Don’t make a bad decision in the name of a good outcome

07/03/2024by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

Making a bad decision in the name of a good outcome – is still a bad decision

Read the following statements and see if you can identify the pattern:

“I know that transaction surveys should be short and sweet but this is a chance for our Marketing group to build relationship with Customers so we’re adding more questions.”

“I know that transactional NPS isn’t a good metric to use for individual Agents but I think it helps with Agent Engagement to share the good comments.”

“I know that measuring Agents on number of calls handled isn’t mathematically ideal but I think it helps us be cost efficient.”

Take a moment now to describe what you see in each of these examples.

Here’s how I describe it

In each example shared a good outcome was used to defend a bad decision.

Or put another way, a bad decision was forgiven in the name of a good outcome.

It helps with cost efficiency (the good outcome) to measure Agents on number of calls handled (the bad decision).

And invariably, the person who uses this approach will start off with, “I know that…”.

Which in a way makes it worse.

Notice how the conversation gets shut down

Notice how this kind of statement shuts the conversation down.

When someone says, “…because it will make us cost efficient.” it puts the Listener in a difficult position.

I mean who’s going to argue against cost efficiency? Or Agent engagement? Or Customer relationship? These are all good and important outcomes.

It can feel awkward to feel that you’re debating against a good outcome. Especially if this statement comes from the boss. Or an authority figure.

But you know it’s a bad decision. So its worth digging in and exploring.

Here’s how I do it

Is the bad decision being put forward – the too long transaction survey, the transactional NPS question, the metric on # of Calls Handled – a significant lever that drives that good outcome?

You can’t just have an opinion. Show me.

Use a Scatter diagram, an Ishikawa diagram, financial modelling. Basically use whatever tool or method fits the purpose.

But show me how that bad decision truly contributes significant impact on that good outcome.

And if there’s a well document practice or principle that we’re not planning to follow tell me why it doesn’t apply to us.

For example # of Calls Handled as an Agent performance metric turns out not to be a big contributor to Cost Efficiency.

In fact that metric can potentially increase overall costs.

Oops.

And what about the impacts on the ecosystem?

Now let’s turn our lens to the impacts on the ecosystem. Because the decisions we make don’t operate in isolation.

There are always impacts on other parts of the ecosystem.

And I’ve always thought of professionals working in Customer Experience & Service as ‘Custodians of the Customer Ecosystem’.

What are the ecosystem impacts of using # of Calls Handled as an Agent metric?

Well when you sit down and study it, Agents who are targeted on # of Calls Handled invariably shortchange Customers on Quality.

Either in the style or completeness of their response or both.

Is that a good thing? Most Organizations would say no.

A shortchange in Quality is going to potentially increase our unnecessary repeat contacts figure. Which in turn increases cost and reduces Service Level.

And it also hits our Customer Satisfaction outcomes which can result in more complaints to handle and an increase in Customer defections.

And let’s remember that Agents who are targeted on quantity often lose the chance to develop their quality. To develop those powerful communication skills that can serve them throughout their lives.

The ecosystem impacts are significant – and need to be considered as part of the decision making process.

It can seem that I’m talking about a small thing here

Even I can see how this might be seen as nitpicking. Or that it’s just a small thing.

But step back and consider.

It only takes only a few such decisions of the “I know it’s not good/right/great to do X but we do it to get Y” variety to ripple through the ecosystem and potentially do more harm than good.

Thank you for reading!

Thank you for the time you took to read this today!

If you’d like to stay up to date on our articles and other information just send over your email address or add it to the contact form on our website.

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

Cover photo by Happy Lee on Unsplash

The London Tube Map and CX Strategy – a story

31/01/2024by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this article I share the story of how a strategy session went off track, even amongst CX experts, and an approach that works better.

“This photo of the London Tube Map is so cool.”

“It sure is, I think it would be a great guide to our work.”

“I think so too. We can design our strategy in a way that fits into the map.”

I had been invited to sit in with a group of CX experts to design a learning curriculum for CX practitioners.

And after the introductions, that’s almost word for word how the conversation amongst the experts had kicked off.

There had been an earlier meeting that I’d missed and it was during that earlier meeting that the group had landed on the map of the London Tube system.

And had chosen it as their North Star to design a CX learning curriculum

But this was the wrong starting point

By falling in love with a clever image – and I’m sure we’re all guilty of this at some point in our career – the entire project had been derailed.

Because rather than an open, structured and embracing approach to strategy, the discussions became tethered to whether they fit into the London Tube map – or not.

And those discussions were going to miss out on the questions that mattered more.

I teach a lot of CX and Customer Service strategy and here’s a better approach

I teach a lot of strategy in our various CX and Customer Service workshops and here’s some content that my Participants have told me helped.

This is wisdom from USAA, recognized as one of the world’s most Customer-focused organizations.

And it’s a company I have personal experience with as I’m the child of a military family and a USAA Member since the age of 16.

