LENOVO 

Everybody is talking about “social customer care”, but few companies are able to provide specific examples of how they’ve embraced social media to improve customer service and sentiment.

Don’t lump Lenovo in with those merely talking the talk. When it comes to social customer care, the personal technology giant is most certainly walking the walk.

I recently interviewed Lenovo’s Community Manager, Mark Hopkins, and posed a host of questions regarding the company’s social customer care strategies and practices. Read on to see his comprehensive and insightful responses.


Does Lenovo monitor conversations about the brand on social sites across the web?

Yes, we monitor broadly across the web, and consider multiple types of social content – whether on Twitter, blogs, discussion forums or our Facebook pages. Content matters regardless of venue, however customer behavior and participation dynamics can and do vary by channel.


How does Lenovo track the hottest discussion topics and use that info to make product/service improvements?

Tracking and trending hot topics broadly helps us guide our focus on the issues that matter most. Discussion forums are particularly valuable in bringing multiple customers together to share information, opinions and experiences related common issues.

The Lenovo discussion forums – available in English, Spanish and German – are strategic in this regard. Through them we are able to recognize important issues and better understand those issues to help us improve our products and services. Many of these interactions lead to updates delivered via software downloads, such as updated drivers, basic input/output system (BIOS) and software features. Some lead to changes in PC hardware, or changes to design and test specifications for future products.  

For example, we heard from the community how important our automated update application – ThinkVantage System Update – is to our customers. Knowing that, we made a strategic course change to continue it. Most recently, we entered the tablet market with several new products and discussions of these Android based devices have been particularly helpful in understanding the customer experience and improvements via over the air updates.


In what ways does Lenovo interact/engage with individual social customers to answer their questions and address their issues and complaints?

We’re focused primarily on enabling peer-to-peer support by encouraging our most knowledgeable, helpful and prolific contributors to build knowledge that can be shared with other social networks. Since we deployed the knowledgebase feature in 2010, the community has built nearly 2,000 articles and more than 12,000 discussions have been identified with a proven solution. We also receive feedback from individual customers, and we prioritize our efforts to address these opportunities.

 
Please discuss Lenovo’s use of blogs, tutorials and other useful content on social sites to keep customers informed and to proactively address common issues. 

Lenovo blogs feature commentary on upcoming technologies, design innovation, event news and highlight new products and services that are available. Through the blogs, and increasingly our Facebook Wall, we solicit customer feedback. Sometimes it is in general terms about which features customers love, or love to hate, and sometimes it is in structured ways that collect results that we incorporate into products. Some examples include putting stripes back on the ThinkPad trackpoint buttons and introducing a BIOS feature to allow Function (FN) and Control (Ctrl) keys to be swapped. 


How long has your online user community been in place, and how active is it?

The community launched in December 2007 as a worldwide English site. We added German and Spanish communities in 2010 along with the integrated knowledgebase and integrations with Facebook and Twitter. 

The community has grown quickly with more than 120,000 users registered. It’s important to note that interactions from those just browsing can often be 100 times that of those who log in to post, so considering this, the effective audience is likely above one million users. We believe good content and a rewarding experience attracts the best members, and we recognize and empower some of our most trusted members to help us manage the community by serving as volunteer moderators. As with most communities, content contribution is often highly disproportionate to the user base. We’ve found that over the past three years, slightly more than 40% of the proven solutions have come from a highly engaged core group of approximately 30 members. 

We’ve recently started to run special events in the community. These are short duration (a week or less) events where a panel of experts lead a discussion and answer customer questions about new technologies, our products or common customer needs. In November we brought together a panel of experts to talk about malware and security and to field questions on everything from smart phone vulnerability to whether it’s beneficial to have more than one anti-virus package on a PC. 


What impact, if any, has the online community had on call volumes and the bottom line in your contact center?

The community, along with other online support initiatives, provides an alternate source of solutions instead of calling a contact center. The volumes of calls we’ve received relative to our rapidly growing market share have been declining by about 20% the first year after the community launched. While this metric flattens out, the overall trends are encouraging.

Communities allow a company to move beyond one-to-one support delivery mechanisms like chat and phone and shift to “many-to-many” support formats by drawing upon community experts as well as company support resources to provide answers that have a long shelf life in the community and pay dividends through the power of Internet search. 

While this is considered call deflection, people have an opportunity to preempt the need to call Lenovo entirely by leveraging the community to identify and escalate issues faster than they would otherwise bubble up from the contact center or the field as a coherent and actionable issue. Over the past year, we’ve dedicated resources to this effort and have reduced the cycle time to resolve issues escalated from the forums by an average of 60%. 


How involved is your contact center with Lenovo’s social customer care strategy? Do they “own” it, or is social customer care more the responsibility of your Marketing or other dept.?

Today, social support and our community teams reside within our service organization, however they aren’t owned by the contact centers. Our social marketing teams are an important resource in growing our engaged audience with a clear focus on our brand.  Opportunities for social support scale along with this. 

