HOME SERVICES ABOUT CAREERS BLOG RESOURCES CASE STUDIES CONTACT ASK RESPONDS QUICKLY TO DELIVER PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT TO MEDICAL DEVICE CUSTOMERS October 29, 2021 A leading medical device manufacturer was retiring a legacy product model and needed to help customers understand their options without burdening specialized in-house support teams. EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION AND THE SCIENCE OF STORYTELLING October 20, 2021 Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Employee Engagement, Omni-Channel CX, Telecom Customer Service, Employee Appreciation, Employee Recognition, Productivity, Science of Storytelling A recent Forbes article about employee recognition stated, “organizations that give regular thanks to their employees far outperform those that don't.” It was also found that “companies that scored in the top 20% for building a recognition-rich culture actually had 31% lower voluntary turnover rates!” The above findings show the importance of recognizing employees more often - not just on certain dates, such as anniversaries or holidays. In this blog, we discuss the significance of employee recognition and storytelling and provide tips for how they can help increase employee satisfaction and engagement as well as improve work quality and customer satisfaction. Highlight What’s Been Accomplished Vague recognition can leave employees and their colleagues wondering about why someone was recognized. For example, simply recognizing an employee for doing a great job that month does not offer any details about what exactly the employee did to provide excellent customer experiences. When recognizing employees, it’s important to explain how their actions solved a problem or resulted in a positive outcome. This helps affirm what actions your company values and encourages other team members to take similar actions. Recognizing Employees for Helping to Achieve Company Goals One way to think about employee recognition is to reward employees for achieving results that are related to specific company goals. For example, your organization may have goals in areas such as customer satisfaction, reducing costs, employee collaboration, improving systems and processes, and more. Employees can be recognized for making contributions to these areas. Creating an Effective Recognition System When creating a recognition system, one of the obvious things to consider is the fairness of the system for everyone it will impact. But another important question to consider is: who should the recognition come from? Although recognition from leaders in a company is significant, it is also important for employees to be recognized by their colleagues since they know more about what their peers do each day. Systems in which employees can easily recognize individuals in the company by giving them points or dollars, for example, can be very effective. The Importance of Storytelling for Employee Recognition Storytelling is one of the most effective ways of providing employee recognition. It also helps avoid vagueness when recognizing employees since it describes in detail the sequence of events that led to an employee’s accomplishment. There are various ways to circulate stories, including via company meetings or calls, emails, blogs, or newsletters. Each week, someone in the company can be featured. Here are some points to consider about storytelling: · An employee recognition system that includes storytelling helps increase employee engagement, positive work relationships and work quality. This, in turn, helps create customers that are better served and more satisfied. · In his article entitled “Using Storytelling to Maintain Employee Loyalty during Change,” Dr. Rob Gill points out that, “Storytelling has the ability to transcend age-groups, cultures and genders.” This is significant since employees come from various backgrounds. · Two important aspects of storytelling are believability and interpretation. Dr. Gill notes that, “Knowledge presented through narration is more believable as receivers apply their own interpretation and experiences to the information.” Stories help members of an organization find common ground and can also help motivate and inspire employees as well as increase their trust and loyalty. As Dr. Gill states, “Through stories PR practitioners can foster trust and loyalty for their organization by creating an emotional bond with employees and other key stakeholders as a result of explaining the behavior of the organization in terms of its mission and morality.” Employees who are happy with the practices and values of their organization can become important supporters and advocates. At ASK, we understand the importance of employee recognition and make employee satisfaction a priority. Happy teams equal happy customers! To learn more about how a partnership with ASK can benefit your business, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. MAKE THE MOST OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH THE RIGHT BPO PARTNER October 13, 2021 Brand Loyalty, Customer Experience, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Employee Engagement, Omni-Channel CX, Telecom Customer Service Customers expect to have a great customer experience – especially during the holiday season, so it is essential for companies to meet these expectations to satisfy new and existing customers and retain them long after the holiday season. Outsourcing customer service can be crucial during the holiday season as sales and contacts from customers soar. During these times, having a qualified and experienced outsourcing partner helps ensure customers are well taken care of and staff members are supported. Below, we discuss how you can make the most of the holiday season by outsourcing. Flexibility in Increasing and Decreasing Staff Levels 1. Work with a partner that specializes in the retail area and has experience with preparing for, executing, and drawing to a close holiday contact center support services. These contact centers are especially accustomed to scaling up and down and have the necessary resources and procedures for this objective. 2. By outsourcing, an organization doesn’t need to spend resources on hiring and training staff that is only needed temporarily. They also don’t need to purchase extra equipment. 3. Through outsourcing, a business can help ensure they have enough staff available in various time zones and that they have agents who can speak in the languages they need. Offering a Great Customer Experience The holidays are an important time for businesses to not only serve existing customers but also attract new ones. Customers who are satisfied will continue to come back even after the holidays. This makes it important to deliver a high level of customer service during this time. The holidays are also a time when customers have many offers presented to them, so a business can stand out from the competition by delivering great customer support. Offering fast service is especially important during the holidays. Since people are busy during this time and have limited time off to spend with friends and families, they don’t want to wait on hold for a long time. They want quick answers to their questions about orders, returns, and other concerns they may have. Outsourcing customer support during the holiday rush can help to deliver great customer experiences by: · Reducing call answer times · Reducing mistakes · Increasing call quality and personalized service · Having more focused agents who are not overwhelmed by too many calls Maintaining Employee Satisfaction Not only is it important to keep customers satisfied during the holidays, it’s also important to keep employees happy so they can be at their best and in good spirits during this time. Outsourcing customer support during the holidays helps maintain employee satisfaction and morale by: · Reducing workload and stress for employees, which can help to prevent turnover · Giving employees the opportunity to take time off during the holidays · Allowing time for company holiday celebrations Testing New Things During the Holidays Outsourcing during the holidays can also provide bandwidth to try new products, services or marketing strategies. Information can be collected and analyzed to assess what solutions would work best for the company moving forward after the holidays. Now is the time to put your holiday strategy in place to ensure a successful season. ASK can help by partnering with you to provide excellent customer service that enhances your