Join Me at The Call Centre & Customer Management Expo in The United Kingdom

I am proud to announce that I will be representing RightNow Technologies at the United Kingdom Call Centre and Customer Management Expo on October 11th, through October 12th.  I will be personally at the RightNow Booth speaking to customers and prospects about their Customer Experience challenges, and discussing best practices for servicing customers across the Contact Center, Web, and Social channels.

If you are planning to attend, let's be sure to meet so we can discuss Customer Experience Best Practices.  Below are the details of the event, and a LinkedIn Group on this site for the event.  If you would like to meet or speak, please be sure to email me directly and I will make sure we have the opportunity.

Website: Call Centre & Customer Management Expo
LinkedIn Group:  Call Centre & Customer Management Expo LinkedIn Group
Date & Time: Tuesday 11 October, 9am - 5:00pm, Wednesday 12 October, 9am - 4:30pm
Location: National Hall Olympia, London
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2009 Global Consumer Channel Preferences (Whitepaper By Accenture)

This is probably one of the best Services and Customer reads I have reviewed this year and I think it certainly worth reading when you have a chance. Accenture surveyed global consumers on Customer Experience and Consumer Satisfaction. There are some interesting data points in the study. There is also a lot of Online insight.

Here are the highlights:

• 68% of consumers cancelled/switched to another product due to Customer Service Reasons. The study illustrates that the online experience is just as important as the Phone experience.

When You Seek Customer Service, how do you go about getting assistance?
In 2009, here were the results (multiple mentions):

• 85% prefer calling for assistance.
• 65% prefer sending email
• 46% of respondents indicated they search the internet for information.
• 42% utilize a company's website
• 20% prefer Online Chat.
• 10% rely on Blogs and social Networks.

Regarding Consumers Posting Negative Comments Online:

Globally, 25% of all consumers will post negative comments online about a bad brand or service experience online. This trend is up and they point out in the survey that Brazil and China are more likely to do this than other countries. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SURVEY.


customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

Video: The Top 10 Critical Service Metrics You Need to Know

Some more from Dreamforce. Start this session with the top 10 service metrics you need to know, followed by real-life examples your peers are using today. Well help you cruise your way to the winners circle.

Video: Hands-On: Knockin Knowledge out of the Park

Another great session on Knowledge Management at Dreamforce 2009. Knowledge is the foundation of all support channels. In this hands-on training session, youll learn how to take advantage of all the latest Salesforce CRM knowledge base features to improve your organization from the ground up.

Video: The Next Step in Customer Care: Customer Collaboration

More Dreamforce videos. This one specifically focused on Customer Care. As leaders in their respective industries, Cisco and salesforce.com are pushing customer care to the next level by combining Unified Customer Contact solutions with the Service Cloud. Join this session to look at customer collaboration, the business drivers, and how social media can impact the way companies provide customer care.

Video: How Salesforce.com Uses the Service Cloud: Reinventing Self-Service

Salesforce.com's in-house customer support organization is taking advantage of the Service Cloud to reinvent the online customer experience. The secret to the sauce—personalized, consistent, and quick access to knowledge, help, training, and community. See how you can leverage our unique model to make self-service your customers preferred support channel.

Video: Using the Service Cloud for the Enterprise

Another video from Dreamforce specific to the Service Cloud concept. Looking to improve complex and mature external call centers, internal IT help desks, customer portals, or other customer service centers? This session features tactical information on how the Service Cloud can transform your enterprise call centers and other service solutions. The Service Cloud is up and running in the enterprise, and youll hear from the folks who are making it happen!

Slideshow: How Customer Support Organizations Must Evolve

How Customer Support Organizations Must Evolve

View more presentations from jeremiah_owyang.

Another great deck and summary from Jeremiah Owyang. The interesting thing is that Jeremiah is touching support which is usually out of the scope of what he writes. Support is certainly one of my sweet spots specifically with how it should be implemented using the Social aspects of the web. Great high level view of Support Strategy here.

Video Overview: ZenDesk - Customer Service & Support 2.0 Application

ZenDesk is a Customer Service & Support application available in the cloud. The pricing seems fairly high, but judging by the chatter this application is generating online, it seems like a good product for mature Customer Service Organizations. They also have customers like MSNBC, and Twitter using the tool while also offering built in Twitter integration.

customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

Presentation: Summary of Salesforce.Com & RightNow Technologies as a CRM & SFA Tool

CRM, eService, and SFA Evaluation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: sales salesforce.com)

If your a medium sized and growing organization looking for an eService, CRM, and SFA solution you may want to take a look at this. This presentation contains a review of 3 of the biggest players in the mid market space for the eService, CRM, and SFA space. This is a recap and summary of Salesforce.Com, and Right Now Technologies with strengths and weaknesses.


customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

5 Web Self Service Myths & Pitfalls

eGain (A Multichannel Support Offering) developed an excellent case study on the 5 Web Self Service Myths and Pitfalls. The pitfalls are as follows:

Myth #1: Self Service is A Foolproof Way To Reduce Costs
Myth #2: Self Service means Eliminating Customer Interactions
Myth #3: Self Service is a quick Fix.
Myth #4: One Self Service Method fits all.
Myth #5: We deployed Self Service and Contact Center Volume Went down, So we Succeeded.

