of a circus tent.

Imagine a traditional red & white striped circus tent up ahead of you. Lots of things are going on inside that big top.

As you enter the tent you’ve got the high-wire acrobats up overhead, the lion tamers over there and the clowns driving around in funny cars in the ring by the entrance.

There’s a lot going on in that tent. And it all matters. The Fortune Teller has her role. The Weightlifters have their role.

You get the idea.

Now imagine that your big top tent is your Contact Centre. There’s a lot going on inside the Contact Centre big top too.

When you walk inside you’d find Quality Assurance – that’s a specialized role.

And as we look around we’d find Workforce Management, Training, IT, Human Resources, Finance. They’re all specialized roles too.

They’re all contributing to Contact Centre success.

And of course you’d have all the people that get the work in and out each day – the Agents, the Team Leaders, the Directors.

In a great Contact Centre all these disparate roles work in harmony together to achieve results. Everyone knows what everyone else does and has a basic understanding of each other’s contribution to success.

All under the direction of a skilled & knowledgeable Contact Centre Head.

But the Contact Centre tent isn’t the same as the CX tent.

So what’s inside the CX tent?

Like the Contact Centre tent, there’s a lot going on inside the CX tent too.

Let’s walk over to the CX big top.

I teach Customer Experience Management and help people earn their CCXP Certification. And competencies that I cover in our training would be found in the CX tent including:

· Customer Experience Strategy

· Voice of Customer & Customer Research Know-How

· Experience Design

· Metrics, Measurement & ROI

· Culture & Change Management

And each of these are big topics.

Just consider Voice of Customer & Customer Research Know-How.

By the time you factor in qualitative & quantitative research methods, triangulation, prioritization, data analytics and reporting & actioning of results you’ve covered a tremendous amount of ground.

And just like in the Contact Centre, the disparate CX roles work in harmony under the direction of a skilled & knowledgeable CX Head.

With the added complexity that CX is at play across the entire organization. All functions, all departments, all Employees, all Partners, all Vendors.

Everyone in the Customer ecosystem.

When I listen to people talk about their work I ask myself – are they talking about the work that falls within a function or department – like Customer Service?

Or are they talking about work that spans the organization – such as lifecycle and journey analysis, rollout of listening posts and organization wide culture change.

How they describe their work provides input into whether they work in Customer Service/Contact Centre or they work in Customer Experience.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/cx-lessons-i-learned-judging-cx-awards-this-year

Ok, the tents are different. You made your point. So what can lessons can Contact Centre folks learn from CX professionals?

I continue to be inspired by the level and maturity of CX work being done out there in the real world.

And the lessons Contact Center professionals can learn from CX professionals are powerful. Lessons they can use to make their Contact Centres better.

For this article I’ve selected five lessons that stand out for me.

1. How to craft a CX Vision

I am endlessly blown away by the work that CX professional put into crafting a powerful CX Vision.

We teach the process and quite a few Clients have shared the outcome of their process with us. It’s intensive and can take months.

Because it involves aligning to business strategy, brand values and Customer expectations.

And then blending all of these into a powerful statement that defines – specifically – what kind of experience we deliver around here.

It’s so much more than asking ‘what’s the industry standard for this or that’ – which seems to be a trap some Contact Center folks fall into.

Strategy flows from Vision – so getting that Vision right – and taking the time & effort to craft one that’s meaningful is something CX people do – and do well.

If your Organization already has a robust CX Vision, that’s wonderful. You can use that to help you guide and inspire the Service folks that work for you.

If not, then you have the golden opportunity to be strategic – and craft your own Customer Service Vision.

2. Tie strategy to business results

Even after more than two decades years of teaching in the industry, you’re still hearing consultants & practitioners debating whether Contact Centres are cost centers or profit centers.

I know it’s an important discussion – I’ve been in a few myself. I’m not minimizing the importance.

But really? 20+ years? Why hasn’t more progress been made here? (and likely a topic for another article).

What the best CX folks are getting right these days is aligning the CX strategy they come up with to the overall business strategy and key measures of success.

And showing senior management and their peers in other functions how and where CX can improve the business.

Not at the expense of Customers (that’s not CX). Or pushing or tricking Customers into doing what we want them to do.

But in that wonderful intersection where it’s good for the Customer and good for the Organization.

It would be superb to hear more Contact Centre folks talk about their alignment with business strategy and key measures of success. And great CX people can help a lot here – even if they aren’t Contact Centre experts per se.

3. Start thinking in Customer journeys and not just in touchpoints

Contact Centres, by the nature of the work they do, are focused on what happens within the context of a Customer interaction.

On that call, email or chat, did we show empathy, did we solve the problem, did we use time well.

And mastering the Contact Centre touchpoint and delivering great conversations with Customers takes a lot of know-how and skill.

There’s no diminishing the power of getting this right.

But that means that in the Contact Centre, we tend to think in touchpoints and not in the totality of the Customer journey.