As for our traditional contact centers, we see a natural convergence over time. It’s an opportunity to involve senior support agents working collaboratively with our customers to arrive at a solution and have that become a part of the community rather than hidden in an internal database. We want to make this a resource for all support agents along with the formal knowledge available through support site. We also see synergy with agents becoming more active in the social space as customers begin to shift their own preference from voice to electronic interactions. Consider how many people use their smartphone for voice alone versus other interactions like texting or tweeting. 


What special social media management solutions/tools does Lenovo have in place? (For monitoring, interacting, posting, etc.)

Over the years we’ve used multiple paid tools and many free tools. None seem to do everything perfectly, which is probably why there is a marketplace of perhaps 200+ competing tools. Today our marketing and services social media teams use several monitoring tools as well as others that help co-ordinate responses on Twitter and Facebook. We continue to evaluate the capability of multiple tools/platforms and look for opportunities to coordinate our support efforts across multiple teams, business functions, social networks and languages. 


What would you say are the biggest challenges involved in implementing and managing a solid social customer care strategy? What has Lenovo done to overcome/minimize such challenges? 

There are several challenges as social support becomes increasingly mainstream. As the volume of customer requests grows, companies need a scalable strategy. A community platform, especially with Twitter and other networks integrated, helps in enabling many to many support collaboration and in providing persistence of content and accessibility to the big search engines. This allows every successful support engagement to build knowledge equity that can potentially offset future requests.   

Another challenge is language – providing social support in the languages that support your customers. For example, monthly community traffic from Germany has grown 250% since the German community launched. Certainly, many Germans were already interacting in English, but providing native language support accelerated use in a dramatic manner. 

Customer expectations of social support have changed dramatically over the past five years. In 2006 or 2007, customers were pleasantly surprised if a company replied to a post on their personal blog and offered support. The mainstream adoption of Twitter, Facebook and smartphones have enabled customers to post about their experiences in real time. This presents a growing challenge to not only engage, but to manage these to a successful outcome.  Back end processes, resources and logistics all must accelerate to support the new speed of social – this is a transformation in progress.
 

What are the biggest benefits of social customer care?

Immediate visibility to emerging concerns – especially those shared by multiple customers – provides an opportunity to address issues earlier, thus reducing total support costs and providing a better customer experience. Demonstrating the brand in action – how a company responds to support issues – is important and when done well, can be a differentiator. 


How do you see social customer care evolving?

Social support is becoming increasingly mainstream and a community-centric strategy scales better than one based solely on dedicated direct engagement by contact center resources, especially for companies with complex consumer product portfolios. Facebook and Twitter are dominant today, but other social networks may be more relevant for certain customer segments or geographical regions. Social tools that allow collaboration and preserve content and reputation equity will be the long term winners. There can be opportunities for support collaboration across business relationships where there is a mutual customer. Likely scenarios could be complex consumer goods companies and big box store / online distributors, or points where multiple companies are working together to deliver a solution – hardware and software vendors or phone handset-makers and wireless carriers.  A current example of this collaborative intersection is Microsoft outreach teams and MVPs engaging in PC manufacturer communities as well as Microsoft hosted communities to provide support for mutual customers who have operating system questions.  

informedRx (an SXC company)

If somebody were to hand you a copy of informedRx’s organizational chart, you might think that you were holding it upside-down. After all, who ever heard of a contact center organization positioning its agents at the top?

Well, informedRx, for one.

“Without them, there is no us,” says Kelli Barabasz, Senior Manager of Customer Care for informedRx, a leading provider of pharmacy benefit management (PBM) solutions. “[Agents] are the frontline for our members, pharmacies, doctors, and clients. Imagine having two call centers, a director, senior managers, managers, supervisors, team leads, an escalation team… and no agents. How successful would the call center be? The easy answer is there would not be a call center any longer.”

Placing agents at the top of the org chart is much more than just a symbolic move or a publicity play. InformedRx backs its org chart model up with employee-centric action – implementing programs and practices that foster a true culture of agent empowerment and engagement.

The payoff for such employee-centricity? How about an agent turnover rate that’s been slashed in half – dropping from 54% in 2008 to 27% today. 
 

A Finned Philosophy Has Agents Hooked

You might say there’s something fishy about how informedRx keeps its agents inspired and in place.

The agents wouldn’t have it any other way.

The contact center firmly embraces the famed Fish! philosophy, which comprises four simple, interconnected concepts and practices:

·      Be There – being emotionally present to improve communication and strengthen relationships.
·      Play – bringing a spirit of creativity, enthusiasm and fun to everything you do.
·      Make Their Day – serving or delighting people in meaningful and memorable ways.
·      Choose Your Attitude – taking responsibility for how you respond to challenges and how that
          impacts everyone around you.

Of course, a company can’t just command employees to embody the Fish! philosophy; managers have to live it and let employees see its powerful effects. At informedRx, it’s incorporated into everything from agent selection and development to incentives and facility design.