brand while alleviating the stress that comes with ramping up for a busy season. To learn more about how ASK can help you make the most of the holidays, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING DURING THE HOLIDAYS October 6, 2021 Brand Loyalty, Customer Experience, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Employee Engagement, Omni-Channel CX, Telecom Customer Service Customers expect to have a great customer experience – especially during the holiday season, so it is essential for companies to meet these expectations to satisfy new and existing customers and retain them long after the holiday season. Outsourcing customer service can be crucial during the holiday season as sales and contacts from customers soar. During these times, having a qualified and experienced outsourcing partner helps ensure customers are well taken care of and staff members are supported. Below, we discuss how you can make the most of the holiday season by outsourcing. Flexibility in Increasing and Decreasing Staff Levels 1. Work with a partner that specializes in the retail area and has experience with preparing for, executing, and drawing to a close holiday contact center support services. These contact centers are especially accustomed to scaling up and down and have the necessary resources and procedures for this objective. 2. By outsourcing, an organization doesn’t need to spend resources on hiring and training staff that is only needed temporarily. They also don’t need to purchase extra equipment. 3. Through outsourcing, a business can help ensure they have enough staff available in various time zones and that they have agents who can speak in the languages they need. Offering a Great Customer Experience The holidays are an important time for businesses to not only serve existing customers but also attract new ones. Customers who are satisfied will continue to come back even after the holidays. This makes it important to deliver a high level of customer service during this time. The holidays are also a time when customers have many offers presented to them, so a business can stand out from the competition by delivering great customer support. Offering fast service is especially important during the holidays. Since people are busy during this time and have limited time off to spend with friends and families, they don’t want to wait on hold for a long time. They want quick answers to their questions about orders, returns, and other concerns they may have. Outsourcing customer support during the holiday rush can help to deliver great customer experiences by: · Reducing call answer times · Reducing mistakes · Increasing call quality and personalized service · Having more focused agents who are not overwhelmed by too many calls Maintaining Employee Satisfaction Not only is it important to keep customers satisfied during the holidays, it’s also important to keep employees happy so they can be at their best and in good spirits during this time. Outsourcing customer support during the holidays helps maintain employee satisfaction and morale by: · Reducing workload and stress for employees, which can help to prevent turnover · Giving employees the opportunity to take time off during the holidays · Allowing time for company holiday celebrations Testing New Things During the Holidays Outsourcing during the holidays can also provide bandwidth to try new products, services or marketing strategies. Information can be collected and analyzed to assess what solutions would work best for the company moving forward after the holidays. Now is the time to put your holiday strategy in place to ensure a successful season. ASK can help by partnering with you to provide excellent customer service that enhances your brand while alleviating the stress that comes with ramping up for a busy season. To learn more about how ASK can help you make the most of the holidays, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. ASK CX ELIXIR September 18, 2021 We’re sharing our time-tested recipe for CX success! THE BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING SEGMENTS OF YOUR CONTACT CENTER OPERATIONS September 14, 2021 Outsourcing is a common strategy used by businesses to help improve operations, create scale, reduce costs, and enhance customer service. A common misconception about outsourcing contact center operations is that businesses must turn over 100% of activities. However, in many cases, organizations find it most beneficial to outsource only a certain segment of calls, or perhaps certain times of day or seasons. It’s important know when your business should consider outsourcing. That cue is often when certain processes begin taking more time to manage than core business tasks, resulting in overspending compared to earnings. This is when outsourcing some activities become beneficial. Here are some questions to consider regarding outsourcing: · Would outsourcing certain departments, projects, or tasks improve quality, efficiency, or reduce costs? · Do you anticipate fast growth that will require quick additions to your team? · Are your operations consistent in your various locations? · Do you provide enough support in different time zones and languages? The Benefits of Outsourcing Operations Focusing on Important Internal Business Aspects: Outsourcing allows a company to free up time and resources to focus on key internal aspects and core competencies. This helps to put a company ahead of the competition. Some of the things that outsourcing saves time on include the hiring and training process and the management of staff. These areas can take up a lot of resources since call centers require close monitoring as well as skilled and reliable agents. Supporting Expansion and Mitigating Costs: Outsourcing can be essential for effective international operations. It can help ensure that you have staff available in various time zones who can speak the languages your customers need. It also allows you to expand or reduce the size of your staff easily, as needed, without having to deal with major staffing and overhead costs. Outsourcing contact center operations helps a business to mitigate risk and to reduce costs in areas such as technology. As Call Tools points out in their article about outsourcing: “With an outsourced call center, your company can save up to 50%.” Improving Service Quality: One of the benefits of having an outsourced team is providing your customers with skills and experience that are specifically suited to your industry. For instance, a medical company can utilize outsourced staff to answer certain types of medical questions that an in-house team may not have the bandwidth to handle. This is also beneficial when running marketing campaigns because you don’t overstress your in-house team. Flexible Operations: Outsourced contact center workers help to provide flexibility to your operations. For example, more of them can quickly jump in to help as needed. Outsourced workers can also have you covered for 24/7 customer service and can help with the handling of overflow calls during spikes, such as during the holidays. Aspects of Your Operations that You Can Outsource You may want to only outsource certain elements of your operations and keep the rest in-house. The following are four areas commonly outsourced for great benefit: Telemarketing: Outsourcing telemarketing can be the best option for your company to effectively manage a large amount of continuous telemarketing calls. Tech Support: Outsourcing technical support can save your company time and money and allows your in-house staff to focus on other aspects of your operations. The team you outsource to can come already trained in the specialty that you need, and your company does not need to spend resources on their continual training. Inbound and Outbound Calls: You can decide to outsource your inbound or outbound calls as well as multi-channel support which allows customers to communicate with a company in various ways. Inbound and outbound calls usually have different goals. For example, an inbound call center typically focuses on customer service, while outbound call center services often focus on sales and meeting targets in this area. Lead Generation: Through lead generation campaigns, a company can generate prospects for the sale of its products or services. The right outsourcing partner can help generate demand for your product or service by following call patterns and collecting and analyzing data. ASK operates as an extension of your business, making it easy to outsource part of your contact