Greg Marion, the VP of Enterprise Strategy at USAA, shared that there are 4 parts to a business strategy:

His 4 elements are remarkably clear:

What is our Vision?
Who do we serve? (The Who)
How will we serve them? (The How)
How will we track our progress along the way? (The Metrics)

Of course there are lots of things going on within each element, but my intention here isn’t to dive down into a strategy workshop.

It’s to introduce a framework that ‘starts at the top’. Which is what I think the group of CX experts I was sitting with had not yet done.

So using the 4-element model I introduced a question – what’s the vision for the learning and development curriculum you’re putting together for the industry? If all your dreams come true what will that look like?

And before we get into the nitty gritties of courses and outlines, who do we serve? Who are we writing this curriculum for?

Ok – now we know what our vision is and we know who we’re serving. How will we serve them? What’s our product? What will the delivery or distribution mechanism be? Are we serving folks the way they want to be served?

And finally, how will we know we’re successful? Or that we’re on the right track and can adjust/readjust as needed? That’s where metrics come in.

I’m a big fan of determining the metrics up front before we start the initiative. Because then there’s real world alignment to our work. As well as accountability for our work.

This approach can help

Not only is this approach more structured. It’s more ‘outside-in’.

Because we’re looking out to who we’re serving, how we plan to serve them and metrics of success that keep us accountable and on track.

Or put another way, we discussed the problem we solve and how we’re going to solve it for real people in the real world.

Imagine how much differently the conversation would have gone if the group of CX experts had used a strategic framework to guide the development of the learning and development curriculum.

As compared to designing around a pretty picture.

Thank you for reading!

If you’d like to keep up with our articles and other information just leave your email address in our contact form or visit me on LinkedIn!

Daniel Ord

[email protected]

www.omnitouchinternational.com

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

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 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]

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]

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

14/01/2019by OmniTouch International OmniTouch International No Comments

In this short article I share 3 suggestions for Contact Centre Leaders to transform into Customer Experience Leaders in 2019.

First things first

I sometimes hear Contact Centre leaders say that their senior or functional management doesn’t support their Centre.

If you work at a cult status company like Zappos you’re clearly fortunate. Your high level of Customer Experience (CX) ambition is aligned to and reinforces that of your company.

It’s a virtuous cycle.

But what if you’re the Centre Manager in a company where your purpose isn’t seen as mission-critical. Where management doesn’t meaningfully embrace Customer centricity.

That’s a different scenario.

Sure – you can’t control the level of CX ambition in your company. But go ahead and pursue your personal CX ambitions – even if they don’t align to the current CX ambitions of your company.

John Maxwell writes “Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” Don’t settle for becoming an outcome of your culture. Consider yourself a driver of your culture.

I think that’s putting first things first.

Suggestion #1 – Get involved with the Customer Experience (CX) Vision

Not every company decides to pursue a CX strategy. At the end of the day it’s a business decision.

And don’t let the false use of lingo in companies fool you. Rebranding everything as ‘Customer Experience’ when it used to be called ‘Customer Service’ doesn’t make it so.

They’re different things.

Window dressing doesn’t equate to strategy.

A Customer Experience strategy – a big topic – addresses:

What kind of experience you intend to deliver to Customers
The objectives, goals & metrics you set to measure success
The outside-in perspective of the Customer to ensure your aim is true
The ways you plan to engage everyone within the organization to deliver
The long- and short-term actions you take to achieve your objectives

I’ll cover CX Strategy more in a future article.

10 CCXP Exam Practice Questions for Customer Experience Strategy

But for our purposes today let’s look at Point #1 -what kind of experience you intend to deliver.

Because this is where your CX Vision lives. It describes the intended experience in vivid and compelling terms so that everyone knows what that experience should look like and feel like. In Service Design it might be called your Value Promise.

If your company has a defined Customer Experience (CX) Vision in place, life is good. You’re in a great position to align your quality program & performance standards to that vision.

No more excuses to use weak standards like ‘Use the Customer’s Name 3x’.

From Contact Centre Management to Customer Experience Management – do you have what it takes?

What if your company doesn’t have a CX strategy in place?

If your company doesn’t have a CX strategy in place, then it isn’t likely to have a CX Vision in place either.

But hey – don’t let that stop you.

Sometimes Contact Centre Leaders need to shape their own destiny. You can and should put together a strong Service Vision.

By the way, I tend to be very particular with terminology here. I don’t call this a Customer Experience Vision.

The reason is simple.

A CX Vision by definition and application incorporates the entire organization and its ecosystem. If your scope of authority extends only across the Contact Centre or Customer Service function, it’s better to be precise and call it a Service Vision instead.

Because it’s not organizational in scope.

But, over time and with your influence, a great Service Vision can readily evolve into an organizational CX Vision.

So think big when you craft it!

And the Service Vision often does double-duty for how we treat each other. It doesn’t just have to be for Customers. It can be for Employees too.

Sometimes I use the analogy of ice cream. What ‘flavour’ of service do we deliver around here.

Coming up with your Service Vision

To come up with your Service Vision it helps to look at what your company says about itself.

