Customer Care Training Best Practice Blog

Call Center Reward Systems

2011-09-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

When you ask your Call Center Reps to change their behavior in order to deliver Total Service and sales, be sure that your compensation system supports this role change.

Remember, many Call Center Reps don't respond to monetary incentives and commissions the way that successful telesales people do. They often cringe at words like “up-selling,” “promotion,” and “cross-selling” because these terms indicate to them a primary goal of pushing product.

When you adjust your compensation and incentive plans to support the call center training they’ve just received, be sure that you communicate your priorities so they understand that providing Total Service results in more purchases as a natural result. Provide appropriate rewards so that your Call Center Reps stay happily, confidently, and successfully in the game.

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Are Customer Loyalty and Care Linked to Sales Growth?

2011-03-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

In a recent customer service training quarterly poll, a large % of managers stated that "ensuring the best customer loyalty and satisfaction" was keeping them up at night.

A 5% increase in customer service loyalty can boost profits by as much as 25% to 85%. Research has shown that satisfied clients lead to greater profitability and growth.

Read more about some of the best customer loyalty programs, practices and make the link between industry leading business sales and service...

What's your call center strategy?

2011-03-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

To help understand the direction your customer care strategy is headed, consider the following:

• Are you evolving the contact center from a cost to a profit center?

• Is your culture transitioning from a service only, to a service to sales culture?

• Is your call center strategy tightly aligned with your brand's promise?

Well, was it worth takingthe time to reflect?

Search for the Right Customer Loyalty, Service & Call Center Resource. Right Now.

2010-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

Introducing a powerful new Search Tool to help you track down the right Customer Loyalty, Customer Service, and Call Center Training & Best Practice Resource right now. Search this blog and the vast collection of corporate training communities and related best practice blogs with a single click.

Step 1 - Locate the Search Tool to the right of this post

Step 2 - Type your keyword search phrase. eg. Performance Culture

Step 3 - Click Search

Step 4 - Review the results, sorted by:

This Blog | Sites Linked to this Blog | Recommended Blogs

See illustration below. Enjoy.

Customer Loyalty Training Research Study Results

2010-09-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past 12 months, we conducted an online research study where visitors to our website were anonymously surveyed across an area of topics related driving performance through investments in human capital. In particular, one such survey asked respondents the following question:

What customer service or customer loyalty issue is keeping you up at night?

From a list of predefined responses, here are the results for your viewing pleasure.

Retaining top reps/agents--14%
Ensuring customer satisfaction--34%
Improving outsourced/off-shored service quality--17%
Managing and using product knowledge--26%
Other--9%

How would you answer the question regarding customer service training, customer loyalty training etc.?

Customer Service Communication - A Case Study

2010-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Situation:
Customer service clerks misunderstanding customers and failing to "live the brand promise" through the consistent use of clear, concise communication skills in the call center environment.

The Ad department of a regional daily newspaper took ads from many non-native speakers of English. Because the clerks could not understand the non-native speakers very well, the ads frequently contained errors, resulting in refunds to the customer.

Solution:
• Discern the accents most difficult for the clerks to understand.
• Provide a 3-hour workshop explaining the most common errors made by non-native speakers, practice in interpreting common accents and communicating more accurately with limited English speakers.

Results:
Reduction in errors made by customer service service personnel and clerks; implementation of a call center coaching program to ensure the skills transfer to long-term on the job performance.

Customer Care Best Practice Resources

2010-05-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

From time to time, we like to provide visitors and subscribers to this blog with a refresher on where they can find helpful resources devoted to best practices in the area of Customer Loyalty, Customer Service, Call Center Performance, and related areas.

We hope you find these resources insightful and relevant:

Enjoy!

Customer Service Coaching - A Case Study in Cross-Selling

2010-03-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

A recent Customer Service Cross-Selling Initiative deployed at Intuit yielded significant sales revenue growth and efficiencies. While these results reflect a leading player in the b-to-c market for financial and tax preparation products, the approach and methodologies driving the execution of Intuit's customer service strategy are universal to most verticals and target markets.

Results

Increased customer revenue per household by 18%
Increased customer loyalty rating by 10 basis points through customer-focused call center cross-selling techniques

Factors Contributing to Success

Customer Service senior leadership engaged from the beginning
Master call center coaching best practices were onsite at all four sites and worked one-on-one with team leaders weekly
Team leaders and Master Coaches were able to describe the dynamic nature of the sales model and customer service coaching by experiencing, firsthand, its use by monitoring customer calls and call center cross-selling training execution

Download the case study to perspective on the approach and methodologies deployed in this case study...

The Loyalty Connection: Why Your Customer Satisfaction Now, Determines Your Revenue in the Future?

2009-11-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

By Anne Ivey-Slough

In a recent research report, I read that 92% of consumers form their image of a company based upon their experience using that company’s contact center. That same report stated that 91% of dissatisfied customers never purchase goods or services from that company again and interestingly, that 80% of call center executives’ first concern is customer satisfaction and retention.

While these percentages may seem high at first blush, they accurately represent the importance and impact of customer loyalty.

As more and more consumers choose to do business via phone, chat, and websites, it seems the days of “seeing” your customer, in order to get to know them, are waning. With more companies competing for limited dollars with decreased margins, how your customers perceive you and your relationship with them is even more critical to your call center's value and your company’s bottom line.

We believe that these economic times will prove to be a pivotal point in the contact center’s evolution and value. More and more, we hear about how the call center is crucial to an organization’s overall go-to-market customer service strategy. More and more, we observe how the contact center is becoming the hub of marketing intelligence. More and more, we know that the contact center touches incrementally more customers than traditional face-to-face outlets.

Historically, the contact center has been used to drive down the cost of sale and to aggressively gain operational efficiencies. While these goals still remain today, we must understand that the actions that we take today will greatly impact customer loyalty, revenue, and margins. So while efficiencies and cost containment is important, smart contact center leaders also ensure that efficiencies do not negatively impact customer service, retention or loyalty.

Today, contact centers have a golden opportunity to retain and delight those customers who may be at risk of defecting while further cementing the bonds between your company and your loyal customer base. Your actions today greatly impact where future discretionary dollars will be spent. This is true in a tough economy and it will be more applicable once the economy rebounds.

Customers, through their contact center interactions, are taking note. Customers notice which companies “know who they are.” Customers form different bonds with companies who can express valuable knowledge and information through each interaction, be it voice, chat, or email. Each experience determines a customer’s current AND future value to the organization.

At any given time, there are 3 types of customers:

Dissatisfied Customers - Looking for another company to provide the service or product
Satisfied Customers - Open to the next better opportunity
Loyal Customers - Returns despite offers by the competition and gives you first “dibs” on their wallet.

Your goal is to have a proven game plan to:

Retain and expand the loyal customers
Bridge the gap between the satisfied customers and the loyal customers
Mitigate the fallout from the dissatisfied customers (especially with social networks, which have broadened the disgruntled voice)

To make this happen, there are 5 key strategies that are worth remembering ..

Download Whitepaper