“To our company, the Fish! Philosophy is not just an engagement tool – it’s a way of life,” says Barabasz. “The philosophy can be embraced in many aspects in and out of work.”

So how exactly does Fish! fit into the contact center? According to Barabasz, it starts with hiring candidates who not only have the skills and knowledge for the job, but who also have the right attitude and personality to thrive in a highly team-oriented and customer-centric environment. “We make sure they are a great fit for the work they will be doing and the people they will be working with.”

There’s plenty of Fish! in agent training, too, says Barabasz. “We create a playful business atmosphere right off the bat with our training classes.” In both initial and continuous training, agents acquire key skills and knowledge via a variety of compelling learning tactics such as role-plays, games and shadowing. Agents also see early on that leadership is “there” for them. “Within the first two days of each training class, it is required for all leadership to introduce themselves to the new team,” Barabasz explains. Throughout training, they are encouraged to stop in when they walk by even if they only have time to say hi. This shows the new team members that we are here, and here for them. It relaxes them and gives them the family feel that we promote within the call center.”

The “Make Their Day” aspect of the Fish! philosophy is highly evident in informedRx’s rewards and recognition programs. Agents who exceed objectives or show notable improvement in key areas (like Quality, Hold Time and Attendance), or who go “above and beyond” with a customer or colleague, receive plenty of public praise as well as prizes likes Fish! trophies, award certificates, gift cards and tokens that can be redeemed for merchandise in the SXC store. Some top-performers have even been rewarded with a TV or an iPod.

Fish! may seem simple on paper, but as Barabasz points out, it requires a lot of effort from management for notable increases in agent engagement and commitment to occur.

“Anyone can read Fish!, show the videos and wait for results, but the philosophy has to be embraced and change has to take place in order to have success. Our leadership team spent months behind closed doors reading and talking about Fish! in order to have a clear understanding of it. If you do not truly believe in something, then how can you expect others to?”


Agent Engagement Begets Customer Sat

With leadership working so hard to “be there” for agents and “make their day”, it’s no surprise that informedRx’s agents aim to do the same for customers. And judging by the contact center’s average C-Sat rate of 88%, the agents have succeeded.    

“The impact [on customer satisfaction] is huge!” says Barabasz. “In order to have happy customers, you have to have engaged and happy employees on the other end of the phone.”

Despite it’s consistently high C-Sat results, the center hasn’t become complacent. Managers continue to carefully analyze scores and comments from customer surveys to help identify training gaps and ensure that a high level of service is provided.

“It’s easy to lose focus on the positive things you are doing and let them slip away, and then you see your C-Sat scores fall. We look at the results to formulate a game plan to improve on the lower scores while continuing to focus [on the things that drive] the higher ones.”


informedRx – the Big Picture:
Location: Lisle, Ill, & Scottsdale, Ariz
Hours of operation: 24/7/365
Number of agents: 200-300 (depending on time of year)
Products/services provided/supported: Pharmacy benefit management (PBM) support for members, pharmacies, and doctors.
Channels handled: Live phone, IVR, email, web self-service
What’s so great about them? The contact center strongly embraces the famed Fish! Philosophy to drive agent engagement sky high and deliver stellar customer experiences.

_ THE NORTH TEXAS TOLLWAY AUTHORITY

Many companies fill their mission statement with “customer-centricity”. The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) fills their actual contact channels with it.

A few years ago, the NTTA made a strategic decision to put its money where its mission statement was – implementing a dynamic “Voice of the Customer” (VOC) initiative that has since had a Texas-sized impact on agent performance, customer satisfaction and the company’s bottom line.

“[We wanted to] synchronize with customers and measure performance through their eyes,” says John Bannerman, Assistant Director of the NTTA’s Contact Center. “Our goal was to transform our culture to fully embrace our mission statement in becoming a truly customer-centric organization. It has become more than a mission statement to us – it is the way we treat our customers and each other.” 


Turning Customers into Coaches

The key component driving the NTTA’s VOC initiative is a unique and potent customer experience/performance management solution called Customer Driven Management (CDM), developed by Tamer Partners Corporation (www.tamerpartners.com). Using this new tool, the contact center is able to cleanly capture and analyze detailed customer feedback across all contact channels right after an interaction, thus arming the NTTA with timely employee-specific scores and commentary that can be used to continuously improve performance.

Here’s how it works: Following an interaction with one of the NTTA’s agents, the customer receives an email asking them to provide “advice” to the agent about service they provided. The customer clicks on a link to access the survey, which features questions about things like the agent’s skills/knowledge, courtesy/professionalism and ability to efficiently resolve the issue at hand. But this is not your everyday generic customer satisfaction survey application. What sets CDM apart is its customization; the NTTA is able to create “Individual Action Surveys” that ask for customer feedback on particular areas that each agent is working on.

In essence, CDM has turned the NTTA’s customers into coaches, says Bannerman.

“CDM not only provides feedback directly to the service representative from the customer; it also adapts to the unique skills of each representative and seeks feedback from each customer to directly guide the employee on their specific opportunities for improvement. Our customers are now directly coaching employees on all areas of improvement including listening skills, empathy, call control and energy, to name a few.”