Which means that we’re missing the big picture. And the opportunity to make Customer lives better.

It’s proven that Customers think in journeys. And that Organizations that study and improve at the journey level do better than those that focus at the touchpoint level.

So in addition to mastering that ‘touch’ the Customer has with us – that chat or email – it helps for Contact Centre to consider what I call the Journey perspective.

When I teach Customer Service for Frontline folks, I often ask them to think about these questions:

1. Where did that Customer come from – and what motivated them to reach out to us? (the before)

2. What does this Customer need from me right now in this touch? (the during)

3. Where will the Customer likely go or need to go next – and how can I help them with the next steps on the way to their goal? (the after)

I like to cover this when I teach Frontline Customer Service because I think it’s important to use a broader journey oriented ‘lens’ to consider what Customers are going through.

Over and above dealing with a single ‘touch’.

4. Understand Voice of Customer Research practices & principles better

I was taken on a Centre tour a few years ago where the Director was so proud that the individual NPS scores given by Customers at the end of their calls were instantly flashed on large TV screens posted throughout the Centre.

All showing the Agent Names and the scores they had received so far that day.

Oh dear. So demotivating and so wrong. And a classic example of just because you can do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

Here’s another example.

When I ask Contact Centre folks the last time they invited in a small panel of Customers, bought them lunch and asked them questions about what they like or don’t like about Contact Centre service, they sometimes look at me like I’m completely nuts.

Bring in a real Customer to the Contact Centre? I’m not exactly sure why that would sound so outlandish. Just imagine how much you could learn.

What kind of Customer experience does your Contact Center deliver?

To be fair, VOC is a highly specialized area.

But having an essential understanding of qualitative, quantitative methodologies, principles and practices can help Centres perform better.

To make better decisions on how they use the data & insights that come out of VOC work.

And avoid poor practices like posting up individual NPS scores.

5. Build cross-functional support

When you listen to CX professionals share their work experience, a common narrative often appears.

It sounds like this:

“I was the first person in my company to take on the CX role – it was brand new. I had to create my own job, determine my own priorities and consider how to achieve both short term and long terms results.

And in all these I had to align myself with other stakeholders in other departments, heads of functions, senior leadership, finance, the COO.

And now – 2, 3, 4 years later I’ve been successful. You know how I know? It’s not just that our Team size has increased – though it has a bit.

And it’s not just that we’ve achieved some cool results – though we have.

It’s that people in the company are starting to come to us – the CX Team. To ask for help. To get our opinion on how to handle something better. To help them solve a business problem.

That’s been the real sign of our success in building the CX practice in our organization.”

Don’t you love that? I know I do.

Contact Centres can only achieve their vision & purpose when they also build and sustain powerful cross-functional relationships too.

Not just to get the basics like forecasting done.

But to promote how the Contact Centre can support the efforts of other departments and solve business problems.

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took today to read this!

If you’d like to be kept up to date on our articles and other information just leave your email address in the contact form on our website. Or send it over to me by email.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Good & evil in Customer Experience and why it’s like a Marvel Comics movie

09/04/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short post I consider the role of good & evil in Customer Experience.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe

I admit I’m not a follower of the Marvel comics movies. But when stuck on a long haul flight or in a hotel room with nothing on but CNN, almost any Marvel movie is a welcome distraction.

So I never saw them in any order, nor do I grasp the entire mythology.

But in the movies I did see, it was always clear which characters were ‘good’ and which characters were ‘evil’.

The Marvel universe is a pretty binary place.

What kind of Customer experience does your Contact Center deliver?

Good & evil in Customer Experience

Sometimes when I read articles & posts on Customer experience, I feel like I’m watching a Marvel comics movie.

That happens when the author of the article positions the company they’re describing in one of two ways:

When the company described in the post does things ‘right’ or right in the author’s opinion – then they’re good
When the company described in the post does things ‘wrong’ or wrong in the author’s opinion – then they’re evil

It’s never in doubt who is good and who is evil. The content & tone make it clear.

And when it comes to the evil companies – which are the posts you see most often – look out for these kinds of words –

They’re dumb, apathetic, lazy, careless, wasteful, ignorant, greedy, selfish, OK Boomer (ok I added that one).

It’s practically biblical how evil they are. And this is what worries me.

If a company doesn’t deliver the experience the writer likes, the default setting seems to be how dumb, apathetic, etc. they are.

But if Customer Experience is as binary as a Marvel comics movie, there’s not much room to manoeuvre. Not much room to improve.

I don’t ever see Thanos becoming the good guy or Wonder Woman becoming the bad guy.

The real world is more nuanced than a Marvel comics movie

The real world is more nuanced than a Marvels comics movie. Customer Experience deserves more than a binary good & evil measurement scale.

I had lunch with a Client in Asia not long ago.

She had navigated the pivot from Head of Customer Service to Head of Customer Experience. And our lunch conversation turned to organizational culture.