center activities. For example, ASK recently partnered with a major medical device manufacturer to help with a specific campaign that included reaching out to current customers. This campaign would have overwhelmed the client’s in-house team made up of agents who are highly trained on the devices they support. ASK was able to serve customers with the same high level of support the client’s customers expect while allowing in-house teams to continue business as usual. To learn more about partnering with ASK for results, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTACT CENTER CALL ABANDON RATE September 1, 2021 Productivity, Telecom Customer Service, Telecommunicationindustry, Employee Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Average Handle Time, Average Speed Resolution, Time Resolution, Customer Experience Call abandon rate is an essential metric that helps assess how well your call center is doing. An abandoned call occurs when a caller hangs up before an agent answers. In this article we look at what the standard abandon rate is, reasons for abandonment, and how to improve your rate. What is a Good Call Abandon Rate for Your Call Center? Call abandon rates can vary, but as Fresh Works notes in their article about call center abandon rates: “Considering call center shrinkage, your call center is bound to have an abandonment rate that pegs around 5% to 8%. However, during extraordinary circumstances, it could jump up to 20%. Recent studies also show that one in five calls from mobile phones is abandoned (Marchex Inc study). When it comes to identifying the abandon rate as good or bad, the thumb rule is to keep it as low as possible.” Also, according to the article by Fresh Works, call abandon rate can be calculated using the following formula: Call Abandonment Rate = {Number of inbound calls when customers hung up before their calls get answered / Number of inbound calls made by customers} * 100 Reasons for Abandoned Calls There are various reasons for why a call may be abandoned such as: · An IVR system that is too time-consuming or complicated to go through or does not include an option for what the customer needs help with. · Not enough staff to handle the call workload, which causes long wait-times. · The inefficient routing of calls which makes it take longer for customer problems to get resolved. If it takes too long for a customer to get their inquiry resolved, they’ll likely look for other ways of getting an answer, such as on the company website or by doing online research. Calls may also be abandoned when a caller realizes the answer to their question or realizes that customer support would not be able to solve their problem. How to Improve the Call Abandon Rate Inform Callers About Wait Times Callers often hang up because they don’t know how long the wait time will be. Informing them about the approximate wait time can help to reduce abandon rate. Optimize Wait Time Messages Allow callers to choose between listening to music or having silence while waiting. Some callers may be working or busy while on hold so they may prefer to have silence. When using hold time music, periodically add announcements, offers, or information the customer can find on your website. Make sure not to add too many messages or to repeat messages, which can annoy customers. Set Up an Effective IVR System Provide an IVR system that is not too complex and is easy to understand and navigate. A good IVR system can significantly improve abandon rates by answering general questions that customers often ask. Provide Efficient Call Routing Implement an efficient call routing system that takes essential factors into consideration such as agent skills and work times. Optimize Your Staff Availability Make sure to have enough staff available to service customers as the volume of calls fluctuate. Improved scheduling and forecasting can help with this. Also make sure agents are using their time effectively when not on calls. Offer a Call-Back Option When possible, allow customers to have a call-back option with the approximate time that they will be called back so that they can be free to go about their business instead of having to wait on hold. Improve Speed of Answer and First Call Resolution Make sure your speed of answer is 30 seconds or less. Improving first call resolution can help to reduce the abandon rate. Callers will have more patience and customer satisfaction when their problems are resolved on the first call. It’s essential to know your business’s call abandon rate, but even more important is knowing how to improve it to deliver excellent customer experience. At ASK, we help clients identify areas of improvement to implement solutions for long-lasting success. To learn more about partnering with ASK for results, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. AVERAGE HANDLE TIME AND AVERAGE SPEED OF ANSWER August 25, 2021 Productivity, Telecom Customer Service, Telecommunicationindustry, Employee Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Average Handle Time, Average Speed Resolution, Time Resolution, Customer Experience Average handle time (AHT) measures the amount of time call center agents spend on handling phone calls, emails, or chats and is among the most important metric to track. The AHT calculation can be adjusted according to the channel used. It measures not only the amount of time spent talking to customers but also factors such as: · Hold time · Transfers · Dropped Calls · Follow-ups · Delays AHT is calculated as: (Talk + Hold + Delay + Follow-Up) / #Calls = Average Handle Time (calculated in minutes or seconds) The world standard for AHT across various industries is 6 minutes and 3 seconds. Although it’s good to have an average handle time that follows the standard, depending on your operations, your AHT may have to be different. Because customer service has many aspects, focusing too much on having calls resolved in a short amount of time can lower customer satisfaction. It’s important to find the right balance and to compare AHT with rates such as: · First call resolution · Adherence · Abandonment · Yearly turnover Also consider factors such as call costs and averages for time spent in queue and after-call time. Research the Reasons for Your AHT Rate Look at how AHT fluctuates over time and identify any trends. To fully understand whether your average handle time is good or needs to be improved, it is essential to listen to calls of various lengths to determine how AHT can be optimized while also providing a high level of customer service. You might find, for example, that you’re getting short, simple calls for basic information that should be easy to find on your website. Also, make sure call routing and hold times are efficient. Average Speed of Answer The average speed of answer measures the average time it takes for agents to answer calls during a certain length of time. This measurement includes hold time. Undesirable ASA scores can lead to issues such as high abandonment rate and indicate the call center needs to be optimized to provide better customer service. It can also result in the following: · Customer churn because of poor service, which costs the company money. · Increased requests to escalate cases or speak to management. · Reduced efficiency because of long handle times which increases call abandonment. Calculating ASA ASA = Total Wait Time for Answered Calls/Total # of Answered Calls. When analyzing ASA, it’s important to take customer abandonment rates into consideration. ASA is also impacted by the first-call resolution (FCR) rate because the more calls are resolved on the first call, the more time agents will have to answer other calls in a timely manner. This helps increase customer satisfaction. Improving ASA There are several ways to improve your ASA score: · Talk to your staff about what is expected and manage your volume of calls effectively. · Make sure that the right staff members with the required knowledge and experience are in the positions they need to be in. · Provide continual training and learning resources to your staff. The training will help them to gain more knowledge and skills that will help them to resolve customer questions faster, saving time. It’s important to consistently track ASA rates to maintain a good level of productivity from your team while improving customer satisfaction. At ASK, we consistently monitor workforce management KPIs for insights that fuel continued improvements across contact center operations, from employee engagement to customer satisfaction and the bottom