Most of these are certainly true as I have seen it in business occur on a very frequent basis. Specifically with Myth #2 and #5. The only true way to eliminate customer interactions is to get down to the root cause and offer the feature on the web site. Click here for the Full Case Study.


customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

What Are Chat Bots & Why Should Your Business Use Them?

As things get hot over Web 2.0 strategies in the Service Industry, one of the more challenging technologies that Service Managers dread to deploy is a Chat channel for Customer Support. The concerns over using chat for support are legitimate, and are usually attributed to resource management, productivity, and whether or not a chat interaction will be more productive over the long term since an agent has to type to engage upon solution solving.

So now Gartner and several other multichannel support vendors are buzzing about over the concept of Chat Bots and it is likely being driven by the popularity of Second Life and it's use in the Business World. Gartner predicts that by 2010, over 15% of Fortune 1000 companies with a web site will have some kind of chat bot deployed on their web site. The concept of Chat Bots is far from new however. Anyway who utilized the MIRC in the early days of chat on the internet know what I am reffering to, so in this post I will summarize what is a chat bot, and how should a service organization utilize them?

What Are Chat Bots?

In laments terms, a chat bot is simply an automated agent that a customer or person online can ask for information and the chat bot would serve the individual the information requested. In the context of a support tool, you would ask the chat bot a question and the chat bot would attempt to answer the question prior to being directed to an actual live agent.

Perhaps some of the most familiar chat bots in our everyday virtual lives is in AOL's Instant Messenger Bots. These bots are active in the Buddy list for you to ask questions on a variety of things such as the following:

• The Movifone Bot - Too find out where is your favorite movie playing and at what time.
• The WSJ Bot - Wall Street Journal Bot to find stock quotes.

These are just some of the several bots you can use on Instant Messenger, and they serve as great automated sources of information to the consumer.

Why Should Your Business Care?

So you rolled out chat and saw the value of it, but what if you could eliminate 15% of your inquiries prior to a live chat engagement? What if 100% of your inquiries can be managed in an automated fashion with a personal touch using a chat bot? The reality is that customers today and future customers are living in a virtual world. Technologies like Virtual Chat Bots will be essential in the future as a front end to your live web support vs. today where it is more of an option.

In the context of support, companies are utilizing chat bots as a front end to support their customers prior to reaching a live agent over the web. Unlike traditional Knowledge Bases or Online Support Forums where keywords are utilized, Chat Bots provide a more conversational and question oriented approach to resolution while providing the end user with a more personal experience in real time. Typically, if the chat bot is not successful in automatically resolving the customers inquiry, then a live chat interaction with an agent takes place.

There are certainly some good and bad with the Chat Bot concept, and the technology is currently maturing. Solution providers like eGain, and PandoraBots, and Microsoft acquired Colloquis are some providers taking the lead in this space. But depending on your business, this may or may not be the best approach. One instance where we do see automated chat put to good use is on 1-800-Radiator's Web site. The company recognized that it had a much better chance of converting customers over the phone than online, so it used an automated chat service to pre-qualify customers, gather information and then escalate the contact to the phone via click to call.

Click below to download eGain's White Paper on Chat Bot Best Practices.

8 Tips For Superior Web Self Service Through Chat Bots


customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

The State of Customer Service In North America

Here is an excellent study done by eGain called "The State of Customer Service In North America that outlines how Service is doing in the United States broken out by industry. You can download the study here.Here are some key findings:


- Self Service Performance across industries was below average.

- Although Phones remain to be the most popular support channel, the overall score was one of the lowest in the study (1.9 out of 4).

- The Study Concluded that the overall rating on providing a MultiChannel Experience was below average, but what is further interesting is that the article concludes that MultiChannel Customers spend 20 - 30% more than single channel customers.

- Industry scores were best in the Consumer Electronics Sector with a 4.9 out of 10.0 score, and Communications came in at about 4.5.


Probably one of the more interesting things in this study is that Customer Service was below average in all industries. In addition, the multichannel scores shed some light on whether they are providing value to customers. Despite the fact that Customers who utilize multiple channels spend more money, the survey indicates that their service experience is still below average. It looks like the U.S Service Industry still has more to improve upon.

customer service 2.0 web 2.0 service delivery and support it 2.0

Video: Computer Telephony Integration with Remedy

Here is a demonstration of Computer Telephony Integration using Syntellect Technology with BMC Remedy Software. We are currently utilizing this technology at Premiere Global Services and it is certainly helping reps to be more productive.