She had built a great service culture in the Customer Service function. That was one of the reasons she had been appointed the Head of Customer Experience.

And now she needed to develop that service culture across the entire organization. Into departments & functions where service wasn’t seen as the most important characteristic.

With her usual pragmatism she told me –

“Dan, we’ve been around a while as you know.

And we’ve got really great people in this company. In all departments. It’s not that we’re bad or we don’t care about Customers. We care a lot.

It’s just that we’ve become too comfortable. Things have been good here for a long time. The impetus for change is muted.

I think my job is to help our folks understand our future desired state as a company and why being too comfortable in what we do and the way we do it isn’t sustainable going forward.”

Her people are good, her colleagues are good, the management supports the change and she’s successfully completed her gap analysis.

Do their Customers complain? Of course they do. But as an organization they’re working on it. And as practitioners know, it takes time.

Saying they’re good or evil isn’t productive. It’s not even accurate.

They’re working to be better.

What can I do with my CCXP?

Why I don’t publish personal complaint posts

If I have a personal complaint with a company I contact them directly and privately. I give them the chance to address my issue.

If I was a ‘normal’ Customer I’d consider sharing my complaint on social media. And I’d write a detailed post of the bad thing or things that happened to me. And maybe I’d feel better having shared my tale of misery & woe.

But I don’t view myself as a normal Customer. I’m proud to come from the industry.

And I think industry professionals look at the bigger picture. We’re interested in the underlying dynamics or conditions that led to whatever it was that we experienced. We dissect the ecosystem.

Leave it to ‘real’ Customers to sit in judgement. I’d rather look for the lessons.

Good & evil in Customer Experience

Industry professionals don’t have to use ad hominen words like dumb, apathetic, lazy, careless, wasteful, ignorant, greedy or selfish to describe organizations.

They don’t have to rant.

I’ve never seen a conference event yet where the Host says “Welcome everyone, our next Speaker will rant and roll their eyes for the next 30 minutes or so. We hope you enjoy it!”

It doesn’t have to be about the role of good & evil in Customer Experience. It could be about the lessons to make things better.

Thanks for reading!

Daniel

[email protected]

What can I do with my CCXP?

30/03/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short and personal post I discuss the question – what can I do with my CCXP?

Someone wrote to me a short while ago. Here’s what they said.

“Dan, I have earned my CCXP. But I’m not sure what to do with it.”

And I thought that he asked a fair question. So I’ve written this short and personal post to discuss and answer that question.

What can I do with my CCXP?

(For those who don’t know, the CCXP stands for the Certified Customer Experience Professional certification credential).

Earning a professional credential like the CCXP

I think that the biggest benefit to earning a professional credential is the journey you take and the people you meet along that journey.

Whether that’s a 4-year degree or preparing for a few weeks or months (or more) for your CCXP.

Not just getting that piece of paper to hang in your office or show off to recruiters.

If you’re just after putting a few letters after your name, then you’re missing out on the most important part. The growth, development & socialization that go along with earning those letters.

Bu with that said, getting that piece of paper is also a milestone accomplishment. It deserves to be celebrated.

I still keep my university graduation photo in my office because I remember that day fondly and how happy my parents were for me.

But that piece of paper doesn’t do anything for me on its own. It doesn’t have magic properties.

I have to proactively do something with it.

The role of leadership

I often get to work with Managers & Team Leaders in Contact Center environments. And when we’re covering the topic of leadership, I like to use this definition –

Leadership is the combination of skills, knowledge and experience that enable a person to inspire others to accomplish a shared goal.

We begin by first defining the shared goal or goals. What is it specifically that we’re try to achieve? Because if you aren’t sure what you’re trying to achieve it’s going to be hard to get there.

Once we answer the shared goal question, we work backwards and brainstorm the specific skills, knowledge & experience we need to inspire people around us to achieve the shared goal.

And that can be a powerful exercise for people. Because in the heat of doing our work, it’s not easy to step back and reflect on what we need to know and indeed what kind of people we need to be to inspire others.

So why do I bring up leadership in this post?

Because if you’ve earned your CCXP credential, I think it matters that you see yourself as a leader.

Regardless of what your job title is or what your work function is, you’re in a terrific position to inspire other people to achieve Customer Experience goals.

And with the CCXP credential, you’ve demonstrated that you have the required skill, knowledge & experience. The credential measures and validates that.

So now that I understand that leadership & inspirataion are involved – what can I do with my CCXP?

That’s the important question.

What can I do with my CCXP?

Whether it’s an MBA, a university degree or a professional certification like the CCXP, I think you can look at three ‘categories’ of doing.

Here they are.

1. What can I do in my own job function?

One of the principles of Customer Experience management is that you maintain an ongoing pipeline of CX related projects to work on.

And given the breadth and depth of the topic, it’s unlikely that you’d ever run out of ways to apply what you know about CX to your job. Whether you’re in Finance, Engineering, Operations, Customer Service, Marketing or a formalized Customer Experience function.