line. To learn more about partnering with ASK for results, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. UNDERSTANDING SCHEDULE ADHERENCE FOR IMPROVED OPERATIONS August 18, 2021 Productivity, Telecom Customer Service, Telecommunicationindustry, Customer Experience, Employee Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Schedule Adherence Call center managers understand every minute counts when it comes to customer service. That’s why measuring and improving schedule adherence – how well an agent sticks to an assigned schedule – is important. Understanding schedule adherence allows businesses to gain insights to help increase efficiency and productivity while improving workplace culture and fairness. Call center schedules are often very complex, which means there are many ways an agent may go out of adherence during a shift. For example, an agent might arrive for his shift five minutes late; log in seven minutes late; go to a training session eight minutes late; and go over break by 10 minutes. All these seemingly minor factors result in 30 minutes out of adherence for just one shift. You can see how schedule adherence can quickly become a serious problem when you multiply these events across a contact center with dozens or hundreds of agents and multiply that by the number of shifts. Understanding schedule adherence also helps transitions between shifts to ensure there aren’t any “dips” in service levels. Even just one minute of time off the phones can result in increased hold times and then decreased customer satisfaction. Companies need to ensure that Agent Schedule Adherence (ASA) scores are high enough for efficiency and set a standard ASA that is usually expected to be close to 100%. This means that agents are closely following their schedules and efficiently serving customers. Measuring Schedule Adherence Adherence takes several metrics into consideration to discover if employees are meeting schedule standards: ● The time agents take to handle calls ● The time agents take after handling calls ● Work agents do in addition to call handling Break time and time taken to do activities not related to work are subtracted from the above factors to determine schedule adherence time. Factors that Lower the Schedule Adherence Rate There are several factors that can cause lower schedule adherence, which in turn results in longer customer wait times since there are fewer agents available to serve customers. What’s more, agents who are available need to handle more customers. Here are some of the factors that account for a lower schedule adherence rate: ● Employees taking unexpected or longer than usual breaks. ● Staff members coming to work late and/or leaving early. ● Employees taking too much time on personal communications such as calls, texts, emails, social media, and internet activities. ● Workers chatting with co-workers too much. ● Staff members indicating a “busy” status in order to evade taking customer calls. Optimizing Schedule Adherence Monitoring Staff Software can help monitor agent productivity by determining what activities agents are spending their time on and the amount of time spent not working. It’s important to discover the areas where workers are not following the schedule, understand why, and offer feedback. Rewarding Productive Agents By setting up a rewards system, you can help encourage staff to be productive by following schedules. These systems also reward and recognize high performers. Training for Schedule Adherence Providing training on schedule adherence when staff members first come on board helps agents understand what is expected of them and helps ensure they will adhere to schedules. During training, it’s important to highlight the importance of their availability to customers for offering a high level of customer satisfaction. Of course, it’s essential to encourage a positive work environment in which employees are happy to help each other. Monitoring Schedule Adherence and working to improve it results in increased happiness for agents and customers. When agents are more engaged, they are servicing customers better. Furthermore, companies hitting their target SA numbers can utilize resources more effectively and save money. Schedule Adherence is a fundamental ingredient in operational efficiency and delivering customer experience excellence. At ASK, we have the protocols and processes in place to ensure this happens for every client. To learn more about how ASK can help your business through operational efficiency and teams adhering to schedules, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASURING WFM August 6, 2021 Omni-Channel CX, Workforce Management, Productivity, Customer Service, Employee Engagement, Telecom Customer Service, Telecommunicationindustry The day-to-day tasks performed by the employees in a company are what keep it running so it is essential to have effective workforce management (WFM) in place. This helps ensure you achieve the best results from your workforce, reduce costs, increase efficiency and boost customer satisfaction. In this article, we discuss the details of what workforce management is and its benefits to businesses. What is Workforce Management? Workforce Management (WFM) is used to maximize the effectiveness of a workforce. To achieve this, it needs to balance the staffing and productivity of workers with metric goals that serve the customer such as: ● Average Handle Time and Average Speed of Answer ● Abandon rate Workforce management is especially important for managing large teams. Some of the elements of WFM include: ● Performance Management ● Forecasting ● Budgeting ● Scheduling WFM helps to manage the schedules of employees, including factors such as breaks, overtime, absenteeism, turnover, and time off from work. Schedule management helps ensure the right employees are available to perform tasks when needed. By effectively managing worker staffing and productivity, an organization can provide a better customer experience and generate more revenue. The Benefits of WFM Forecasting WFM software can help forecast essential aspects of WFM including demand for staffing and resources in real time, making the most efficient use of them and reducing costs. Tools can account for things such as the amount of interactive voice response (IVR) calls versus calls with agents, and the purpose of calls. However, outside drivers can change the validity of the software as well as absenteeism and turnover. Scheduling WFM scheduling software provides several benefits for optimizing a workforce, including helping to ensure you have enough staff for each shift while considering factors such as worker schedule preferences, the switching of shifts, holidays, absenteeism, and time off. Performance and Quality Management WFM software offers various benefits in the performance and quality management areas: ● It has tools that allow you to automate the collection, arrangement, and analysis of important metrics related to performance such as the amount of calls answered and customer feedback results. ● The information collected from the software helps to improve the performance of your staff by allowing you to establish smart goals, give effective feedback, and find areas where training is needed. It also helps with scaling teams effectively. It’s important to truly understand the metrics behind your staffing model. At ASK, we know you need the right EFM software, but we believe more important is a deep understanding of call flow and drivers and strong partnerships with clients. To learn more about how ASK can help your business with our WFM expertise, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE ROLE OF ORCHESTRATION IN CUSTOMER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT July 20, 2021 Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Satisfaction, Omni-Channel CX, Customer Journey, Telecommunicationindustry, Benefits of Orchestration Effective customer journey management has become increasingly important as communication channels have increased and customer journeys have become more complex. What’s more, customers expect exceptional customer experiences that are convenient, fast, personalized, and frictionless at each touchpoint. Customer journey orchestration helps support customer journey mapping and analysis to bring about these results. In this article, we discuss its role in customer journey management. It is important to understand how orchestration fits in with managing customer journeys and how it’s distinct from customer journey mapping and analysis. They