OmniTouch International

10 Quiz Questions on Quality Assurance

14/04/2020by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short post I challenge the Reader to answer 10 Quiz questions on Quality Assurance.

Though the Quality Assurance function is most commonly sited with the Contact Center, its use and understanding can be broadened across any Customer Service environment including hospitals, universities, government offices and more.

Those of you that I’ve worked with in classes or talks around the world know how much I like to give out these kinds of Quizzes.

And this Quiz is free, doesn’t involve any registration and your name won’t be added to any list. We do this just to help & inspire!

When you coach you’re either helping or keeping score

The 10 Quiz Questions on Quality Assurance

Here are the 10 Quiz Questions on Quality Assurance.

Reach each question carefully and then select the right answer which is either a, b, c or d.

Yes – there is only one correct answer for each question.

1. Which of the following is the BEST example of a Compliance Standard?

a. Greeting

b. Tone of Voice

c. Rapport Building

d. Empathy

2. The 3 most common inputs used in Performance Standard design are:

a. Customer Expectations, Profit Forecasts, Manpower Requirements

b. Regulatory Requirements, Customer Expectations, Market Share

c. Customer Expectations, Regulatory Requirements, Headcount Requirements

d. Organizational Vision, Customer Expectations, Regulatory Requirements

3. The best description of a Service Delivery Vision is:

a. A statement that lists out all the Compliance Standards to follow

b. It is usually the same as the Organizational Vision

c. It describes the kind of service we will deliver around here

d. It is most useful for Contact Center Agents

4. If you rely too much on Compliance Standards your Frontline Agents will sound:

a. Friendly

b. Robotic

c. Warm

d. Compliant

5. Which of the following statements is/are TRUE?

I. All Performance Standards on an “Interaction Audit” form should have equal weight

II. First Contact Resolution can be difficult to calculate

III. Customer Expectations are the main source for selecting Performance Standards

IV. A high First Contact Resolution rate is always good

a. II only

b. II and IV only

c. II, III and IV only

d. I, II, III and IV

6. Which of the following are included in the formal documentation of a Performance Standard?

I. The purpose or business reason for the standard

II. The scoring logic for the standard

III. Examples of how the standard is to be used

IV. A formal definition of the standard

a. I & II

b. I, II and III

c. I, II, III & IV

d. None of the above

7. Which of the following statements is/are FALSE?

I. Normally Quality Assurance does all the interaction monitoring & scoring

II. It’s best to let Quality Assurance do the Agent coaching

III. Team Leaders should focus mostly on productivity

IV. It’s ok to schedule one full hour of coaching per week per Agent

a. II only

b. II and IV only

c. II, III and IV only

d. I, II, III and IV

8. Which of the following statements is/are TRUE?

I. All Calibration sessions should incorporate a Scorecard

II. Calibration sessions should be held once a month

III. In Calibration make sure everyone agrees on every Performance Standard on an interaction before moving on

IV. It’s a good idea to include Agents in the Calibration sessions

a. II only

b. II and IV only

c. II, III and IV only

d. None of the above

9. If you had only one way to achieve behavioural change through coaching which one would be the BEST?

a. Give detailed graphs showing the performance of all Performance Standards over a 3 month period

b. Ensure that Agents are coached without a scorecard at least one time per week

c. Ensure that Agents are coached with a scorecard at least one time per week

d. Allow Agents to coach themselves

10. When it comes to monitoring which one of the following statements is TRUE?

a. Side by side monitoring doesn’t work well because Agents can ‘fake it’

b. Mystery Shopper is one of the formal methods of monitoring

c. Mystery Shopper research is best done ‘in-house’ rather than outsourced to a research company

d. It’s always best to let the Agent self evaluate first

What a great Quality Assurance professional can do

Would you like to know how you did?

If you’d like to know if your answers are correct we’re happy to help.

We’ve intentionally gone ‘low-tech’ here. Once you’ve answered all (10) questions just drop an email to me at [email protected]

Let me know the question # and the answer that you chose (either a,b,c or d).

You can use the following format in your email to me:

a
d
c
c (and so on for all 10 Quiz Questions)

It helps also to tell me which Quiz you took. This Quiz is for Quality Assurance.

I always do my best to answer quickly and let you know which ones you got right. And for the ones you may have gotten wrong I will let you know what the right answer is.

Thank you for reading and giving the Quiz a go!

Daniel

[email protected]

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]

CX lessons I learned judging CX Awards this year

22/10/2019by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this article I share CX lessons I learned judging CX Awards this year.