Creating new rituals, rewriting job descriptions, looking at how performance is measured, earning Employee engagement, considering specific ways to improve VOC results, designing new experiences or using strategy to prioritize decisions.

The list of potential CX related projects is nearly endless.

One of my favourite descriptions of Customer Experience is ‘thoughtfulness made visible’. Of course being a thoughtful person is a great first step.

But for me this particular description refers to thoughtfulness in first understanding and then improving the experiences people go through. Whether for Employees, Partners or Customers.

You’ll never run out of things to do when you see things this way.

What behaviours do Customer Experience professionals display?

2. What can I do with other job functions?

The famous leadership expert, John C. Maxwell writes, “The true measure of leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less.”

That’s such a powerful statement.

A big part of Customer Experience involves working across functional boundaries. If you’re in a formalized CX function that’s pretty clear already.

But what about if you’re in a more discrete function such as Tech, Marketing or Finance? Is it still appropriate to work across functional boundaries?

If the true measure of leadership is influence then the answer is a big ‘yes’.

Early in my career when I was in Finance, my big boss asked me to conduct some ‘How to Read a Financial Statement’ sessions for all the department heads.

And when I wrote the content for those sessions, my intent was not to just teach the department heads how to read financial statements. But to influence these important department heads to rethink about the our Finance function in general.

To see us as a trusted partner who could help them. Not just the folks who nagged about budgets.

When I was managing large Customer Service operations, I regularly asked our company department heads across legal, marketing, finance & tech to come in and teach our Agents about what they did in their jobs and how it impacted Customers.

But I was also giving these departments heads a platform to positively influence our Agents about our company and our shared goals.

Whether you decide to bring in department heads like I did, or develop a series of short talks on Customer Experience – don’t underestimate your ability to positively influence those around you.

3. What can I do outside of my organization?

I think every industry professional has a responsibility to write and/or speak and share their learnings, mistakes & perspectives. And as a CCXP you are an industry professional.

You serve as a role model for the industry. It’s an integral part of who you are and what you do.

I know that writing, speaking or recording videos takes time. And that when you first begin it can feel overwhelming.

But through the process you find your voice. You establish a perspective. Your perspective.

And your writing and/or speaking improves. These are important life skills. And they enhance your ability to inspire and influence as well.

And finally, today there are so many groups, both virtual and offline, that have Customer Experience as their mandate. It’s quite easy to find these groups and become an active part of the wider community.

CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry

My favorite John F. Kennedy quote

Perhaps because I grew up in a proud military family I’ve always loved this quote from President John F. Kennedy.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

For me this quote embodies what it means to serve. To look outside yourself to others.

As a CCXP, or MBA or degree holder or holder of any number of professional certifications that are out there, I think that looking to this quote as a touchstone can help.

It’s not what the credential can do for you. It’s what you do with that credential for others.

And when you look at things this way, you’ll never run out of ideas or opportunities to serve.

I’m proud to be a CXPA Recognized Training Provider and help people on their CCXP journey. But I still believe that it’s what you do with the credential after you earn it that matters the most.

Thanks for reading!

Daniel

What kind of Customer experience does your Contact Center deliver?

01/03/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short article I discuss the question – what kind of Customer experience does your Contact Center deliver?

It ties together two of my favourite topics – Customer Experience & Contact Centers. And it’s the title of one of my best Keynote talks for various conferences around the world.

The Contact Center in the context of Customer Experience

The Contact Center is a touchpoint that only some Customers will use across some subset of all possible Customer journeys.

And for some organizations it can be less than 1% of Customers who utilize the Contact Center touchpoint at all.

Daniel Ord speaking on Customer Experience

Daniel Ord delivering a keynote on what kind of Customer Experience does your Contact Center deliver?

For example, imagine that on the spur of the moment you decide to stay in a hotel this upcoming weekend.

You ask a friend to suggest a place, you do some research online and finish by booking a reservation on your mobile phone. No Contact Center involved.

But with that said, when a Customer needs the Contact Center, it can be a real moment of truth.

An experience that has significant ‘weight’ in their overall perception of the organization.

So not every Customer interacts with the Contact Center. But every interaction with the Contact Center is really important.

The Contact Center is the formal living room in a house

Formal living rooms may sound old fashioned – but they’re still around.

When I was growing up we had a formal living room to receive and entertain special guests or to use for special occasions.

It’s a room that’s always perfect. It’s got the best furniture, the best art and it’s always spotless. Because even though it’s not used everyday, it must always be ready.

And I think of the Contact Center within an organization in the same way. It’s the formal living room in the house of your organization.

Not every Customer will need to use it. Nor will every Customer journey involve it. But for those Customers who do come into our Center, it’s our job to always be ready for them with our very best resources.

So what kind of Customer experience does your Contact Center deliver?