differ in three areas: Customer Journey Mapping In a customer journey map, the stages of a visitor’s journey to purchasing a product or service and becoming a customer are visually mapped out. The main stages are usually awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy. Each stage can have various touchpoints. Multiple journeys can be mapped out for each buyer persona based on the channels they use. Analyzing the Customer Journey Analyzing customer journeys helps to create more effective and efficient journeys by helping to uncover customer pain points and improving touchpoints. Analysis helps in optimizing customer engagement, acquisition, conversion, satisfaction, and retention. It also helps in understanding the various buyer personas and creating customized experiences for them. Customer Journey Orchestration Customer journey orchestration goes beyond customer journey mapping to gain more information and a deeper understanding of customer experiences. It involves using technology to track customer journeys in real-time across various channels. It gathers data from all channels and systems into one central location. Because the journeys are seen in real-time, a business can step in during various touchpoints of the journey to affect its outcome. Forrester Research defines journey orchestration tools as those that “help fuse data across channels, touch points, and systems along the customer journey to design and plan current and future-state journeys, test and optimize journey hypotheses, and orchestrate tasks among stakeholders and with customers.” The Benefits of Orchestration Being able to manage each stage of the customer journey in one area, and in real-time, through orchestration provides several benefits: ● It helps connect online and offline customer experiences. For example, products that a customer purchased in a physical store can be tracked and automatically added to their purchase history in their online account. This customer journey approach is done by some well-known brands such as Walmart, who tracks both online and offline purchase history, which appear in a customer’s purchase history online. They also have suggestions online for customers to re-order previously ordered products by asking “ready to re-order?” These strategies help increase repeat sales. ● Having orchestration in place at your organization can help you stay ahead of the competition and predict the future behavior of customers. This helps to prevent future problems and in managing customer expectations. ● Orchestration helps create personalization features at scale based on what buyers want. For example, some online shoppers may want the option to personalize their accounts by creating multiple wish lists - one list for each type of product they may buy. ● It allows for the improvement of journeys in real-time and for the learning of detailed information about what each type of persona generally prefers their customer experience to be. For example, millennials may prefer to use different social media networks compared to older generations. Understanding the customer journeys for each persona also helps create customized messages and promotions for each persona. ● It helps to create a cohesive customer experience where each touchpoint flows smoothly to the next one and can be measured and analyzed in more detail to continually improve customer journeys. The ASK team helps clients utilize customer journey orchestration to help increase sales, improve efficiencies, and create more satisfied and long-term customers. To learn more about how ASK works hand-in-hand with clients across the customer journey, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE NO. 1 CUSTOMER JOURNEY KILLER: FRICTION July 12, 2021 Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, Omni-Channel CX, Customer Journey Once you understand your customer personas and pain points, are familiar with the channels they use to make purchases, and have created a customer journey map, it’s time to analyze the map to optimize the customer journey. This largely involves eliminating any friction. In this article, we discuss some of the major causes of friction and ways to remove it from the customer journey to create a smoother customer experience and increase conversions. Customer Service Because customers have many options to choose from in the marketplace, having great customer service is often the factor that leads a customer to choose one company over another. It’s important to answer questions quickly and effectively on all channels, otherwise customers may turn to the competition. For example, when a customer is looking for a solution to a problem and is comparing the solutions of companies on their websites, the companies that have online chat available on their sites have a better chance of converting the visitor into a customer. Email Communication Excessive or irrelevant email communication from a company can turn customers off and leave them looking elsewhere for solutions to their problems. Make sure each email you send contains content that your customers are interested in, such as a product they recently showed interest in that they may still want to purchase. You might offer it to them at a discounted price in an email. However, avoid over-promoting or using email subject lines that are click bait and not related to the content of the email. It’s also helpful to allow users to set how often they want to receive emails from the company. Website Navigation and Functionality There are several factors of website navigation and functionality that can cause friction in the customer journey if they aren’t addressed: ● Make the company website easy to navigate. Display the most important pages and contact information at the top of the site. ● Have clear information on the site about areas such as shipping, returns, how to use your products / services, terms, privacy policy, etc. ● Include search and filter functionality on the site so that customers can quickly find what they are looking for. If you have an ecommerce store, allow customers to filter out-of-stock products. ● Create a quick and easy checkout experience by setting up one-page checkout. This helps increase conversion rates. The easier you can make it for visitors to check out, the more likely they are to complete the order process. ● Check your website speed. Just a small difference in speed can significantly impact how long visitors stay on a site and whether they make a purchase. Clear and Thorough Content It’s important for the content on all channels and the website to be clear and thorough. If, for example, a customer can’t find information that should be available on the website, they will need to take time to contact customer service to get that information. It’s best to include as much information as possible on the site, while also being concise. It can also be helpful to provide resources such as an FAQ database search, video tutorials, webinars, and documents to help visitors find information they need and in the format that they want to consume that information. If you sell products online, make sure all the details of the products are listed, such as size, materials, colors, and parts. Social Proof Social proof helps to create trust and credibility and is a major factor that influences the buying decisions of customers. When a company has few or no customer reviews, testimonials, or case studies shown on their channels, websites, and sales pages, they risk losing business to competitors. Having social proof is especially important at the decision stage of the customer journey, which is when a customer makes the final decision about what to buy and where to buy it. Oftentimes, front line customer service agents are the first to know about friction in the customer journey. The ASK team helps clients by not only identifying friction points but offering insights and solutions to make improvements. To learn more about how ASK works hand-in-hand with clients to improve the customer journey, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. WHAT IS CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING AND WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? July 6, 2021 Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, Omni-Channel CX Effectively mapping out the customer journey, which are the steps that a customer takes to eventually make a purchase, has become increasingly important. This is because customers are increasingly placing a high value on the quality of their customer experiences. They want an