Judging CX Awards is a privilege

When I first began judging CX & Contact Centre Awards way back in 2006, I thought wow – this is so exciting. What a wonderful way to build my CV and experience as a Trainer and Consultant.

But what I quickly learned is that judging Awards is first and foremost a privilege. One that gives you unparalleled insight into what real world CX heros face every day in the real world.

And when it comes to who gets Gold, Silver or whatever hierarchy of Awards is in place, I’d say this.

The very fact that you entered and reached some Finalist level already indicates that you’re part of the ‘tribe who cares’. The distinction between first, second, third and so on is much less important.

Some suggestions for industry Awards entrants

The themes I picked up judging CX Awards

The lessons shared here don’t originate from any single Awards entry. To come up with the lessons, I identified themes that appeared across multiple Awards entries.

For example, in Lesson #1 on ‘Who leads Tech programs’, I encountered three different Finalist entries that incorporated or mentioned this topic in their entry.

I think that makes the lessons more meaningful and also protects the confidentiality of individual Awards entrants.

And for those of you out there who also do qualitative research, I’m sure that the detection and reporting of themes will be familiar to you!

Lesson #1 – Who leads Tech programs?

It was quite remarkable to read that when it came time to implement a new Tech program – such as a new Martech stack – it was the Customer Experience Team that led the program. Not the IT Department.

I had to re-read that a few times to make sure I had it right.

Because so often, technology leads the way.

And Customer Experience has to gallop and chase from behind to figure out what the technology is going to ‘do’ to the Customer Experience.

But putting the CX folks firmly in charge of leading Tech programs ensures that the Customer perspective is built in from the ground up. Call me impressed.

A couple of years ago I ran a large number of management workshops on how to successfully implement Live Chat into the channel mix .

And when I asked Participants why they were rolling out Live Chat, most told me that they were told they had to do it by their bosses.

Either because everyone else was doing it, or because that functionality was already in the software package and they wanted to maximize their tech investment.

Sound familiar?

Lesson #2 – Is CX really everybody’s job?

Across multiple entries I saw the following sentiment expressed.

It might be nice to say that CX is everybody’s job.

But the reality is that the art & science of CX requires experts. And the nuts and bolts of how CX gets done is through expert know-how and experience. Just like any formal business discipline.

I admit I loved this sentiment.

Platitudes – such as ‘CX is everybody’s job’ – don’t take organizations very far in their CX ambitions. And it doesn’t recognize the robust nature of the know-how required to get CX ‘done’.

Why not put CX-related responsibilities into everyone’s job role? That’s a great way to help bring CX to life.

And of course the CX-related responsibilities that I’d put into the jobs of my Finance folks will look different than those I put in for my Warehousing folks. But by taking this step, everyone knows what their role in CX is and how to bring it to life.

In my work with Clients I prefer to say that CX should be in everybody’s job. That strikes me as far more practical and meaningful.

And you can take that further – as many Entrants did – by providing a fundamental level of training in CX – not just Customer Service – to everyone in the Organization.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/what-i-learned-running-60-classes-on-cx-values-and-culture-for-one-client

Lesson #3 – There are different ways to build CX momentum

There’s a lot written about on how to get that CX momentum to start in your organization.

And different Awards entrants had slightly different experiences in how to do this.

One way – that was shared across quite a few entries – involved setting anywhere from a 6 to 12 month campaign to achieve as many small quick wins as possible. The principle being that the aggregated impact of many small wins ends up being significant.

In one memorable example, the focus was on eliminating 99 Customer pain points within a year. And that required a lot of cross-functional collaboration which in turn nurtured organizational excitement around CX.

A second way I noted was to tackle one relatively large project – one fully backed by senior management – and succeed at it.

That project then served as a showcase for other folks in the company. Folks who otherwise hadn’t been interested in CX but wanted to see what all the fuss was about and how such great outcomes were achieved.

Of course the risk here is that of actually succeeding.

And finally – one of my favorite submissions on this topic.

The Awards entrant shared that the very process of sharing broadly and deeply on CX and looking to Employees as a big source of insight on the current state of CX, kick started a completely new and more collaborative way of working with Employees.

And that Employees rewarded that sense of collaboration with even more effort.

CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry

CX lessons I learned – in closing

One last observation in closing.

Entrants specifically for CX Leader or Head of the Year Awards shared that they they were making an impact – and not just on Customers.

But on the hundreds and sometimes thousands of people who worked in their organizations.

And that while the first year – or even two – were hard, that eventually they became the go-to resource for CX in their organization – with folks actively seeking them out for advice and input.

It was this level of influence – and the resulting legacy they were creating – that seemed to be a big motivator for these terrific entrants.