3 Articles Any Contact Center Professional Must Read

The New Contact Center Profit Model

Humanizing the Online Customer Experience

Customer Service in the Face of the Millennial Generation

2008 Customer Service Survey & Results

Here is an interesting read taken this year regarding Customer Service and Support trends in 2008. This company surveyed approx. 100 companies, and I thought that some of the data would prove to be useful as we finalize our Service and Support Model.

Key Findings were as follows:

Customer Support Channels

• More than half (56%) of the companies managed to integrate at least some of their channels, whether it was multiple channel queuing into 1 interface, or having a common knowledge repository.


• 53% of customers had some Knowledge Manage Strategy in Place.


• 45% used Email Management while 24% used chat.


• Another trend worthy of mention was the increase in the utilization of Customer Support Forums.

Phone SLAs

• A Majority (46%) of survey respondents indicated that their average abandon rate on phones is between 1 - 5%. This is what we agreed to in our service model.


• 37% of respondents answer their phones on average of 5 - 15 Seconds.


• 21% answer their phones within 16 - 30 Seconds.


• 12% answer in less than 5 Seconds on the phone.


• Average hold times were very interesting as well. Approximately 39% have hold times of less than 1 minute for phone based support.


• 25% indicated that their customers experience a hold time of 1 - 2 minutes.


• Average Speed of Answer for email Support was also an interesting figure with 36% of companies answering within 1 and 6 hours. 26% Less than 1 Hour, and 14% are between 12 and 24 hours.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL SURVEY

Best Practices: Where Has All The Help Gone? - Self Service Options

Michael Fogarty forwarded an excellent article to me on Self Service entitled "Where has all the Help Gone?" which was done by the writers over at MSN. The article explains how self service strategies have transformed the service industry for the better, changed customer behavior, and how these strategies have improved a company's bottom line. To put this in perspective, just think about how business was conducted before the invention of the ATM, or the Vending Machines that you see in nearly every mall or movie theatre. The examples and case studies referenced in the article range from Self Service Kiosks to check out systems at your local grocery store that are now very popular with consumers. The article puts it in perspective as follows:

U.S. consumers scanned $137 billion of merchandise at self-checkout lanes in 2006, a 24% jump over the previous year, according to research from IHL Group. Consumers spent an additional $300 billion at self-service kiosks, with the combined dollar volume expected to surpass $1 trillion by 2011.

Almost all of us check ourselves in for flights, either online or at a kiosk (86% of leisure travelers in 2006, according to Forrester Research). About 40% of us do our banking online, Online Banking Report says. We don't even flinch before rolling up our sleeves to make copies, print photos, book travel or research that new stereo

As we move forward on Customer Segmentation, we will be identifying what Solutions and applications lend themselves to a Self Service and Support Model utilizing technologies such as Online Web Support, Online Knowledge Management, Chat, and Ticket submission and status over the web.

Parature Conference & Best Practices for Support

So Rob Betten and I had the opportunity to attend Parafest 2008. Parafest 2008 was a Conference put together by a company called Parature which provides On Demand Ticketing, Knowledge Management, and Survey applications. We were invited by Michael Buckingham White based out of Atlanta, and the trip was excellent to say the least. The event was filled with excellent breakout sessions on Customer Service & Support Best Practices, Self Service, Embracing Web 2.0, and implementing several online strategies to make your support organization more productive and self service orients. In the attached summary, I will highlight some of the key findings that were discussed throughout the Conference for managing support online.




Support Best Practices: Self Service & Alternate Channels of Support - Nearly every company at this event had a Self Service and Support interface. In fact, in 2 of the break out sessions - a moderater asked the question of "How many of you don't have a Self Service Interface for your Customer?" - and I was surprised to see that no one raised their hands. Several of the Self Service Strategies employed were the following:

• Online Ticketing - Customers Submitting Tickets and Getting Status over the Web.
• Forum Support - A community forum where customers speak to each other online, ask questions to Product Managment, and ask questions to help solve product related issues prior to escalating or calling support.
• Chat Support Channels - Several companies offered chat as an alternative solution to their high end customers and found it to be a valuable tool.
• Voice To Text Ticket Submission - There were several vendors and technologies that employed a system that enabled a call center to allow its customers to check status and create tickets when calling a Support 800 Number. The technology utilizes Interactive Voice Response with Voice transcription technology prior to speaking to any agent. It enables the customer to call an 800 number for support and create a ticket by recording their issue at the ACD level, and support can later follow up with an inquiry to the customer.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.