Much of the subject matter for our keynote talk – and for this post – is based on nearly 20 years of conducting Mystery Shopper research – especially for Contact Centers.

And most Centers have a list of ‘Quality standards’ they use to train Agents and measure their quality performance – and which they hope or believe will deliver a great Customer interaction.

Simple examples of Quality standards include:

Clarity in presenting the product or service
The level of Human Touch on display
The use of branded language
The conciseness of the email
The sales or upselling skill

The possible list of Quality standards is endless because there is no industry standard set of standards that work for every Center. If that were the case, all Customers of all organizations would be happy all the time. And obviously that’s not the case.

And what we’ve found in our research work with Clients is that there is a positive correlation between the sophistication behind selecting and defining Quality directives and the resulting Customer experience.

Or put more simply – when there’s more thought, effort and rigour put into selecting Quality standards – the resulting Customer interactions are better. And Agents benefit from being treated like adults – and not compliance machines who have to do things like say the Customer’s name three times.

Let’s look at some example Quality standards now.

What to look for when you hire a new Contact Centre Manager

So what’s an example of a Quality standard that was impressive?

One of our most interesting engagements was as the Official Mystery Shopper Evaluator for the Singapore Government. Which basically meant mystery shopping the quality of different government agencies for phone, face to face and email interactions.

And one of the standards set by the Singapore Government was amazing. They practiced what they called ‘No Wrong Door’. Let’s say the Customer had a personal taxation question but accidentally contacted the housing authority.

In most countries, the Contact Center Agent would tell the Customer that they reacehd the wrong place and perhaps give the number for the correct place to call – if that much.

But with No Wrong Door in Singapore, the Contact Center Agent will either arrange a connection to the right Agency or arrange for the right Agency to get back to the Customer directly.

And in a public sector setting that’s amazing.

Having lived in multiple countries, I sometimes joke that trying to get public service assistance through a Contact Center could be branded as ‘Every Door is the Wrong Door’.

That is unless you’re fortunate enough to live in Singapore.

What’s an example that wasn’t so great?

Isn’t it funny that we can sometimes come up with the not so great examples more easily than the great examples?

Here are three.

The ‘Ready to Serve’ Quality standard

The Client, a major mobile phone manufacturer, wanted our Mystery Shoppers to evaluate if the Contact Center Agent we reached was ‘ready to serve’.

Did you just read that twice? So did we.

The question we had was this. How is it possible for us to tell if someone was ready to serve? In our opinion, that sounded like something a Team Leader should be doing internally.

We went back and forth with the Client to get some clarification. But eventually our Client contact wrote us and said – “Look Dan, just ask the Mystery Shopper to do it”. Which was shorthand for ‘we’re done talking about this.’

So we sat down and came up with our own logic for this Quality standard and moved on.

But here’s the thing. If senior management selects a Quality standard that even they can’t explain clearly – how can we expect an Agent to bring that to life in their Customer interactions?

The ‘Tai Chi’ standard

For a University Contact Center, the Agents were instructed to immediately redirect the Caller to the university website if it turned out that the information was available there.

Don’t answer the Caller question. If it was on the website then send the Customer straight to the website.

I decided to call it the ‘Tai Chi’ standard because they really just tai chi’d Customers to the website! And avoid answering the question.

And their rationale for this standard?

They had attended a seminar where the speaker told the audience they should focus on efficiency. And to get people to use the website you have to force them to go to the website.

And you can just imagine the Customer Experience here.

After dialling, listening to the recorded announcements, punching through the IVR options, finally reaching a live Agent and asking their question – the Customer gets tai chi’d to the website.

Yikes.

The every Quality standard is measured as a Yes or No

For a few Centers we’ve worked with, management had decided that all or most of the Quality standards should be measured on a binary scale. Yes / No. 1 / 0. It happened or it did not happen.

Because they felt it was less complicated and easier to implement for them internally. That’s classic inside-out thinking. Do what is easy for the Center – not necessarily for the Customer.

I bet you can imagine what those Agents sounded like when we listened to the calls. Yup that’s right.

They sounded like robots. There was no style, no articulation, no effort.

When every Quality standard is measured on a binary scale, that doesn’t just set a low bar for Quality.

There’s almost no bar for Quality.

There’s an art & science to selecting Quality Standards

There’s an art & science to selecting the right Quality Standards for your Contact Center.

If you’re lucky enough to have a well-defined Customer Experience Strategy in place that can help a great deal. Because a Customer Experience Strategy describes the kind of experience you aim to deliver.

It provides a high level guide to coming up with the right Agent standards.

If you don’t have a Customer Experience Strategy, then a Service Delivery Vision can help.

A Service Delivery Vision is very much like a Customer Experience Strategy, but it tends to be focused only on the Customer Service function. Whereas the Customer Experience Strategy is meant for the entire organization.

Now – if you don’t have a robust Service Delivery Vision then the next question is this.