Thank you for reading,

Daniel

[email protected]

CXPA Recognized Training Provider

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

09/10/2019by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International 1 Comment

In this article I share what to look for when you hire a new Contact Centre Manager.

Our scenario – you need to hire a new Contact Centre Manager

Let’s say you’re the new Chief Customer Officer and you need to hire a new inbound Contact Centre Manager for your existing 200 seat Centre. You’ve been given a mandate to implement a CX strategy and you have a small CX Team at hand.

You don’t come from the Contact Centre industry yourself. But as a CX professional you understand the value of the Contact Centre.

Your overall business is in good financial shape though the Centre has been somewhat neglected for the past few years. And tech-wise the Centre has the basic building blocks though there’s room for improvement.

You’ve learned from past experience that the number of years of experience held by the Contact Centre Manager doesn’t correlate to mastery of the job role. You need someone who ‘knows’ the Contact Centre – not just someone who has spent a lot of time in one.

So the essential question is this – what do you look for when you hire a new Contact Centre Manager?

The key domains of know-how required

The job of a Contact Centre Manager is a rich and full one. And that’s because there’s a lot to know to succeed.

I recommend the following key domains of know-how when looking to hire a new Contact Centre Manager. Or when you’re looking to upskill a current Manager or Management Team.

1. Operations & Technology

Includes Centre design, forecasting the workload, calculating staff and resource requirements, selecting the right metrics and ways to measure those metrics, understanding the interrelationships between metrics, understanding the underlying dynamics of the Centre, channel management and the ability to articulate the impact of business decisions on the operation.

In this domain I’d include essential & evolving technology knowledge. That’s because of the significant impact any technology choice has on the operation with cascading impact on Customers, Employees & the Organization itself.

When I’m asked which domain should come first in the hierarchy I always recommend Operations. That’s because so much of what happens in a Centre, from how people are managed through to how Customers experience the Centre, flows from strong operations management practices.

How to use the True Calls per Hour Calculation in the Contact Centre

2. People Management (or the broader ‘Employee Experience’ if you prefer)

This domain includes organizational design, strategic resource planning, hiring & selection, retention & attrition management, training & development, performance management, compensation & incentive strategies, coaching and employee engagement, satisfaction & motivation, career & skills pathing and succession planning.

In this domain, I’d specifically include the design and implementation of the monitoring & coaching process.

For organizations that are evolving into Employee Experience – a big topic today – I’d recommend adding those competencies to this domain.

3. Leadership & Business Management

From a leadership perspective, this domain includes competencies around the vision, the mission, values (or principles) and development & execution of strategy in the Centre. It also includes how to build healthy cross-functional relationships and put the Centre front and center on the organizational radar screen.

From a business management perspective, this domain includes the ability to make credible business cases, calculate Contact Centre budgets, calculate ROI and understand change management project management. I’d add that it’s vital that the Contact Centre Management bring strong financial and analytical skills to the job role.

In my experience, very few Centre Managers have a strong grasp of how to correctly calculate a Contact Centre budget.

If I were conducting a hiring exercise for a Contact Centre Manager I’d ask the candidate to walk me through how they budget for a Centre. You’ll learn a lot about how much they know (or don’t know) about a Contact Centre operation.

4. Service Management

Service Management is the art & science of delivering value to Customers through any channel or combination of channels. Often times the Contact Centre is at the heart of the Service Management function.

Service Management includes know-how around developing and implementing a Service Delivery Vision, the selection & definition of relevant Quality standards, Quality assurance practices, Customer research practices including service monitoring, Customer communication strategies and the nurturing of a service culture.

And of course it includes a strong & practical understanding of the specific service and relevant sales skills for each channel in use.

The skills for handling a Customer email are different than those for handling a Customer live chat for example. Omnichannel service requires a different approach than multi-channel service.

And yes – your ever evolving mastery of what are commonly called ‘digital’ channels goes here as well. That incorporates chat, messaging and to some degree even chatbots as there should be a solid bridge between chatbot-assisted and Agent-assisted service.

I think some folks confuse Service Management with Customer Experience Management.

Service Management very specifically relates to Customer interactions with the brand. It’s a subset of the overall Customer Experience.

Customer Experience includes product, pricing and every single aspect of the organization from the way the bill looks to how fresh the chicken is in the restaurant. It’s so much more than a call to the Contact Centre.

With that said, let’s look at the last domain of know-how – Customer Experience Management.

What I learned running 60 classes on CX values and Culture for one Client

5. Customer Experience Management

There is a ‘real’ Customer Experience Manager job role out there.

