Twofowzand

Software Company based in Saint John, NB

[twofowzand]

"One and Done"

I recently heard someone say: "One and Done" in the context of customer service.  I loved it.

When I call customer service or tech support or any CS rep, here is the experience I want:

Fast response

Know where I'm going

Know I'm taken care of

no machines

I want the right person the first time

explain issue once

same person has the answer

DON'T PUT ME ON HOLD!

Not just speak my language, but speak my culture

One and Done!

*Image provided by http://www.afterglow.ie

[twofowzand]

Nurturing People With Knowledge

"Executing a knowledge based strategy is not about managing knowledge... it's about nurturing people with knowledge."

   - Brook Manville and Nathaniel Foote, from Strategy as if Knowledge Matters

So much of what is out there for knowledgebase software or knowledge management strategies is all about "extracting" (sounds surgical!) knowledge or mandating, through performance reviews, contribution to a knowledgebase.

But what if you gave your customer support employees software that actually made their day better, served them, helped them, worked alongside them and didn't get in their way?  Is anybody asking: "how can I make my support team's life easier?"

Knowledge is outdated the day you make it, so if you want knowledgebase software that works, and will continue to work, it had better be something people want to use.

[twofowzand]

“Too often we measure everything and understand nothing. The three most important things you need to measure in a business are customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow. If you’re growing customer satisfaction, your global market share is sure to grow, too. Employee satisfaction gets you productivity, quality, pride, and creativity. And cash flow is the pulse—the key vital sign of a company.” — JACK WELCH

Control Your Own Destiny

[twofowzand]

A Link Between Customer Satisfaction and Sales?

The UK Customer Satisfaction Index has recently made some very interesting correlations:

Amazon’s customer satisfaction is unbelievably high, at 90% and sales are up 20%

Other companies with less than 80% customer satisfaction are seeing declining sales

I’ve stared at this graph for quite a while, it’s not a perfect correlation*, but it’s pretty strong evidence that if you care about your customers a lot, your sales should go up a lot.  Conversely, if you don’t care about your customers, you can expect your company to go into decline. Here is my favorite line from the article:

“So does customer service matter? The answer is emphatically ‘yes’…  This is great news in terms of building a sustainable competitive advantage because your competitors can copy your products and match your prices, but it is much more difficult for them to keep up with your investment in developing the kind of employees and culture that deliver great customer service.”

*It should be noted that Primark has very low prices apparently and customers love that, hence the growth.

[twofowzand]

Is customer support a mechanical job?  Or does it take a bit of creativity, troubleshooting, out-of-the-box thinking?  I would argue the latter.  

"That's the kind of thing that might get you up in the morning and racing to go to work.  So I think that we are purpose maximizers, not only profit maximizers.  I think the science shows that we care about mastery very very deeply and the science shows that we want to be self directed.  And I think that the big take-away here is that if we start treating people like people and not assuming that they are simply horses, you know, slower, smaller, better smelling horses, if we get past this kind of ideology of carrots and sticks and look at the science, I think we can actually build organizations and work lives that make us better off, but I also think they have the promise to make our world just a little bit better."

Let's start treating people like people, not just our customers... but our employees too. 

[twofowzand]

Get Human

Customers rejoice!  Corporate take note!

Get Human has teamed up with Lucy Phone to destroy on hold music and "did you know we have a website?" announcements every 5 seconds.

Get Human gives you the phone number you need to call, how long you can expect to be on hold and tips to burn through dial options.  

Then, if you want, place your call through Lucy Phone. Let it know when the hold music starts, hang up and it will call you back once a human is on the line!  

*Note - Apparently some agents will hang up on you when the transfer happens, but it even lets you record a little message asking them not to hang up while you get connected to them.  Plus you didn't wait in a Q, so you don't have anything to loose!

How will Lucy Phone make money?  Well, they are trying to sell big businesses on this new model of telephone service, "buy our technology and your customers will be less angry".  I'd buy it!

Here is an example with Telus, showing that they have an average 24 minute wait time.  I think that's fair based on my experience...

http://gethuman.com/phone-number/Telus-Phone-Service-Canada/