Omni-channel experience and quick answers to their questions and resolutions to their problems. A business can now have about a dozen channels to manage, including social media channels, chat, email, phone, text, and in-person communication. The rise in demand for a great customer experience and the increase in the number of channels to manage has made the customer journey more complex, making customer journey mapping an essential component of customer acquisition, management, and retention. What Steps Does a Customer Journey Map Represent? A customer journey map is used to map out the steps in a customer journey. The journey usually involves a few main steps that an individual goes through to make a purchase and become a customer. First, they become aware that they want or need a solution to something and research options and companies that can offer that solution. Next, they consider which offer and company to go with by making comparisons. And finally, they reach a purchase decision based on all the information they have gathered. So, the main steps of the customer journey are awareness, consideration, and decision. After the person becomes a customer, the steps are retention and advocacy, which involve taking steps to retain the customer and to encourage them to become brand advocates. What are Customer Journey Map Touchpoints? A customer journey map visually shows the steps that a customer takes to reach a buying decision and become a customer. Each main step can have numerous touchpoints. For example, when a customer decides to shop online and reaches the checkout step, they may need to create an account by filling in their address in a form and then enter payment information. They may be asked if they would like to sign up for a newsletter or add related items to their cart before making payment. How well these steps are optimized can influence the customer experience and whether or not the customer completes the order. How Does Customer Journey Mapping Work? The first step to creating a customer journey map is to identify all of the possible channels that customers might interact with when going through a journey. Some of these channels may include website, phone, chat, email, physical store, and social media networks. Each of the major buyer personas and details about them also need to be identified. For example, one buyer persona may be businesswomen ages 30-45 who live in the United States and have children. Once you have your channel and buyer persona information prepared, you can create journeys based on each persona. For example, one journey may involve the businesswoman persona doing a Google search for a product, clicking on an ad, being taken to a website, and making a product purchase on the site. Creating a map for this journey would involve adding each touchpoint of the journey to the map. Then the actions of the customer and company can be analyzed at each stage. What are the Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping? Customer journey mapping is important for businesses of all sizes. By mapping out the customer journey, a company can help ensure that each step of the journey is efficient and works well for customers. It helps a business to understand and resolve customer pain points and to create more personalized experiences. For many customers, a personalized experience is a major deciding factor when choosing to buy from a company. Here are some of the benefits to creating customer journey maps: · Understand viewpoint of the customer to resolve issues more effectively. · Create a clear and efficient sequence for the buyer experience. · Aid in optimizing customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. · Compare buyer personas and their experiences and behaviors. · Analyzing customer expectations versus the delivery of those expectations. Ultimately, optimizing the customer journey helps to increase customer satisfaction and leads to more sales and long-term customers. At ASK, our goal is to help you better understand what your customer wants from a customer experience and then deliver that experience as an extension of your brand. Our team has the experience to provide new insights on creating a frictionless journey for your customer that will build loyalty – and therefore revenue – over time. To learn more about your customer journey and how to optimize it for success, contact visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. WHAT IS THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? June 24, 2021 Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Loyalty, Customer Satisfaction A customer journey is composed of a series of steps that a customer goes through to make a product or service purchase, and possibly become a regular customer. The journey has 5 main steps, which we describe below. These include awareness, consideration, decision, retention and advocacy. These stages can be managed, assessed, and optimized for best results. By leading customers through customer journeys that effectively accommodate customer needs, companies can increase sales and customer satisfaction. Awareness The awareness step is the first part of the customer journey. At this stage, the customer realizes they have a desire for a solution to something they need or want. They begin to do research to find that solution and may come across product or service offerings from various companies. Most customers do research online before making a purchase. This makes it important for a company to be among the available choices that come up when a customer is looking for information in the awareness stage. Here are some of the areas in which companies can stand out from the competition and get noticed: ● Social media ● Blog posts ● Search engines ● Websites ● Videos ● Testimonials ● Ads Since customers are searching for information during the awareness stage, in order to help them make a purchase decision, providing them with valuable information is a good strategy. Doing so also helps to build trust and industry authority. Here are some of the ways to offer them information: ● E-books ● Whitepapers ● Checklists ● Videos ● Reports Consideration In the consideration stage of the customer journey, potential customers have completed their initial research and have a good understanding of their options but may still have questions that need to be answered before they can decide. They gather the additional information and then weight their options. Here are some of the ways in which they do this: ● Researching the websites of companies in the industry they may buy from. ● Comparing the features and benefits of products/services from various companies. ● Comparing company prices and customer service availability. ● Reading customer reviews and testimonials. Since customers make their purchase decisions based largely on the above areas, it’s important for companies to have them optimized as much as possible by considering questions such as: ● Are the features and benefits of every company product/service clear? ● How easy is it to find the company and to navigate its website? ● Does the company offer competitive pricing? ● What differentiates the company’s offerings from that of others on the market? Often, when a buyer is looking for answers to purchasing questions, they may want to contact the company through various channels such as phone, chat, forms, social media, or email. Here are some of the other ways to provide them with information at this stage: ● Case studies ● FAQ pages ● Webinars ● Documents ● Demos Decision By the time the customer reaches the decision stage, they have a lot of information; they understand their purchase options and are informed about companies that offer these options. They are ready to make a decision about what option and company to choose. At this stage, factors such as excellent customer service and customer reviews can be the differentiating factors that cause a customer to choose one company over another. This makes it important to build strong case studies, reviews, and testimonials and to display them on your online properties, such as your website and social media channels. Retention It’s easier to retain customers than acquire new ones since existing customers already understand your company and offerings and trust your brand. This makes it important to continually get feedback from customers via methods such as touch point conversations and surveys to help ensure their satisfaction and to improve products and services. When considering your customer’s journey, the retention stage can sometimes