Jacada Blog

One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy

In today's marketplace, every company needs a little something to set them apart from their competition. Customer service can be that added value that's needed to rise to the top and stay there. There is a lot of time and money invested in call centers and customer service, and businesses in today's digital age should understand that all it takes is one bad phone call to give your organization a bum rap. Word spreads quickly these days. Companies need to be aware of the importance of customer service and how call centers are really "the voice of the company."

In hopes of learning more about today's customer service representatives (CSRs), Jacada recently conducted a national call center survey. Over 200 North American reps were surveyed from a variety of industries including hospitality, insurance, telecommunications and utilities.

Here's what we heard:

The results showed a clear need to align customer service representatives with customer expectations. Online mechanisms are making a path for themselves, but customers prefer to have their issues handled over the phone. People just want to be heard. The top reasons customers call in are to order products or services, change an address, inquiries into billing and new account set up. A lot of business is handled by call centers, and CSRs are on the frontlines.

• 50% of CSRs require access to 3-10 applications for every call
• 78% would prefer better tools and improved streamlined applications 
• 63% spend more than half of their time on the call exploring resolutions to issues 

So, what do all these numbers mean? Bottom line, they show a definite need for efficient and knowledgeable (pleasant would be nice too, right?) CSRs. We've all been on the receiving end of one-too-many, problem-riddled calls where the issue was not resolved, resulting in another call. Calling customer service is not on the top of anyone's list these days, but companies understand the need for better processes, systems and training.

Call us. We'll pick up on the first ring.

Coming soon: More doses of the CSR survey results

Jen Childress, Director of Marketing, Jacada Inc.

Technology isn't a substitute for great service

On the face of it, the title for this blog is a strange assertion from a senior executive of a company offering technology-based solutions to improve customer service.

But I was recently asked to comment about the future of customer service in 2020. This got me thinking. Much has been talked about the impact of social media on customer service, and, don't get me wrong, I really believe that social media (or the great great grandchild of what we currently call social media) is going to play a major role in the customer service of the future.

But, regardless of the technology that exists – or will exist – we can't lose sight of the most basic universal customer service truth: good service is good service, and bad service is bad service.  And that basic tenet applies regardless of industry, company size or the way we reach out to the companies we do business with. And I think we can all take as read that the quality of customer service has a huge impact on any organisation's success.

Companies should be aiming for exemplary customer service, and the role of technology is simply to facilitate that commitment.  Look at the latest technology for reading books; i.e. e-book readers. The likes of Sony, Amazon and Apple have created amazing pieces of equipment, using cutting-edge technology, but people are still using it to read books that were written 200 years ago.  Some things, whether they are great literature or first class customer service might be supported by technology, but actually represent something much more fundamental.

Indeed, negative comments being made in a social networking environment are usually a symptom of something going wrong much deeper within the organization.  A negative image amongst users of social media web sites is not, therefore, the sickness, but just a very public symptom. Companies will need to get to the root cause of what is causing this level of frustration and dissatisfaction amongst their customers, and tackle it at the source.

Ultimately, no company will be able to control what's being said about them on social media web sites, but they can control the level of customer service that they are providing. In other words, if a business sets and maintains a high standard for customer service from board level right down through the organization then it will have nothing to fear from social media, and a great deal to gain.  Whatever format social media takes.

Guy Tweedale, Senior Vice President, European Operations, Jacada Inc.

Social media: It's now even more important to get customer service fundamentals right

Although some companies may feel that they are increasingly facing trial-by-Facebook, social media sites do not normally provide an effective outlet for solving these problems.  Just because someone has taken against a company on Facebook doesn't mean that the company should expect to fix it on Facebook: the real challenge will be to identify and make fundamental changes internally to enable them to fix the root causes of the complaints.

First and foremost companies must ensure that they continue to improve the quality of the products and services they offer.  Recent research we conducted in Europe showed that the most likely reason people contact an organization is because of an error made by the company in areas such as billing, technical issues, problems with delivery, or a missed service call (61% of respondents in Germany, 76% in the UK and 79% in the Netherlands), which shows companies have a long way to go, still.  And when customers do reach out to these organizations, the problems of these already frustrated customers need to be dealt with fully and effectively – regardless of the channel the customer has chosen to use.

Ultimately, despite the enormous power that is currently being attributed to social media, good customer service has always – and will always – begin at a point that is far deeper in a company's culture (where the customer should be central to decisions made) and supporting infrastructure (including its IT systems and procedures, and in its policies and staff training).  It's not enough to apologize on a social media web site when things are not working: customers will want to know how they can be sure that a similar problem won't be repeated.  In other words, they not only want to know what is going to change within the company, but also want to be informed when these changes have been made.  