The NTTA has programmed the CDM system to provide alerts whenever a customer scores an agent either very high or very low, thus enabling supervisors to identify issues as they arise as well as to praise/recognize agents whenever they receive accolades.

CDM stores all customer responses including scores/ratings, yes/no responses, and text comments. The NTTA’s supervisors and managers can view and report on all surveys and responses for their team. Each of the center’s agents has access to their personal feedback in the CDM system, as well.

 
Lower Headcount, Higher Performance on the Frontline

The NTTA hasn’t handed its entire QA function over to its customers. The contact center’s internal quality monitoring staff still evaluate recorded calls to ensure that agents are providing accurate information and complying with established policies and procedures.

Still and all, Bannerman says that efficacy of the CDM solution has eliminated the need to hire four additional frontline managers. He adds that the supervisor-to-agent ratio has increased from 1:12 to 1:17 without sacrificing the level of coaching/support.

Of course, the VOC initiative isn’t all about managerial headcount reduction; it’s about providing a forever better level of service. Since implementing the initiative, the NTTA has seen agents’ quality and productivity results improve significantly. “We’ve found that the best opportunity for frontline change was putting our customers in charge,” says Bannerman. He points out that CDM scores and feedback are used not only during quality monitoring coaching sessions but also in annual agent evaluations and action plans. As much as 50% of the feedback during an agent’s annual review comes directly from customers. “Customers are effectively managing the quality of their future service experience by coaching and developing employees to meet their needs and expectations.”

And that’s just fine by the employees, Bannerman says.

“Agents love the VOC initiative, particularly CDM. They get far more [positive] feedback from customers than a supervisor would have time to provide for their entire team on a daily basis. This provides encouragement and motivation [for agents] to continue doing things well, and makes them more willing to accept suggestions for improvement.”

It also apparently makes them want to stick around longer.

“As a result of consistent positive feedback from customers, our attrition rate is 12% annually, which by contact center standards, is very low.”

 
NTTA – the Big Picture:
Location: Plano, TX
Hours of operation: Mon-Fri 7am-7pm; Sat 9am-5:30pm
Number of agents: 152
Products/services provided/supported: Account maintenance, toll tag acquisition and general customer service
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, web self-service, and store front
What’s so great about them? They’ve vastly improved agent performance, the customer experience and the bottom line via a highly dynamic “Voice of the Customer” initiative.

COMERICA BANK

When the economy went south a few years back, many organizations started focusing on employee layoffs. At Comerica Bank’s call center, the focus was more on employee engagement and empowerment.

Comerica realized that great customer service is never as important as it is during volatile times, and that such service isn’t possible unless the call center’s agents feel respected and valued. Today the folks on the frontline at Comerica’s centers in Dallas and Detroit are viewed less as customer service agents and more as customer service consultants.

“We wanted to get agents more involved and concerned with the day-to-day operations of our company,” explains Patrick O’Shea, Senior VP of Comerica’s Customer Contact Center. “Agents are the workhorses and the engine that keep every contact center running, yet they are often viewed as expendable. We did not want that culture in our center, so we partnered with the very people who could tell us best how to achieve more – our own agents.”

The overall result? A lot of Comerica customers and employees who have no plans of leaving the company anytime soon.

“Once we started working with our agents as consultants, we moved more quickly toward customer satisfaction and engagement,” O’Shea says. “This metamorphosis has led to agents becoming more engaged, as they’re now empowered to advise us on how to better operate.”


Giving Agents the Gavel

One way Comerica empowers the frontline is via the use of an “Agent Council.” The council is made up of one peer-elected delegate from each team in the call center. These delegates meet with one another and O’Shea once a month to discuss issues of interest or concern and come up with solutions that are good for agents and the business.

“The Agent Council is our ‘congress’, if you will,” O’Shea explains. “We review whatever is important to the agents, and then what is important to leadership. For instance, we may spend 25 minutes discussing dress code for the agents, followed by a 25-minute discussion on goal attainment. The benefit of the council is that we collaborate together as we forge what is best for the company, the customer and our culture.”

The council isn’t the only way that Comerica actively involves agents in continuously improving processes and the customer experience. Agent also participate in focus groups, where they are asked to provide comprehensive and candid feedback on key topics presented by management. “The focus groups are specific agenda-lead meetings for the sole purpose of information-gathering on a particular topic,” says O’Shea. “Often, results of a focus group are brought to an Agent Council meeting for review and to determine next steps.”

The council and focus groups aren’t in place just to make agents feel like they have a say; rather, real results are achieved – and the call center’s culture is strengthened, says O’Shea.

“I think we – leadership and the frontline – now have a much better understanding and appreciation for each others' duties and workload due to the council and groups. We have re-written such things as attendance policies, dress codes and escalation processes.  Each rewritten policy and procedure not only serves the company and the culture better, it always results in improved customer engagement.”