be overlooked. This is a missed opportunity as retention is one of the easiest steps to manage. By delivering results and value while building customer relationships, companies can boost loyalty and strengthen this stage of the journey. Retention also affects customer lifetime value to increase profits over time. Advocacy The final stage of the customer journey is also the ultimate goal. By optimizing the steps of the customer journey, offering great products and services, and an enjoyable customer experience, your customers are more likely to become brand advocates. This means they will say positive things about your company to spread the word about it. Because people trust their friends and family the most, word-of-mouth is a powerful way to get new customers and to build brand reputation. Advocacy recognizes that a company – and its products or services – is part of the customer’s life. ASK helps clients optimize the customer journeys to help boost sales and increase customer loyalty. To discover new ways your business can leverage the customer journey, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR THE TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY June 10, 2021 Customer Experience, Telecom Customer Service, Customer Service, Omni-Channel CX The Benefits of Outsourcing Customer Service for the Telecommunications Industry Great customer service is an essential part of running a successful company, and for telecom companies, it’s an especially important element for standing out from the competition and retaining customers. Outsourcing customer service has advantages for both small and large telecom businesses. It helps them to efficiently manage their customer service channels and to scale effectively. In this article, we discuss the benefits of outsourcing customer service for telecommunications businesses. Reducing Costs by Outsourcing Customer Service By outsourcing customer service, you can reduce costs in several areas of your business. These cost savings can also be passed on to customers. Here are some ways outsourcing can benefit a business: · Since the company that the work is outsourced to takes care of the customer service for the business, this allows the business and its employees to concentrate on other areas. · The business does not need to spend its budget on customer service expenses such as hiring, training (which is on-going), onboarding, salaries, time off, benefits, office space, equipment and more. These expenses include not only hiring customer service staff, but also hiring managers. · Partnering with a company that already has an established professional team of trained customer service staff is more cost effective than building an in-house team. The cost saving benefits of outsourcing customer service allows a business to save time and money, which in turn allows it to focus resources on business goals that strengthen operations and growth. However, the cost savings should be balanced with service quality that provides good customer service experiences and aids customer retention. Outsourcing CX Makes Scaling a Business Easier One of the things to consider when thinking about outsourcing your customer service is that it allows you to scale your business more easily. Also, if your business experiences sudden growth, you can avoid becoming short staffed if you use outsourcing. Working with a company that already has enough staff and good training in place will help you manage your business expansion while maintaining quality customer service. More Customer Service Availability Times One of the benefits of outsourcing your customer service is that you have a team available during all hours of the day because they are in various time zones. This way, you can also have reps that are well-rested, rather than having an in-house team that may have too much to handle. Providing 24-hour availability helps provide peace of mind to customers that they will be able to reach someone whenever they have an issue that needs to be solved right away, instead of having to wait until the next day to reach a customer service representative. Having this kind of availability is especially important for telecom businesses because customers may need immediate help with solving technical and service issues. Multi-Language Availability Depending on the type of business and the customers they serve, being able to provide customers with reps who can speak different languages can be essential. By outsourcing customer service, a business can get access to customer service reps who can speak various languages such as English, Spanish, or Chinese. By having reps who can speak the language of the customers, a company can avoid miscommunications and have more satisfied customers. Finding the Right Company for Outsourcing One of the concerns a company might have about outsourcing is that, by doing so, customers would lose the personal connection with the business and its culture. However, by partnering with the right company, you can ensure the maintenance of your brand and culture. When deciding to outsource your customer service, make sure to do your due diligence. Gather data and analyze each potential company you may want to work with to ensure you will have the best fit. ASK helps make the outsourcing process easy by partnering directly with clients to fully understand their culture and brand to provide quality customer experience. AT ASK, our clients’ customers are our customers, and their satisfaction is our highest priority. For more information about how ASK can help your business, visit asktelemarketing.com or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE IMPACT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE ON TELECOM SUCCESS May 26, 2021 Customer Experience, Telecom Customer Service, Customer Service, Omni-Channel CX Finding ways to increase customer lifetime value, selling more products and services, maintaining profitability, and fueling business growth is more important than ever for telecom businesses. Competition continues to increase, and customers can easily switch brands. Telecom companies must find ways of differentiating themselves from the competition, and customer experience is a major factor in accomplishing this. Increasing CLV through Great Customer Experiences Customer lifetime value (CLV) is determined by the average amount customers spend per purchase and the average number of purchases they make during the course of being customers. A company can boost their CLV by increasing one or both variables. Customer service agents can help to increase purchases and repurchases by providing great customer service experiences. An article from Squelch, regarding the impact of customer support on CLV, states that according to Shopify, customer support can have the following impact on repurchases: “Consistently good service: 32 percent Fast, friendly interaction: 25 percent No unpleasant surprises: 22 percent Service beyond expectation: 12 percent.” The need for telecom companies to boost and maintain customer lifetime value is increasingly important because customers have many options to choose from. This means that telecom companies need to focus more effort on creating a good brand reputation by providing great customer experience and building positive relationships with customers through channels such as social media. An article by Doxee, “The Importance of Customer Service in the Telecommunication Industry to Increase Engagement,” notes that: “If you can reduce the number of customers lost by as little as 5 percent, you can expect profitability to increase from 25-125 percent. On top of that, a 2 percent increase in retention corresponds to a cost reduction of about 10 percent.” They also point out that: “A more loyal and involved customer tends to buy 90 percent more frequently than a customer who does not feel involved with your company. In addition, a loyal customer tends to buy from the same brand and spend more than 60 percent on a single transaction, thus guaranteeing a unit profitability 23 percent higher than the average customer.” Enhancing Products, Services, and Business Operations Because customer service agents handle customer questions and problems on a daily basis, they have insight into how company products, services, and business operations could be improved. Therefore, getting feedback from both customers and reps about these areas for customer journey touchpoints can help to significantly improve a company’s offerings and boost customer satisfaction, CLV and profitability. Up-Selling and