Improve First Contact Resolution To Keep Your Customers
How can you help prevent your customers from switching to the competition? Accenture’s “Customer 2020” research of consumer trends over the past 10 years found that:
- 80% of the consumers surveyed indicated that they could have been retained primarily if their issue had been resolved on their first contact with their provider
- Even so, over the past five years, first contact resolution remained the top frustration factor
Aramini Management recommends the following to improve first call resolution practices:
- Develop and track first contact metrics.
- Incorporate call-handling quality and service resolution standards among all employees.
- Define service incidents and track the number of occurrences.
- Establish service escalation procedures when issues cannot be resolved at the first contact level.
- Track escalation rates: which service issues are being escalated to the next level and why?
- Institute a resolution follow-up time period for those concerns that cannot be resolved at that time and advise the customer when they will contacted.
- Measure customer quality assurance allowing customers to confidentially rate their service resolution experience.
- Establish business etiquette standards for telephone and email ensuring everyone adopts the proper way to take a message, hold and transfer a call, and frame an email.
Wal-Mart’s Plans Are About Customer Engagement. Are Yours?
Your first reaction when Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon announced pay raises was probably the belief that negative publicity forced Wal-Mart’s hands to make the changes. No one would argue that bad press could be a contributing factor. The wage increase would also better position them to compete with other retailers such as Target, TJ Maxx and Marshalls for qualified workers in a tightening labor market.
A closer look suggests their primary mission is to overcome disappointing sales results by growing sales through improved customer engagement and the overall customer experience. Changing compensation was one tactic within what McMillon called a “package of changes” that included training, onboarding of new employees, and work schedules. Training will include people leadership skills, teamwork, merchandising, retail fundamentals and communications. The plan can reduce turnover costs through improved employee retention.
Does customer engagement matter? Gallup’s John Fleming and Jim Asplund say yes in their book Human Sigma. They provide extensive research documenting the relationship of employee and customer engagement in benefitting an organization’s financial outcomes. They state that “companies whose products, processes and people deliver excellence at every customer touchpoint are less vulnerable in the marketplace” and “more resilient” during difficult economic times.
What’s the takeaway? I recommend the following business practices:
- Live customer engagement: make it a core value for your organization – not a program – but a way of behaving involving personal choice and ownership.
- When developing social media and digital channels, don’t overlook the continued importance of your employee’s customer service, sales and interpersonal skills in successfully engaging the customer.
- Ensure employees possess a depth of product knowledge. Your customers may have already done research online about your products and services. Don’t put yourself in a position jeopardizing customer confidence by knowing less than them.
- Measure customer quality assurance and satisfaction by providing customers with the opportunity to rate their experience with your products, interactions with your people, and when accessing customer service and support.
- Reinforce a culture where employees are neither territorial nor work in a silo- they know the organization’s structure, total picture and product processes to ensure knowledgeable referrals or to expedite problem resolution.
- Hire the right people and reward employees that value teamwork and demonstrate positive customer-centered relationships with each other.
“Defining Your Business and Personal Brand”
In my prior post “Why Do You Exist?” I wrote that Lego CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp asked that question when he initiated Lego’s transformation leading them to quadruple growth over the past ten years. He commented that Lego had “lost its way in terms of its own self-identity” and needed to clarify “what is Lego uniquely about” to develop strategy and properly align resources to the market.
In that piece, I listed a number of benefits gained for the established business owner, senior manager, those starting a new business or job seeker in answering that question. The following will help guide you in initiating a business or personal branding exploration process to establish a branding narrative and strategic foundation.
- What is your mission? Career objective?
- What are your values and operating principles that you will not compromise?
- What are your products/services? Competencies? Skill-sets?
- What examples represent the impact that your product, service or skill offers?
- Describe your target: profile client, prospective employer. What are their needs? What can you help them solve?
- Why would a customer buy from you or an employer hire you?
- What makes you memorable? What distinguishes you from the competition? Your uniqueness?
- What are your employees telling you about what your customers are saying?
- What does your network (customers, co-workers, employees, friends) already think of you or your business?
- What qualities do you want them to associate with you or your business?
“Why Do You Exist?”
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Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of Lego asked that question when he initiated Lego’s transformation leading them to quadruple growth over the past ten years. He commented that Lego had “lost its way in terms of its own self-identity” and needed to clarify “what is Lego uniquely about” to develop strategy and properly align resources to the market.
There are a number of positive outcomes when answering that question -whether you are an established business owner, senior manager, starting a new enterprise or looking for work – here are a few potential benefits:
- Clarifies your company or personal brand for you to effectively be its advocate and marketing champion
- Defines your customer
- Links your business operation to your target market
- Creates your marketing narrative and story
- Ensures your employees communicate a cohesive and consistent message to customers and prospects
- Positions you for your job search strategy and interview preparation
- Learn what your network (customers, co-workers, employees, friends) already think of you and your product
- Get at why a customer buys from you or an employer hires you
- Communicate and live qualities and values you want associated with you and your business
In my next post scheduled for March 2015, I will provide you with “key questions” help guide you in initiating a business or personal branding exploration process to help you clarify “Why You Do Exist?”.
Retail Banking Customer Loyalty Explored in Survey
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Bain & Company, Inc.’s “Customer Loyalty in Retail Banking: Global Edition 2014” survey investigated how people bank and how banks are responding to meet customer needs through improved distribution and service channels. Highlights of their findings include:
- Banking customers now handle more of their banking interactions via smartphones and tablets than through any other channel.
- Bank’s mobile app use increased 19 percentage points during 2014, with strong increases across all age groups in most markets.
- The mobile channel has become a key contributor to grow customer loyalty that translates to customers buying more products and making more referrals.
- While mobile continues to grow, about 60% of customers surveyed were omnichannel using a combination of digital and physical channels.
- NPS (net promoter score) was higher for omnichannel customers: “16 percentage points higher than the NPS of customers using only digital channels and 22 points higher than the NPS of those using only physical channels.
What are implications for your bank? Aramini Management recommends the following critical business practices:
- Ensure customers experience informative interactions reflecting bank services and products across channels.
- Customers are still visiting branches and contacting call centers: when developing digital channels, don’t overlook the continued importance of staff social and sales skills.
- Bank employees must exhibit strong cross-selling and customer-centric interpersonal skills along with a depth of product knowledge.
- Employees, are neither territorial nor work in a silo, but understand the bank’s organizational structure, total picture and product processes to ensure knowledgeable referrals and to expedite problem resolution.
- Bank employees work as a cohesive team demonstrating positive and productive working relationship with each other.
- Know your brand and ensure its message is represented and communicated accurately and consistently among employees and across all market contact points.