And agents certainly don’t seem to mind the extra responsibility.

“I love the Agent Council,” says one Comerica agent, Michelle. “I’ve never worked somewhere where I actually create the rules and have the ability to vote on how we run the call center.”


An Ever-Expanding Library of Service Excellence
 
Adding to Comerica’s culture of empowerment and continuous improvement is an innovative “exemplary call” initiative that is driven by the center’s agents. Any time an agent completes what they feel was an excellent call in which they provided great service and truly connected with the customer, the agent can send an email containing the call time and date to their supervisor. The supervisor locates the recording of the call in question, listens to it and, in many cases, “adds it to the ‘superstar great call’ library, which can be accessed by the entire contact center,” O’Shea explains. He points out that such calls have helped to enhance agent training and development throughout the center. “These calls can be played during training as well as team meetings and town hall events.”

The calls also lead to rewards and accolades for the agents who “star” in them. “Agents can receive prizes as well as recognition in the form of certificates to be placed on their cubicles,” says O’Shea.

The recognition that agents receive for their top calls doesn’t come only from their supervisors. Occasionally, members of senior management who have listened to an exemplary call will send a praise-filled email to the agent involved.

While the emails sent by senior management are highly coveted by recipients in the call center, the folks on the frontline are hardly blown away by such personal attention from Comerica execs. Agents are, after all, pretty used to a high level of senior management support and involvement.

“A great culture starts at the top,” say O’Shea. “Our senior management team visits our contact centers, they meet our people and they celebrate victories with them. Contact centers are a full engagement sport.”


Comerica – the Big Picture:

Location: Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI
Hours of operation: 8 am-10 pm CT
Number of agents:  285
Products/services provided/supported: The sales and servicing of all Comerica financial products.
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, online banking (web self-service)  
What’s so great about them? Their dedication to agent engagement and empowerment has led to notable increases in employee retention and performance, not to mention customer loyalty. 

RDI

While many call centers struggle to adapt to new contact channels, RDI has taken customer support to the text level.

Chat is where it’s at with RDI, a leading provider of call center outsourcing services. The company added web chat to the mix a few years ago to provide customers with a more dynamic and real-time e-support option than email. Since then, RDI has helped a broad range of corporate clients greatly enhance customer loyalty and reduce costs. 

Jim Borum, Senior Vice President at RDI, feels chat is quickly transforming from a “nice-to-have” to a “need-to-have” service option in today’s customer care environment.

“As the younger population – prolific at text messaging – has entered the business age, chat has become more and more important,” says Borum. “It’s not a ‘stand-alone’ interaction channel – it’s all a part of giving customers the opportunity to contact you any way they want, whenever they want.”

RDI’s seven contact centers collectively handle between 3,000-5,000 chat sessions with customers daily. Most of the sessions are handled by dedicated chat agents, though several agents serve a more “universal” role, handling chat in addition to phone and email contacts.


Finding Agents Who Have the Write Stuff

Much of RDI’s success with chat can be attributed to the company’s comprehensive hiring program, which is designed to ensure that the center is forever staffed with agents possessing solid writing skills and plenty of web savvy.

“Hiring and training changed significantly after we introduced email years ago, and it changed even more when we added chat,” Borum says.

While RDI still embraces such key traditional applicant assessment methods as phone screening, personal interviews and reference checks, the hiring process these days also includes tests for grammar, spelling and computer/online proficiency.

Borum points out that all agent candidates at RDI undergo such assessment tests – not just applicants gunning to be e-support specialists. Why? Because chat at RDI serves not only as a customer contact medium but also as a powerful internal communication method. “Agents are expected to be able to use text chat as a workplace tool – whether that’s to access a supervisor, a team lead, a subject matter expert or somebody in management,” Borum explains. 


Practical Chat Apps, Impressive Performance

Even with high-caliber agents ready to tackle customer’s text-based transactions, chat will fall flat without efficient and effective chat routing, tracking and reporting in place. To help with all that, RDI uses a potent chat management solution by Interactive Intelligence. The system is equipped with such features as:

·      Skills-based routing – ensures each customer chat request is handled by the most qualified agent available, thus helping to increase issue resolution rates.
·      Response templates – help agents provide quick and consistent answers to common inquiries. (Though RDI agents still customize each response to avoid creating impersonal “canned” answers.)
·      Web collaboration tools – enable agents to assist customers with filling out online forms, finding pertinent web pages/information, etc.
·      Multichannel integration – lets the call center integrate chat with self-service, phone, email and other methods of customer interaction.

In addition, RDI’s chat management solution features comprehensive reports providing detailed data on contact volume and chat-handling performance.

And oh what performance it is. RDI consistently achieves an ambitious chat service level objective of 80/15, meaning that agents provide a first response to 80% of all chat inquiries within 15 seconds. Naturally, such a high service level means a low abandon rate (customers abandoning the chat interaction before an agent’s first response). According to Borum, RDI maintains a very enviable chat abandon rate of under 2%.