And the Contact Centre Manager role is not that role.

The Contact Centre Manager job role – by its very nature – only involves some subset of all Customers (never all Customers), at some point of time (not all points in time) in that specific Customer journey (not all Customer journeys).

If it was really true that the Contact Centre Manager job = the Customer Experience Manager job then why not rebrand every Customer Experience Manager as a Contact Centre Manager?

Because that’s what’s implied. It would have to work both ways to be true.

So you honour the Contact Centre profession when you keep the phrase Contact Centre in your job title. Not when you decide to jump on the rebranding of everything as CX bandwagon.

Sure – the Contact Centre has impact on those Customers who experience that touchpoint. But it’s not the same thing as the perception the Customer has of the entirety of their experience with your brand.

Once you get that – and master your understanding of and contribution to the overall CX – you become a better Contact Centre Manager.

So after that big build up, what does the Contact Centre Manager need to know about CX? From my perspective, the more the better.

But we need to be careful here.

While having our Contact Centre Manager understand CX as a business discipline is important and helpful to our CX efforts, let’s remember the Contact Centre Manager already has a full-time job.

Just relook at domains of know-how we covered so far.

So it’s likely that much of the actual ‘work’ of CX will be done by the CX Team.

That’s because the CX Team is in the best position to handle activities like VOC research, developing the CX strategy, cross-functional journey mapping. implementing organizational accountability measures and the like.

The CX Team has a higher elevation across functions as well as a broader mandate.

I think that in real life, the Contact Centre Manager has a lot to learn from the Customer Experience Manager with regard to CX.

And I think that the Customer Experience Manager has a lot to learn from the Contact Centre Manager as well. The Customer Experience Manager will benefit from the rich experience, know-how and Customer insight residing in the Contact Centre.

Ultimately, both roles will work closely together for the benefit of the Centre and the Organization.

CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry

You don’t have a CX Team? I see that all the time.

Then it’s likely that you have a ‘Service Quality Team’ or variation. As is implied in the name, a Service Quality Team tends to focus on service – including research and analytics, high level complaint management and targeted improvement efforts across the organization.

But again – avoid confusing a Service Quality Team with a Customer Experience Team. The mandate and activities are different – as well as the scope of authority.

For Contact Centre Managers (or anyone) that wants to develop competency in Customer Experience – I recommend the CXPA 6 Competency Framework as a basis.

In that framework, the essential domains of knowledge for CX are CX Strategy, Voice of Customer, Experience Design, CX Metrics & Measurements, Governance and Customer-Centric Culture.

To those domains I add Maturity Analysis & Implementation Strategy as well because I think that’s important.

10 CCXP Exam Practice Questions for Customer Experience Strategy

Of course there’s more to consider

Of course when you’re selecting your Contact Centre Manager you will also look at their past track record of success and their ‘characteristics’. Such as how well they seem to ‘fit’ your culture.

But know-how is an obvious and critical component in the selection process. And it often takes a backseat to how much ‘experience’ the candidate has. That’s definitely the wrong way to go.

The key to success will always be KNOW-HOW + EXPERIENCE with DEMONSTRABLE SUCCESS.

In closing

I hope this article has been helpful. It’s a big nut to chew on for sure. And each heading and domain could be an article or set of articles on its own.

But I hope the high level overview is useful for you.

Thank you for reading!

Daniel

With one foot planted solidly in the Contact Centre industry (29 years!) and the other foot firmly planted in the CX industry I have the ability to connect the dots for people in the Contact Centre that want to understand CX and for folks in CX who want to understand the Contact Centre.

I’m one of 6 Trainers in the world designated as a Recognized Training Provider by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) and I help people learn more about CX and prepare for their CCXP Exam.

[email protected]

CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry

30/09/2019by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International 2 Comments

In this article I look at the CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry.

Let’s consider – what CX lessons can we learn from the Contact Centre industry?

There’s no question that Customer Experience is a recognized business discipline. (And if it’s not seen that way where you work then you have a different challenge).

Conferences, whitepapers and training providers have all expanded around the topic.

As a good friend said to me, it seems like everybody is a CX expert these days. And everyone is looking for the (right) answers to to achieve their CX ambitions.

But wait. Are the opportunities & challenges presented by CX in an organization really all new?

Or are there some CX lessons we can learn by examining past work done in successful Contact Centres?

As you’ll see, I think there are.

Your friendly neighbourhood Contact Centre Manager

I came to CX through the Contact Centre industry. And I couldn’t have asked for a better path.