How did your Contact Center choose its Quality standards? What guided the decisions?

Here are some of the answers I’ve heard:

I think our Managers came up with these.
I think our Quality Assurance people came up with these.
The last Mystery Shopper provider we used came up with these.
Our Agents know how to talk to Customers – we don’t really use any standards.
I’m not sure but we don’t want to change them because everyone knows them already.
I’m new here and I don’t know – I was just asked to find a Mystery Shopper company.
We’ve used these for years and they’re ‘industry standard’ for our X industry

Answers like these aren’t indicative of any level of sophistication in Quality standard selection & design.

And as I shared earlier, we’ve found a positive correlation between the sophistication of the Quality program and the Customer’s interaction experience. And that makes complete sense.

Because when there’s more thought, effort and rigour put into selecting Quality standards – the resulting Customer interactions are better.

What we’ve learned about conducting Mystery Shopper Research on Chatbots

In closing

I may write a book sharing nothing but Mystery Shopper stories and the ins and outs of how to get Quality right. There are just so many stories and learnings.

Because your Contact Center does deliver some type of Customer Experience. The question is whether its the experience you wanted or planned for.

Thank you for reading,

Daniel

[email protected]

My 6 Keynote Speech Topics for 2020

19/01/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short post I share my 6 Keynote Speech topics for 2020.

Every year I write new Keynote Speeches

Last year I delivered 4 Keynote Speeches at industry events. Three in London (what a city) and 1 in Hungary (my very first time in Hungary which was cool).

And each was super fun to deliver and very well received.

As a Speaker, there’s a big difference between facilitating a 2 or 3 day workshop program and delivering a Keynote Speech.

In a workshop – the facilitation is what matters. Because when a workshop is well facilitated, most of the actual talking is done by Participants. Not by the Workshop Leader.

In a Keynote Speech, the scenario is obviously different. You have perhaps 20 minutes – 40 minutes with hundreds of folks in attendance.

And the constraint on time drives creativity. More stories, better stories – and stories that get to the heart of what it is you want people to remember about their time with you.

And of course humor matters a lot. Because who likes sitting through a boring presentation?

My 6 Keynote Speech topics for 2020

Much of the work I do is customized for the Client or the Audience.

But when a Conference Organizer or Client contacts me, it helps to have a set of Keynote speeches on selected topics already written and ready to go.

So in no particular order, here are my Keynote Speech topics for 2020.

How is your approach to Customer Empathy? Well done or Lucky Draw?

Great empathy doesn’t help if you can’t express it to the Customer. Because ‘being’ empathetic and expressing empathy are two different things.

In this practical and humorous session you’ll get a chance to practice your own ability to express empathy.

And in the process, perhaps you’ll better understand why so many organizations struggle to deliver empathy in their Customer communications – especially in their Customer Service & Contact Centre functions.

Customer Service Lessons you can’t live without

While it’s true that Customer Service is a subset of Customer Experience – it’s an important subset for some and a critical subset for others.

After 20 years of teaching Customer Service, I’ve found that there’s a short list of lessons that every Frontliner – and their Managers – love learning.

From my fun but practical approach to Transactional Analysis through to how to Say No – this one’s for Customer Service heros and the folks that support them.

What we learned conducting CX-based Mystery Shopper on Chatbots

We combined our know-how around CX with our expertise in Mystery Shopper to deliver (to date) 4 Chatbot Mystery Shopper research programs for Clients.

In this Keynote Speech we share the drivers around the research, the parameters we used for the research and what we found out about Chatbots – from the Customer point of view.

What we’ve learned about conducting Mystery Shopper Research on Chatbots

5 Motivational Quotes and what they mean in real life

I had always been leery of motivational quotes in the past.

That was until I found my Mother’s notebook of handwritten motivational quotes in her desk drawer. Shortly after she had passed away and we were cleaning out her house.

Thanks to a Client in Singapore, I developed this ‘motivational’ talk to help & inspire people to harness the power of motivational quotes.

While understanding that not every quote will resonate every time – and why that’s so.

One of my favorites – and for designed for all Participants.

What I’ve learned about Motivational Quotes

How to Improve Contact Centre Agent Productivity

This Keynote Speech topic – developed for a webinar that I delivered last year – addresses both the obvious choices that improve Agent productivity in Contact Centres and the not so obvious choices.

Because a lot of practices out there in the Contact Centre industry are outdated – and increasingly harmful to the Agent & Customer experience.

So we consider Agent KPIs – of course – but move on quickly to the key Management decisions that impact contact volume, channel usage and Customer satisfaction.

What kind of Experience does your Contact Centre deliver?

Yes – this is a topic from 2019 – and one of our most popular. That’s why I’ve decided to keep it on the roster for 2020.

Drawing on case studies from our extensive Mystery Shopper research experience, I share specifically how some Contact Centres are getting quality right. And how others have gone down a dark and sad road – both for Agents & Customers.