Ensuring Chat Quality Inside and Out

Of course, getting to customers’ chat inquiries quickly means little if the service provided is poor, which is why RDI carefully monitors chat transactions internally. QA personnel not only regularly observe agents handling chat sessions live, they also evaluate a random sample of transcripts for each agent to ensure accuracy, professionalism and good grammar. Soon after a QA evaluation, the agent’s supervisor meets with the agent for a coaching session. During these sessions, agents get a chance to self-evaluate their performance in addition to receiving timely feedback.

As Borum explains, “The transcript audit allows us to sit down with the rep and show them in black and white, ‘Here’s the interaction – what do you think you could have done better? What tools are you missing? Did you give accurate information?’ They get scorecards just like they do for phone interactions.”

Quality assurance goes beyond mere internal monitoring of chat transactions. To get a more “customer’s eye view” of the chat experience, RDI selects a random sample of customers who’ve recently interacted with an agent via chat and emails them a concise survey. In addition, customers can request to complete a survey immediately following their chat session.
 
To further ensure high quality and positive customer experiences, RDI doesn’t push agents to handle multiple chat sessions concurrently. The average is about one and a half chats at a time per agent. On occasion, an experienced chat agent will handle up to three sessions simultaneously, but only when each customers’ inquiry/issue is of a basic nature.

“Productivity can never be gained at the expense of quality,” says Borum. “When you have agents handling four and five chats simultaneously, it’s easy to get sloppy, and all you do is create more inquiries via some other channel. Customers handled poorly via chat will just contact you via phone or email.”

And won’t hesitate to do so, Borum adds, pointing out that patience runs a bit thin with chat. “A chat customer, if they become frustrated, will abandon the interaction more quickly than will somebody on the phone or in another medium. They’ll click off the chat session and either try to text chat with a different rep, or, in most cases, they’ll contact the center via a different medium. So we work really hard to have that not happen.”
----------------------------------------------------

Start Smart with Chat
Jim Borum of RDI provides the following “start-up” tips for call center professionals who are considering implementing chat as a customer contact channel:
·       Implement with a select group of agents trained on your chat tools and practices
·       Limit hours for text chat
·       Consider limiting the roll-out to premium customers only
·       Overstaff for chat the first 30 days
·       Emphasize quality over quantity.
·       Set metric goals realistically
·       Survey customers on chat experience
·       Actively promote chat option (via IVR, agents, website)
Source: RDI (http://www.rdioutsourcing.com)


RDI – the Big Picture:

Location: Four centers in Ohio and one each in Arizona (bilingual), Nevada and Mexico
Hours of operation: 24/7
Number of agents: 1,200 
Products/services provided/supported: Customer service and support for customers of corporate clients in a wide variety of industries, namely Utilities, Financial Services, Telecom, Pharmaceuticals and Retail.
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, chat, web self-service  
What’s so great about them? Have mastered web chat to provide cost-effective and dynamic e-support with a high level of quality and customer satisfaction. 

iiNET

iiNet may be headquartered “down unda”, but they are high above many organizations when it comes to incorporating social media into their customer care model.

Rather than drowning in or panicking over all the hype and speculation surrounding “social customer care”, the Australian ISP giant’s contact center operation has coolly and calmly developed a social media strategy that helps foster customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

“We believe social media will continue to grow as an avenue to address customer concerns, says Ilaisa Nacewa, contact center manager at iiNet’s Auckland, New Zealand site. “It is important to have this presence online; however, as more and more companies extend their customer care offering to include social media channels, you have to ensure you get it right.”

So far, it seems iiNet has done just that.
  

An Active “Social” Life

iiNet’s social media team is made up of a small group of agents who collectively monitor activity on such sites as Twitter, Facebook and the Internet discussion board Whirlpool 18 hours a day, seven days a week. The team uses the software solution CoTweet (by ExactTarget) to easily track customer feedback and manage conversations about the brand on the real-time web. The tool enables members of the social media team to publish updates, collaborate on responses and track interactions across today’s most influential social communities.

While iiNet’s initial foray into social customer care nearly two years ago involved mostly just listening to and, when appropriate, reactively responding to customers, the team has since become much more dynamic and proactive, says Nacewa.

“We have our own Facebook page and a Twitter account where we keep customers up-to-date with the latest information. This worked particularly well during the recent flood crisis in Queensland when customers were anxious about their connectivity. [These pages also serve] as an avenue for feedback when we release new products, plans, etc.”
 
He points out that, due to the fast paced social environment, it’s important to post information at least daily to keep followers/fans engaged. “Hitting them regularly with interesting and relevant information is the key to keeping the conversation alive online.”

Helping in that regard is the recently launched iiNet blog (http://blog.iinet.net.au), where members from all areas of the business are invited to share something about their work, a relevant experience, or a particular timely topic.

“We upload a blog entry almost daily and invite staff and customers to comment and discuss the posts,” says Nacewa.