Regardless, one thing is for sure: customers will always be more likely to share negative experiences than positive ones. The good news is that social media outlets have evened the playing field somewhat in this regard, in that millions of people have been give a public voice, on a global stage, for the first time in their lives. In this way, social media can also be used to amplify any positive customer experiences, and to promote them to a much larger audience.

Michelle Norris - EMEA Marketing Manager, Jacada Inc.

At Home Agents... from trend to reality

As a Presales Consultant with Jacada, I have been visiting call centers since early 2005. It is the part of my job that I enjoy the most. This involves meeting with customers, learning about their business and helping them build call center solutions using Jacada technology. Over the years I have heard of many trends in the industry such as off-shoring, turning service agents into sales agents, First Call Resolution, and many others. There is a major trend that has been around for years in the industry called "At Home Agents". This is where the CSRs work from home instead of working from the call center. Lately I have seen where this trend is picking up momentum and becoming a reality. This is a great opportunity and a win for everyone involved.

Most call centers are limited to agent talent within a 50-mile radius of their facility. With at home agent staffing the call center has greater flexibility, access to higher educated individuals. These individual agents often deliver amazing results, are highly motivated and have staying power. A Benchmark Portal report shows that 53% of call center leaders state that attrition is the key obstacle in reaching call center customer satisfaction. CSR attrition rates are now averaging 30% annually with every 10% costing the company 1% in customer churn. It is easy to see why call centers are considering the transition to at home agents.

This quarter I have started to hear of this trend as a near term goal from every customer I visit. Many have been deploying small pilot groups of existing trained and trusted CSRs and allowing them the flexibility to work from home. In these cases the at home agents are trained as an employee and then after they have an impressive tenure they are allowed to work from home. In almost every case, they have seen real success and are expanding the efforts. I recently visited two call centers that have seen the success of these pilot groups and are now starting to hire new CSRs to work from home. Once this is operational, these CSRs will never have worked in the company’s brick and mortar call center but only from home. As this trend continues to grow more companies will need to respond and offer this opportunity to continue their expansion and offer the flexibility they need in the world of round the clock service.

In order to make the necessary changes for a successful at home agent program there must a significant focus on training programs and CSR tools. There are answers... Jacada provides desktop unification, application automation, and process simplification for many of our customers. Combining those improvements with tools to enable more forms of communication such as chat and co-browsing to enable the remote CSR to get help when it is needed from subject matter experts and supervisors is paramount. Security, quality measurement, and coaching are all areas that also need to be addressed and will become apparent as this trend becomes reality for the industry. It is exciting to see these changes take place and I can’t wait to help make it a reality for customers and new prospects alike.

Tom Niehaus, Director, Product Marketing & Presales, Jacada Inc.

Be ready for business

Summer is here, my favorite time of year when most activities happen outdoors. Swimming pools are cool and the grill is hot. Every year my family and friends gather at my place for a July 4th big cook out. This event is now a week away. My yard is in dire need of attention and due to the recent rains, I could not keep up with the weeds and trimming. Overnight a quarter of my yard became an attractive red ant condo complex.  

I dialed a large local lawn care service. The July 4th holiday brings with it many positives and also a few challenges. As a potential new customer calling a lawn care service for the first time just days before a major holiday I realized my options were limited. I had several lawn care providers on my short list just in case this first one did not come through. I was not anticipating all my needs to be met, but with this time line I would not be choosey. While the phone rang, visions of fighting red ants went through my head.

I found myself on hold for less than three minutes. I was then placed directly on the line with a local service technician visiting another house in my neighborhood. I inquired about the reality of getting my lawn trimmed and treated prior to Sunday. I waited for the excuses to start. Instead, he said it would not be a problem provided I could make two things happen: First, water the lawn heavily 24 hours prior to their arrival and second remove trashcans/move cars etc. The tech explained they would arrive on Saturday evening to do a complete service that would take approximately three hours.

I was pleasantly surprised at getting this appointment.  The landscape team arrived and finished everything – even the extra trimming! My yard looks great. As I wrote the check to my technician I asked why it was easy to get an appointment so close to a big weekend. He replied "We were waiting for your call. We can't control the weather but we can get here if you need us." Apparently, this lawn care provider has monitored the heaviest times of year for the past four years. As it turns out just before every holiday their service calls go up dramatically. To be prepared, they staff for the necessary uptake in business with extra part time technicians. While some businesses may calculate the cost of help as too high, this company focused on staying busy when things get busy. They refuse to lose a customer because of under-staffing.