And of course I get to do my Kung Fu Panda impression which is always fun.

I’ll be presenting my Keynote speech at the Customer & User Experience Expo in London

If we can be of help on Keynote Speech topics

Do any of these sound good for your event? Would you like to have something written specifically for your event?

We’re experts in Contact Centres, Customer Service & Customer Experience – so chances are we’ve got a topic that will resonate with your audience.

And it helps to know that we deliver audience feedback results that have Organizers invite us back over and over.

Thank you for reading!

Daniel

[email protected]

What we’ve learned about conducting Mystery Shopper Research on Chatbots

13/01/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this article, we share some of what we’ve learned about conducting Mystery Shopper research on Chatbots.

You mean there’s Mystery Shopper research on Chatbots?

We recently completed our fourth Mystery Shopper research program on a Client’s chatbot offering for Customers.

And when we share that we conduct Mystery Shopper research on Chatbots the first thing we usually hear is this –

“There’s such a thing as Mystery Shopper research on Chatbots?”

Because almost any time you hear someone in the CX or Contact Centre industry talk about Chatbots, it’s on things like AI, machine learning, natural language processing and the like.

All cool and important stuff.

But inwardly focused. You’ll never hear a Customer say –

“You know I used that NLP enhanced Chatbot at the bank/telecom/insurance company today and I have to say that they have the best decision tree ever.”

For a Customer it’s another channel. One they expect will help them achieve their goals.

And Mystery Shopper – when well designed – is a great tool to help ensure the Customer perspective is considered.

Some of our Clients prefer the term ‘Digital Contact Audit’ rather than ‘Mystery Shopper Research’.

But whatever you call it the goal is to improve the Customer Experience of the Chatbot.

Why did these organizations pursue Mystery Shopper research on their Chatbots?

Firstly a big thanks to the four Clients – all in Asia Pacific – for engaging in the Chatbot research.

And even though the Mystery Shopper research briefs came from four different organizations, there was significant commonality across all the briefs.

In summary, the commonality sounded like this.

Client: “We’re known in the market for service. And we’ve got a Chatbot. So the Chatbot has to represent our service focus well or it could hurt our brand.

And of course, the better the service delivered by the Chatbot, the better the containment rate will be within the Chatbot channel.

But we think we’re suffering internally from knowing ‘too much’ about our own organization.

Too much about the Chatbot tech, about the products & services we offer and about we do things around here.

So we’re looking for a Customer Experience based Mystery Shopper program that’s going to look at the Chatbot from the Customer perspective – not our own.

And it’s been great to see how some organizations are raising the bar on their Mystery Shopper research.

Moving the research beyond typical compliance measurements to research that embraces the Customer Experience.

The parameters selected for the Chatbot research

To achieve the research objectives, we set the following key parameters for the Chatbot research. And these parameters have served us well.

The use of Journeys

We defined, with the Client, which Customer journeys to study. So each Mystery Shopper program consisted of a defined number of specific journeys.

To help explain and define what a Customer journey looked like – and what we would be studying – we used this simple script’ as a guide.

Customer: “Because _______I wanted to find out ________ so that I could _________. (all blanks to be filled in)

Customer: “Because I’m bringing my family on holiday in June, I wanted to find out about the opening hours & entry fees at the theme park, so that I can understand the budget. if any promotions apply and better plan for the trip overall.”

Customer: “Because I’m travelling overseas next week, I wanted to find out how to avoid unnecessary or unexpected roaming charges on my mobile phone.”

And the individual journeys that were studied, were selected for different reasons.

Sometimes the Client chose to study the journeys with the highest number of visits.

Or they chose the journeys with the highest number of opt-outs to other channels.

Often the selected journeys were those that had attracted the lowest satisfaction rating.

Because one of the great things about Mystery Shopper research is that you can choose what you want to learn. And that approach worked perfectly for the Chatbot research.

The Customer Experience lens we used

To bring structure and clarity to assessing the Customer Experience delivered by the Chatbot, we used the 3 Levels of Customer Experience model.

A model that any Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) or Customer Experience professional will be familiar with.

The 3 Levels are:

Effectiveness (Met my needs)
Ease (Was easy)
Emotion (what I thought and how I felt)

We assigned a scoring mechanism to each level, as well as to the overall performance and we developed a ‘dashboard’ to indicate which journeys needed improvement and at which levels.

And of course all scores were supported and informed by qualitative input. Because when you’re assigning a score related to Customer Experience, that score must be backed up by the qualitative rationale.

The Customer Experience Mystery Shopper Program – are you on track?

A key learning that came out of the Mystery Shopper research

A key Customer Experience learning that came out of the research across all the Clients was this.

Much of the language built into the Chatbot assumed high Customer familiarity with the various product names, industry terms and context in use at that organization.

All things that a dedicated Employee of the organization would intuitively understand. But not necessarily Customers.