Selecting the Right Social Media Reps and Metrics

Although all iiNet employees are welcome to join in on the blog conversation, it takes a special skill set to qualify for a coveted spot on the actual social media team.

“There’s a number of core skills we look for in social media team agents,” Nacewa explains. “Written communication skills are a non-negotiable, both in terms of being able to phrase a reply properly and being able to communicate succinctly – on Twitter you’re restricted to 140 characters a post. Also important is being able to read and interpret the tone of a purely text-based message.”

He adds that networking skills are vital too, pointing out that social media agents often receive queries that require input from other areas of the business in order to provide an accurate and efficient response.

Along with careful agent selection is careful measurement and management of the right metrics to ensure success in the social media channel. For instance, response time is a key measure, with the team expected to respond to any customer inquiry over Twitter, Facebook and Whirlpool within a maximum two-hour window. (That window gets much smaller for urgent customer requests or problems.)

“This rapid response over multiple channels, and the encouragement of direct customer feedback, has helped our fan base grow,” Nacewa says. “We have seen a positive flow-on effect concerning our brand, as it shows we are listening and engaging with our customers.”

Quality is another critical objective. iiNet relies on frequent training and clear guidelines to ensure that the correct information is delivered in a courteous and professional manner. As Nacewa explains, “When you are talking to a customer via a social media channel, you are not just talking to them, you are talking to everyone. It’s important that information be delivered in a way that reflects the brand and is accurate.”

iiNet also gauges growth in “follower” numbers and other measures of online influence (e.g., “Klout” scores for Twitter), as well as how well the team raises awareness of social media internally. Says Nacewa, “The team is expected to deliver regular training sessions to staff elsewhere in the business.”

 
Staying Centered

As effective as iiNet’s social media strategy and tactics have been thus far, the company’s overall service approach is still strongly grounded in the traditional contact channels and metrics that drive positive customer experiences. The contact center’s main focus continues to be on providing quality customer care via the phone, email, chat and self-service, as those remain the most common channels through which customers seek service and support – despite all the “social” hype that currently surrounds the contact center industry.

iiNet hasn’t let the social buzz blur the importance of good people management practices in the contact center, either. Nacewa and his crew are quite proud of their commitment to agent development and rewards & recognition, as well as the fact that the center doesn’t hold agents accountable for metrics that are often out their direct control, such as Average Handle Time. “AHT is a measure for managers,” says Nacewa.  

Such dedication to service fundamentals is actually a key reason why iiNet doesn’t need a bigger social focus at this time. After all, when you delight customers and solve their problems quickly via conventional channels, there tend to be fewer fires to put out online. 

Still and all, iiNet doesn’t downplay the important role that social media is starting to play in the company’s overall service strategy. Nobody really knows how big social customer care will get or how exactly it will evolve, but Nacewa likes the position iiNet has put itself in.

“Social media is becoming such an important part of a customer care and communications strategy. Customers are becoming more and more comfortable with talking to us online. They trust they will be heard.”



iiNet – the Big Picture:

Location: Australia – Sydney, Perth and Melbourne; New Zealand – Auckland; South Africa – Cape Town
Hours of operation: 8am - 8pm local time at each site
Number of agents: Approx 1,600 in customer service across all sites
Products/services provided/supported: Internet access (ADSL Broadband, NDSL, mobile
broadband, fiber, dial-up); telephony (fixed line phone, VoIP, mobile); IPTV services; domains
and hosting; business products and solutions.
Channels handled: Phone, email, chat (business), self-service, social media
What’s so great about them? They have effectively incorporated social media into their customer care model while maintaining a solid focus on more traditional channels and performance metrics. 

SCOTIABANK'S TORONTO CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTRE

If the high level of job satisfaction enjoyed by agents in Scotiabank’s Toronto Customer Contact Centre ever starts to erode, they’ll likely have themselves to blame. After all, they help make many of the key decisions regarding the center’s programs and policies.

You’ll find few front-line crews as empowered as these customer care specialists. From serving critical roles on cross-functional committees to discussing ideas and concerns directly with executive level officers, Scotiabank’s agents are positively instrumental in helping to continuously improve the call center – and the customer experience.

“[They] are the lifeblood of the entire contact center – that’s why we give them the autonomy to tell us how they feel about how things should be done,” says Stephen Gaskin, VP of Scotiabank Customer Contact Centres. Having our [agents] involved and in control of these things is important in making it ‘theirs’, and ultimately it brings a very positive attitude that moves across the center every day like a wave.”

Such a high level of empowerment and respect for agents is a big reason why Scotiabank’s Toronto operation recently earned Platinum Level Certification from CCEOC (Contact Center Employer of Choice). “It’s difficult to describe in words how very important it was for us to achieve the Platinum CCEOC designation,” says Gaskin. “You could meet all the bottom lines you want, and achieve as many statistical goals as you can, but if your employees aren’t happy then you will have difficulty sustaining your success.”