This is where I begin when I’m designing a Mystery Shopper research or Quality Assurance program.

Read your company website. The company vision, mission and values can often be found there. What’s your purpose? Who are your intended Customers? What role do you play in their lives?

Articulate how your company describes itself.

Next, look at your company’s brand attributes & values.

What kinds of promises does your company make to current and prospective Customers when they use your products & services? What do your ads say? What kind of images are used? What kind of lingo appears in marketing communications?

Articulate the brand promises your company makes.

Now you can put these findings in front of the people who work in your Centre. What do they think? Does it ring true?

Your goal is to develop and codify a Service Vision (a statement), which is often supported by a focused set of 3 – 6 Service principles.

And by going through this process you’ll be better equipped – when the time comes – to help other departments and functions work through their CX Vision.

That’s influence!

Just imagine

When anyone asks your Contact Centre Agent what kind of service they deliver around here – they can tell you. And specifically how they apply the vision & principles to their daily interactions.

Easy to talk about – but it’s the doing that sets you apart from others.

In closing, the CX Vision, the Service Vision and CX Strategy are big topics. They’re worth taking the time and effort to read, study and discuss at a much deeper level than is presented in this short article.

But I’ve found over the years, the best CX & Service strategies begin with a solid vision.

Suggestion #2 – Please don’t call a horse an apple

It’s wearying to see how many Contact Centres have rebranded themselves as Customer Experience Centres and how many Contact Centre job titles have been changed to incorporate ‘Customer Experience’ into the title.

But you can point at a horse and call it an apple all day and that won’t make it so.

This type of rebranding exercise pollutes everyone’s understanding of what CX really is. Because CX – by definition & application – must incorporate the organization as a whole.

Sure – your Contact Centre has some impact on the overall Customer Experience for those Customers who choose to use your resources.

But their overall perception of your company is influenced by so many (other) factors and is fluid over time.

McKinsey writes that Customers think in terms of their journeys, not in touchpoints. That can be hard for Contact Centre leadership – in charge of large and labour-intensive touchpoint – to take onboard.

Especially when for years we’ve all been taught that the Contact Centre is the most important touchpoint in the company.

It’s helpful for Contact Centre people to understand that they’re a subset of a subset in the world of CX.

First comes CX which covers the entire organizational ecosystem.

Then within that ecosystem you have the Customer Service function – most easily viewed as the human to human interactions Customers have with you.

And within the Customer Service function you have the Contact Centre.

If I were training my Agents today I’d spend time sharing key Customer journeys.

Why did the Customer contact us? Where did they come from? Where are they likely to go next? What’s our role and opportunity in this experience?

When Contact Centre people stick their flagpole into the ground and claim they are Customer Experience, they do a big disservice to every other employee and stakeholder in the organization.

Ultimately, the smart use of Customer research allows you to evaluate the importance of the Contact Centre touchpoint to the Customer across key personas and journeys.

We talk about research next.

Suggestion #3 – Build your Customer Research Know-How

You’d hope that the Contact Centre leaders would be experts in Customer Research know-how.

That they’d jump at every opportunity to understand the needs, expectations and wants of their Customers.

That they’d bang on the doors of their Service Quality department and ask to be a part of the research programs undertaken.

That they’d be open to learning the (sometimes) harsh truth about what Customers have to say.

But one potential barrier I’ve seen often is this one.

When senior management has unrealistic expectations around quantitative outcomes, Contact Centre leaders may not be so keen to let poor results & findings see the light of day.

I met one Contact Centre leader who was so terrified of an upcoming management meeting on their Contact Centre survey results they called in sick for the presentation.

Fear is a terrible way to motivate change and when Customer research is seen as ‘scary’ that inhibits the desire to learn more about research.

Another potential barrier I see is this one.

Research is a fascinating but complex topic. It involves a lot of what I call ‘First Principles’.

First Principles are the essential knowledge you need to understand the topic with some level of mastery.

In Customer Research that includes essential knowledge around topics like –

The role of qualitative research
The use of structured vs. unstructured data
Descriptive, predictive and outcome metrics
Forms of ethnographic research
Relationship vs. transaction survey practices
The role of statistical viability
Basic research terminology – mode, median, average,
More research terminology – correlation, regression, causality
Service & experience design research

To learn and understand these concepts take time and effort. But the payoff is tremendous.

In an era where more information and data is produced than at any other time in human history, dusting off those old statistics books and re-mastering quantitative & qualitative research matters.

Experience design is based on qualitative research methodologies in particular.

Get your Customer Research know-how up to speed. It helps you make sound sense of how you can understand Customers better.

In closing

Of course I could have had 13 suggestions – or 5 suggestions or 11 and so on.

But after some thought to my own personal experience, what I’ve learned working with Clients and the amount of time and effort required, I hope that these suggestions resonate with you and are helpful.

Here’s to all your CX ambitions for 2019 and thank you for reading!

How to learn more about Customer Experience and prepare for certification

Daniel