What are you doing to anticipate your busiest times of the year?

Caroline Cronin, VP of Finance, Jacada Inc.

Performance and the Odds, World Cup Style

If the Ghana team, who just ended USA's run, is going to win the World Cup they will be against some serious odds.  Foxsports.com has the team at a 25-1 long shot to win the 2010 title. 

I imagine if I were waking this morning in South Africa as a soccer player to the sounds of distant vuvuzelas, seeing these numbers might encourage me to crawl back into bed. The odds are just too great. Recently I have realized what the World Cup has taught me. The odds are often high every day and regardless of those odds we need to perform.

There are no privileges in sports. Games are about numbers; goals, fouls, seconds and so on. There are results to publish. There will always be an end and a lesson to remember. Teammates must perform at every practice and every game in order to keep playing. To keep playing, each team member has to be selected for their national teams. The selection is determined by measures and metrics that are transparent. All players, coaches and fans know the numbers of every teammate and every competitor. This knowledge is the key to their success. 

In sports the underlying rule is 'ya gotta perform.' Simple but true. When it comes to our professional office lives it is not so simple. We are fearful of being openly judged. However, when you know what you are being measured against, it can be empowering. The call center agent faces a plethora of numbers and metrics every hour, the agent's individual participation impacts the entire company's reputation. Judgment focused on results has helped create successful companies, yield better programs and create end user happiness.  

The most direct path to achievement whether you're a call center agent or a pro soccer player is to be a great performer and a great team member. No matter what the odds might say... when we perform and get selected to be a part of the team we win individually and we win collectively. 

Jeff Strnad, Senior Vice President - Global Customer Solutions, Jacada Inc.

What makes for exceptional customer service, Part 2: Using data for the customer's benefit

I recently wrote about an example of excellent customer service.  However, in another case, I had reason to call my mobile phone provider regarding a faulty phone that was still within the warranty period.  

"Yes, I see from your call history that you've called us on this problem a couple of times and prior to that, no problems...it's still not resolved? ...ok, let me post you an envelope to return the phone to us, and I'll email you confirmation of the job." 

Now, as a customer, that one conversation gives me reassurance that the company knows me because they have my call history, they can see my issue (their repairs system is connected to the CRM), and there's no putting me on hold and transferring me to a separate team to arrange returning the phone. Is this a Universal Agent? They have a complete view of me regardless of what means I use to contact them, clearly their email system is integrated to their CRM.

Could my Telco provider have gone that extra bit further? Undoubtedly. 

I'd called four times over a few days on the same issue. I suspect their management reports served management more than the customer, otherwise they would have noticed that I'd blown up their First Call Resolution figure. Perhaps unbeknown to them is the fact that they can capture in real time, instances such as when a customer has called more than twice within a short period and is therefore at risk of being very upset or, worse still, at risk of churn. By connecting that customer with, say, their billing history, you get a picture of how valuable that customer is to service and therefore whether to pass this key customer to Retentions to service immediately.

Having the capability to interrogate internal systems regarding Abandoned Calls and First Call Resolution are just two ways of going that extra bit further than the competition, leaving that extra positive impression on what is now a loyal and positive customer. Rather than wait a week for the next scheduled report run, and if you can do that in real time then all the better for retaining that customer.

Karnail Jita, Presales Consultant, Jacada Inc.

Does the internet turn baby boomers into Generation Y?

Recently I was buying an underwater mp3 player from ebay and the experience highlighted an interesting phenomena to me. 

A little background... being in my mid forties (well just about still there) I am without a doubt of the baby boomer generation. I value loyalty.  I value face-to-face interaction.  I choose my purchases carefully after doing research into the available options.  And generally I am a patient person. I started my working and consuming life in the days before email (I was an early compuserve email adopter!) and the internet existed. It was acceptable in my early career to take a couple of days to respond to a letter received or to not be immediately available on the phone. When we bought things we bought them from shops and if the item was out of stock we browsed for another or waited for it to be delivered before returning to the shop to collect. The pace of business was just as frantic as it is today but the pace of communication was a lot slower. I remember ordering a holiday brochure and it taking 2 weeks to arrive, but that was fine.