Agent-Assisted Committees Elevate Performance and Engagement Center-Wide

Scotiabank’s agents don’t point fingers when they see a problem; they work together in dedicated groups to improve it. The center has a variety of committees that agents can take part in to help solve issues, enhance performance and raise the overall level of enthusiasm on the front lines.

A prime example is the Professional Development Committee (PDC), which is focused on career as well as personal development for employees. “They’ve gathered a whole treasure trove of resources that are accessible to everyone and put them all online for easy access,” Gaskin explains. “When you top all that with career fairs and learning workshops, you quickly realize their importance.”

Gaskin is equally proud of the center’s Rewards & Recognition Committee (R&R). Agents who serve on this committee help plan a special monthly activity or campaign aimed at increasing employee motivation. “It’s always something fun…and something that promotes our business objectives,” says Gaskin. “These events are fantastic: They bring people together and always cause an exciting ‘buzz’ around the center.”

One of the most popular recent events was “The R&R Amazing Race.” The committee put together a series of strategic activities, and each team had to complete one activity before moving to the next, with the winning team earning a free dinner. Says Gaskin, “It was just like the actual TV show, only every activity included a learning opportunity in addition to being fun and challenging.”


“My 15” Builds Bridge Connecting Execs and Agents

Scotiabank’s agents are fine with not being actual reality TV stars. After all, they know that 15 minutes of forgettable fame can’t compare to 15 minutes of meaningful face-time – especially when the faces involved are those of Scotiabank executives.

It’s all part of an innovative initiative called “My 15”. 

“‘My 15’ is a very popular program that allows anyone in the Contact Centre to spend 15 minutes with any member of our Leadership Team to discuss anything they want,” Gaskin explains. “In fact, it’s so popular that we’ve actually held several of them already. There are no restrictions to the type of topics [agents] can bring up.”

He adds that the leaders find “My 15” to be as valuable to them as it is to agents, and that several ideas have been put into action as the result of the meet-ups. Examples include the creation of a new Career Planning website and an increase in “green” initiatives in the contact center.  

Not that “My 15” is all about projects and continuous improvement. Often, says Gaskin, it’s simply about people.

“The program works so well in personalizing the environment in which we work. If our agents know more about their leaders and their interests, it often inspires them to go that extra mile in whatever they’re doing – and vice versa. Sometimes it’s as simple as spending 15 minutes with someone to overcome some automatic stereotypes that are often associated with leaders or executives.”

That being said, Gaskin points out that if you are an executive who is considering implementing a similar program in your center, you’d better be prepared for a little extra work. “One caution I have for anyone who tries a ‘My 15’ program is to book another two to three days after a day of My 15’s in order to meet all the commitments you might make to [agents] during their sessions.” 


“Love the One Your with”

When not busy offering valuable input and working on important projects, Scotiabank agents do what they do best: Delivering positive customer experiences via phone and email. Management has made that critical task a lot easier for front-line staff by removing what it feels is a common deterrent of good service in call centers: Electronic readerboards.

Instead of subjecting agents to the constant flashing of productivity-based stats, Scotiabank emphasizes the importance of quality and issue resolution – thus empowering staff to focus on the customer, not the queue.  

“For us, it’s about how well we’ve served our customers and met their needs,” explains Gaskin. “We don’t want our agents rushing through a call just so they can get to the next person – it’s not about that. When I speak to new hires – especially new hires from other contact centers – I emphasize this point. I say, ‘Love the one you’re with,’ meaning focus on the customer you are with, connect with them and ensure that the reason for their call is resolved.”

Gaskin adds that the call center’s dedicated workforce management analysts – not its agents – are ultimately responsible for keeping queues in check, pointing out that with proper forecasting/scheduling and intelligent routing, most of the productivity issues are taken care of.

That’s not to say that Scotiabank agents haven’t a care or a clue about efficiency. From the moment they start new-hire training, they learn “how to shorten calls without impacting quality,” says Gaskin.


Phone Pros without Pants

Adding to the perks of being a Scotiabank agent is the opportunity to handle customer contacts in just your underwear. The company recently launched a telecommuting program featuring 45 agents who work from the comfort of their home. That number will grow substantially, says Gaskin, due to the tremendous success of the home agent initiative early on.

“This is just the beginning of this innovative program. The impact is already amazing: Agents who work from home are always on time (they don’t have to travel!); we save on real-estate and parking; and [agents] are happier being where they are because they can be close to their families.  We also promote the 'green' benefits.”

Gaskin adds that embracing the virtual staffing model enables the call center to retain highly talented staff who move out of the area due to family/partner relocation, or who cannot commute for other reasons.

“Working from home often proves to be a great solution for keeping some of our best agents we would have otherwise unfortunately lost.”

 
Scotiabank Toronto – the Big Picture :

Location: Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
Hours of operation: 24/7/365
Number of agents: Approximately 800
Products/services provided/supported:  Day-to-day banking, VISA, insurance,
investments, call redirect, disputes, credit adjudication
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, TTY
What’s so great about them? They have in place a number of innovative programs and policies to keep agents highly empowered, engaged and focused on the customer experience.