That’s because great Contact Centre Managers have tackled some of the challenges – and realized some of the opportunities – that are talked about today in CX forums.

Sure, the Contact Centre is a subset of CX. Got that.

And yes, Contact Centre Managers who rebrand themselves as Customer Experience Managers – with no significant change in functional responsibilities – cloud the full meaning of CX.

But successful Contact Centre Managers have navigated – for years in some cases – some of the things we talk about in CX today.

So if you’re after some answers to some of your burning CX questions, I’d consider talking to my friendly neighbourhood Contact Centre people.

Here are some examples.

So how did you get into the Contact Centre industry?

Example #1 – Are you a Cost Centre or are you a Profit Centre?

For you Contact Centre folks out there did that paragraph header just make you shudder?

I’m with you on that.

One of the most discussed topics over the past two decades (at least) is whether the Contact Centre is a bottomless money pit or a strategic function that delivers value.

To shift the organizational discussion away from the cost-centre mentality, I think successful Contact Centre Managers have been able to:

Prove the Centre’s impact on business results
Present compelling business cases to senior management in the language of numbers & outcomes
Provide useful business intelligence to other departments & functions

For CX folks, does any of this sound familiar? It should.

Because in CX we have to make the connection to ROI. We can’t rollout CX because we think it’s a moral imperative or because we have a ‘burning passion’ to do so. That’s an approach that doesn’t win you much credit in the boardroom.

Or with your peers in other functions.

We have the obligation to link our CX efforts to improved organizational results – based on the metrics that matter most to our organization.

So if you’re in CX and you’re working on proving out ROI, it’s worth checking in with successful Contact Centre Managers to see what strategies they used to connect Contact Centre activities to ROI.

And who successfully shifted the group mindset away from ‘cost centre’.

Example #2 – Got a Service Culture?

Nobody goes to school to work in a Contact Centre.

And that means a lot of bright and often very young folks end up working in the Centre without prior experience or know-how.

So every Centre faces the need to transform raw human potential into industry professionals who have great conversations with Customers.

And that usually has to be done quickly – within months – sometimes even weeks.

To achieve that relentless focus on service requires strong culture building practices.

I’ve seen the best Centre Managers do the following:

Develop a Service Delivery Vision to help everyone understand what kind of service we deliver around here
Select & define a focused set of principles that guide decisions about the behaviours we exhibit with Customers and each other
Ensure regular and frequent sharing of successes – and misses – with regard to Customer interactions – because storytelling & rituals are always a big part of culture

In CX you need to build a Customer-focused culture. That marvellous CX transformation won’t happen without it.

But at the organizational level a culture transformation takes 3 – 5 years to succeed. Assuming that it’s successful at all.

So if you want some lessons on how to build and even accelerate a Customer-focused culture – talk to your successful Contact Centre Manager.

They’ve been cracking this code for years.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/what-i-learned-running-60-classes-on-cx-values-and-culture-for-one-client

Example # 3 – Oh baby, don’t leave me this way

Attrition.

That word encapsulates what happens when Contact Centres fail to provide meaningful work and opportunities for their Team Members.

Recently, I listened to a podcast by Horst Schulze (the co-founder of Ritz Carlton Hotels and founder of Capella Hotel Group).

In that discussion he shared how the Ritz Carlton managed to reduce attrition to only 20% of the level experienced by the hospitality industry at large.

Largely by creating a clear vision and giving people a sense of purpose and belonging.

Contact Centre Managers who’ve gotten a handle on attrition – and retention – have learned a lot about Employee engagement and experience.

Lessons about the application of purpose, opportunities for development and the use of appropriate reward & recognition programs as a starter.

And while the topics of attrition & retention won’t address all the requirements to unlocking a great Employee experience, successful Contact Centre Managers have improved life at work for dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people who deal with Customers day in and day out.

It’s worth taking a look at what they did.

3 Suggestions for Contact Centre Leaders to transform into Customer Experience Leaders in 2019

In closing

For the CX industry, there are some great CX lessons we can learn from the Contact Centre industry.

Go in and talk to the Managers there. They’re sure to appreciate it. They have a lot to share.

I often remind people that some of the answers to their questions lie within their own people.

And for the Contact Centre Managers out there. You have earned the know-how, hard knocks and learnings that have made you a master of the Contact Centre domain.

So when you’re ready – and take the time and make the effort to master Customer Experience as a discipline – you’ll be in an unbeatable position to take everything you know and get out there and make Customer lives even better.

Thanks for reading!

And if you’d like to follow along with the articles and information we share just leave your email address in our Contact Form!

Daniel Ord

[email protected]