Fast forward to the 21st century and 2010. I decide I want to buy something, I go online, I do a google search, review a few options, pick the product and order it from the cheapest/most trusted vendor. That is all great but now the generation Y urges kick in. I want the product delivered tomorrow morning before I head off to the office, or at least I want an email within 24 hours saying my purchase has dispatched – after all I have checked that the item is in stock, I have paid by credit card or paypal and been told I have paid... I want the item on its way.

So what happens occasionally is that there is a delay in shipping, especially with ebay (but others as well)... it might be sent from a third party partner, the vendor might not check emails/transactions every day.  In this recent case the vendor was ill and in another they had their laptop stolen.... but I still want my item now. Generation Y is renowned for not being very patient – they are the instant response generation – they don't pick up the phone they blog and tweet and IM their dissatisfaction without considering the logistics that the vendor deals with.  And we are no longer a patient generation, we baby boomers... we are generation Y with attitude.  And with the money!

Guy Tweedale, Senior Vice President, European Operations, Jacada Inc.

Sharing Leads to Cost Savings

 It was John McCarthy back in the 1960s who envisioned cloud computing when he said "computation may someday be organized as a public utility." Cloud computing is actually delivering hosted services over the Internet. A cloud service provides computational resources on demand like an electricity grid. Cloud computing is a long running trend but today's technology is much more prepared with high speed Internet which is available and advanced computer networks to support the computational needs. A cloud service can be public and available for everyone, or private and serve limited numbers. 

A cloud service offers many benefits to its consumers. Imagine a computational resource which is available either in the traditional manner requiring purchase of dedicated hardware and software or having the same resource available as a cloud service. The consumer of the resource may choose to buy the necessary hardware and software, make IT investment for installation and maintenance, and also monitor and troubleshoot problems. However, this same consumer can get the same resource as a cloud service and just access the resource over the Internet when needed – with little IT investment and pay-as-you-go usage. The cloud service option is much more appealing as it reduces costs and operational efforts, allowing small entry investment and growth as needed. The value is in avoiding waste - how advantageous!

Cloud service providers reduce cost to their customers due to resource sharing –  and while the term "sharing" may sound controversial, it is actually quite elementary. The demand is a variable, since service consumers usually do not use it 24x7, cloud service infrastructure hardware can be shared among many consumers thus reduce costs to the cloud service provider, which is translated to cost savings for the service consumer. 

The market today is more competitive than ever and billions of us find cloud services more appealing. We should expect to see more cloud services emerging and more companies preferring solutions over the cloud.

Join us tomorrow, June 24 at 11AM ET for a webcast titled "Billions of Us Are in the Cloud." This will be an open discussion about the possibilities.

We'd love for you to join us, so register today. 

Eran Bida - Product Development Manager, Jacada Inc.

What makes for exceptional customer service?

 Without doubt, the media is overflowing with real life stories of customer's bad experiences with call centres so let's put aside for a moment the natural desire to redress the balance for those instances where we've suffered at the hands of a customer service agent or indeed have wanted them or someone to do likewise. Think instead about those cases where a phone call or email conversation with the call centre leaves us feeling good, and realising that apart from just a few, they're not all bad. It could be the result of getting a query resolved on the first call, getting through to an agent with just a couple of key presses on the IVR, or getting a sensible explanation for that unusually high bill. 

Dig deep, we all know what makes good customer service. But what makes exceptional customer service? Perhaps it's that one time when the agent credits your account in a gesture of goodwill. Or when the agent quickly resolves your broadband problem and gets you on your merry way. Or my own recent experience. I called the call centre at a well known and very reputable department store, renowned for its excellent customer service. The problem was that four items from a recent order had arrived by courier but the fifth had not. Thinking that such a problem was outside of the capability of online FAQ and with much irritation I called the helpline number to find the elusive fifth item.

The phone rang off the hook and I gave up. While musing over the irony of the difference between the customer service in the call centre and the store, the phone rang. It was the department store. 

"We noticed you rang in and we're sorry we couldn't get to your call in time, what can we do to help?"

I was floored! From that moment on, I'm a captive and non-churn-able customer. Why? They took the time to realize I'd made the effort to call and they made an even bigger effort to call me back. Unbelievable! The call itself was answered efficiently, however even if it had run into a problem, in my elevated state I would have overlooked it. The missing package arrived promptly, but even if it had not, it probably would not have mattered as my belief in good call centres had been restored.

Therein lies the lesson. Exceptional customer service leaves a lasting impression.

Karnail Jita - Presales Consultant, Jacada Inc.