When the Customer didn’t understand the language presented by the Chatbot, it took them 3 -4 times as long to complete the chat – either successfully (they got what they needed eventually) or unsuccessfully (they needed to rollover to human assisted service).

And in Client discussions, we learned that some of the Chatbot script writing had been delegated out to different departments.

So for example, if the Chatbot was going to answer a Finance-related question, the ‘answer’ to that question was developed by the Finance Department.

On the surface, the approach seemed logical.

But it resulted in approaches and language that varied by department. And by the competency within each department to write in a Customer-oriented manner.

Terror in the Boardroom – and the impact on your Mystery Shopper research

In closing

We have found that our Mystery Shopper work on Chatbots has been as rewarding as the work we do on other channels.

And a few parting tips:

Bring Customers into the picture – ask them to evaluate their journeys with you
Think deeply about the need that ‘drove’ the Customer to use your Chatbot
Consider where the Customer goes ‘after’ engaging with the Chatbot – is it all done?
Keep in mind that sometimes the very best Employees have the most difficult time thinking like a Customer – and understand that doesn’t come from a lack of Customer-centricity

Thank you for reading!

Daniel and Marcus

[email protected] / [email protected]

What a great Quality Assurance professional can do

10/01/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short article, I share one story of what a great Quality Assurance professional can do.

When Cindy – the Quality Assurance professional in our Contact Centre – walked into my office, she looked concerned.

“Dan, we just heard the weirdest call. You know that new wooden sandbox set we’re selling? The one that ships in from the UK?”

“Sure Cindy – I know the one – it’s quite fancy but it looks great for kids. Why?”

“Well the Customer just received her shipment from the UK and she says it’s defective. That the sandbox has no bottom in it.”

“No bottom in the sandbox? What do you mean?”

“You know. A base in it. A floor for lack of a better word. The Customer says that it looks like you fill the sandbox by pouring the sand directly onto the ground.”

We looked at each other for a moment. Don’t all sandboxes have bottoms?

“Cindy thanks for telling me. Let me call Marketing and see what the story is.”

A bit of background

In the 90s I was VP, Contact Centre & Distribution Operations for a Los Angeles based direct marketing company that served the entire country.

Our Centre took orders from TV ads and catalogues for products including CDs, children’s toys, gardening tools and more. And our warehouses would ship most Customer orders – unless the product was to be shipped directly from the manufacturer.

We also handled all the Customer Service questions and issues. It was a big business and was growing year on year.

And Quality Assurance really mattered to us. Because it was an important measure of success that we earn repeat orders from Customers over time. And our Quality Assurance professionals helped us to do that.

The sandbox in question was an item in the Spring Gardening catalogue that had gone out to Customers across the US.

It was handmade in the UK and crafted from high quality wood.

But the best part was that it had a roll up/roll down wooden roof that not only protected the sand – it made the sandbox feel like a small castle for the kids.

It cost over US$1,000 (plus shipping) and due to its size, orders were shipped directly from the UK to the Customer in the US.

We didn’t have any sandboxes in our own stock. Which meant that unlike a lot of our other products, we had not seen one in real life.

So the mystery remained – why didn’t the sandbox have a bottom?

When good people follow bad Contact Centre process – a story

What Marketing told us

Our Marketing Team was great. And they got back to us quickly.

It seems that having a bottom in the sandbox was an ‘American’ thing. A Customer expectation built around hygiene and what American Customers were used to.

Whereas in the UK, sandboxes typically didn’t have bottoms in them. You simply poured the sand on top of the ground or whatever the surface was below where you placed the sandbox.

A simple cultural difference that resulted in a different set of expectations.

What we did

Well thanks to Cindy – and the weird call – we were on it.

About 29 sandboxes had been ordered with a 3 – 4 week delivery timeframe. Remember it was the 1990s – there was no such thing as Prime!

So that gave us the chance to contact all the Customers who had ordered the sandbox, explain the manufacturing aspect and allow the Customer to cancel the order – or keep the order with a discount applied – their choice.

And it worked. In fact most Customers decided to keep the sandbox. And they appreciated our proactivity.

What to look for when you hire a new Contact Centre Manager

We tend to underestimate the power of the Quality Assurance job role

In my training & consulting work I find that the Quality Assurance job role tends to be underestimated. By that I mean it’s used (and viewed) as a policing function for Agents. Low level and unpopular.

And that’s so sad. Because the potential value inherent in the Quality Assurance job role is tremendous.

In this story, Cindy acted as a ‘lighthouse’ for quality issues. Coming and telling me – and others – about weird calls was an important part of her job. Because Cindy innately understood that her job was about a lot more than checking if an Agent said the Customer’s name 3x.

She and her Team helped our Centre understand where we were with regard to Quality, where we wanted to go – and how to get there.

And I’ve told this story now for nearly 25 years because it had such a profound impact on me – both at the time and today.

Thank you Cindy.

And thank you for reading!

Daniel

[email protected]