The Hidden Sources of Poor Customer Service
remarks to ones that will give the customer a better sense of when the issue might be resolved, if it hasn't been. "Tell me what the turnaround time is going to be. And then reach out [after the call] to let me know where you are at with resolving my issue," Sachs says, speaking on the customer's behalf.
Another pitfall with too closely following a very rigid script is that it doesn't allow the level of personalization that modern interactions require. "Far too many IVRs treat all callers the same," Hura says. "No matter who you are, the IVR runs you through some identification procedures and then offers you the same menu of options."
This used to be good enough, but today, "this kind of generic customer service no longer suffices," she adds.
"IVRs can be designed to proactively offer options tailored to the particular customer, to demonstrate to customers that the organization knows who they are and is aware of their history and relationship with the organization," Hura continues. "Proactively offering options that are most relevant to customers allows them to bypass menus and jump directly to the task they're most interested in, which results in shorter and more satisfying experiences."
Pellet says it's also important for companies to limit the amount of customer effort needed to complete tasks. After all, customers who have already spent a considerable amount of time trying to resolve their issues with an agent do not want to be told they need to visit a Web site, go to a store, or send an email, he asserts. "Customers don't think the contact center should require additional steps to resolve their issues. The contact center is viewed as the last step prior to the resolution," Pellet says. "The contact center exists to solve problems, not to create more work for the customer."
NICE Systems' Global Customer Experience Survey also highlighted the need to make service as effortless as possible for customers. The rewards are huge for companies that can deliver—96 percent of respondents who expended little effort while resolving a service issue reported high levels of loyalty to the company with which they were doing business.
Reducing customer effort, at its most basic level, means offering the path of least resistance when it comes to customer interactions. This should involve offering self-service whenever possible and appropriate. A crucial factor in delivering a high-quality customer experience is a company's ability to offer customers and employees efficient ways to find and use information on their own.
Whether offered via the IVR or on a Web site, information has to be easy to find and easy to use. And it has to be up to date. Unfortunately, most times, at least one of these requirements is absent, and failed attempts at Web self-service drive customers back to the phone and the contact center.
To make matters worse, agents typically must find answers to service issues hidden in a multitude of sources, including product manuals, FAQs, marketing materials, corporate policy statements, user forums, databases, and case notes. Basic search methodologies often offer little help, as searches take time and a certain level of expertise to effectively navigate.
"The knowledge base is the biggest area where we have not done a good job in the contact center industry," Interactive Intelligence's Saulnier says. "The knowledge base requires a lot of updating, and companies just are not doing it."
Simply put, requiring customers and agents to sift through multiple applications and thousands of irrelevant and outdated documents wastes time and leads to frustrated customers.
In the end, improving any customer interaction ultimately means equipping agents and customers properly. Ensuring agents and customers have all of the tools they require at their disposal to work through customer issues quickly can reduce both customer effort and agent effort, and that saves both time and money in the long run.
News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.