Cross-Selling Products When customers receive a high level of customer service, they are more likely to remain with a company and try more of their products and services. Therefore, a company can make more sales by building customer satisfaction and trust at each customer journey touch point. When customers feel they have been treated well, they’re more receptive to product and service offers. Because customer service reps talk to customers on a regular basis, they are very familiar with the products and services of the company and with customer questions, problems and feedback, which translates into skills and knowledge for up-selling and cross-selling products, especially with additional sales training. By helping companies make more sales, customer service agents can help increase customer lifetime value. This is significant because it is easier to sell to existing customers than to new ones. As an article by 24 Seven Cloud about the benefits of effective customer service in telecom points out: “The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70 percent, versus the probability of selling to a new prospect at just 5-20 percent. When a customer enjoys dealing with you, they’ll do so again and again.” ASK works with clients to discover and implement new ways to increase sales through exceptional customer experience. For more information on how ASK can help your business, visit asktelemarketing.com or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. HOW GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE IMPACTS TELECOM SUCCESS May 13, 2021 Customer Experience, Telecom Customer Service, Customer Service, Omni-Channel CX When a telecommunications company provides great customer experience it has long-term positive effects for both the customers and the company. In this article, we explore the benefits telecom companies can experience when they prioritize CX, including how creating and maintaining customer loyalty and getting great customer reviews helps build a successful brand. Increased Customer Loyalty Providing good customer service is a significant factor in helping ensure customers will stay with your company long-term. Since consumers can choose from many telecom providers offering similar services, they can easily switch to a competitor if they don’t receive a high standard of service – and once they do, they’re unlikely to return. According to an article by 24 Seven Cloud on customer service within the telecom industry: “A third of customers will immediately leave a brand after one poor customer service experience. With 49 percent saying they would only tolerate two to three bad experiences before giving up on a company. Another study found that 66 percent of consumers who switched brands did so because of poor service.” Having a positive customer experience is often the determining factor for how long a customer stays with a company, and this is especially true in the telecom industry. In fact, for many customers, having a great experience is more important than price. In addition, when a company provides unsatisfactory customer experiences, this hurts its brand reputation. As a result, it will be less likely to attract new customers. These customers will turn to the competition instead. For the aforementioned reasons, it is essential for telecom companies to provide enough availability and support through an omni-channel presence. It is also important to track performance closely, including wait times, call backs, and customer feedback. In addition, telecom companies need to have fair practices when it comes to their contracts, billing, and fees. By keeping customers satisfied, and retaining them as a result, a company can increase its profitability and reduce costs associated with attracting new customers. As the article by 24 Seven Cloud notes: “It costs significant money to continually attract new customers to your business with advertising and promotions. However, increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent could increase profits from 25 percent to 95 percent. Customer focused telecoms will not only convert those new leads but keep them for many years to come.” Positive Reviews Build a Strong Brand Happy customers share their positive customer service experiences with their friends and family and online through channels such as social media, online review sites and forums. These positive interactions help to create a good brand reputation for a company. This in turn helps to retain customers and also attracts new ones. Testimonials that come directly from customers are more credible than those from a company promoting itself. Video testimonials are especially powerful because, unlike written testimonials, they show an actual person telling their story about their experience and how the company helped them to solve a problem or accomplish a goal. According to the article by 24 Seven Cloud, research has found that: · 92 percent of consumers read online reviews and testimonials before making a purchase. · 88 percent trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. · 72 percent trust a business more after reading positive online reviews. ASK works with clients to provide great customer experience that increases customer loyalty, reviews and recommendations to help build a strong and profitable brand. For more information on how ASK can help your business, visit asktelemarketing.com or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TELECOM TODAY May 6, 2021 Customer Experience, Telecom Customer Service, Customer Service, Omni-Channel CX As competition continues to increase in the telecom market, customer satisfaction and loyalty are increasingly dependent on the quality of a customer’s journey with a brand and the level of customer support the company provides. In this article, we discuss why customer service is important in telecom today and ways that telecom companies can differentiate themselves from the competition. A Service-Based Business Unlike a company that sells physical products, a service-based business, such as telecommunications, provides non-physical offers to customers. Since customers can’t see what they’re getting the way they can with physical products, telecommunications companies need to ensure customer service is exceptional in order to stand out from the competition. Since they provide services that customers use on a continuous basis, they need to offer support that keeps them consistently satisfied in order to retain them. Price Competition It’s common for telecommunications companies to provide customers incentives to switch brands through pricing and feature offers, which makes maintaining customer loyalty an industry challenge. Having a great customer experience is often the reason customers remain with a company. When an issue occurs with a customer’s product or service, explaining to them why it happened, and how and when it will be resolved is important for helping to create peace of mind for the customer. More Details to Manage Telecommunications operations can have many areas to manage including phone, internet and TV. In addition to the data service elements, there are also hardware aspects to consider such as the phones that people carry, or the hardware for setting up an internet connection. Teleco customer service needs to be efficient in helping customers set up services, make appointments with technicians and resolve issues that arise; if not, customers will choose a different company. Simply having to wait too long to get service set up can be a reason to switch. Consumers Expect More In addition to expecting customer support that resolves questions and problems quickly, customers also want more ways to communicate with brands including phone, email, chat, text, and social media. It’s important that customer questions and concerns are quickly answered through every channel. Companies that provide effective, seamless omni-channel experiences to their customers have an edge over the competition and are more likely to retain their customers. An example of creating a good customer experience through AI is Verizon’s Digital CX system. According to an article by ReachOutSuite regarding telecom customer service: “Co-opting new technology such as Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots go a long way in enhancing customer satisfaction. Verizon’s Digital CX blends human and artificial intelligence to deliver personalized experiences to each customer based on previous interactions through email, social media, chat, text, or phone.” Customer Satisfaction Metrics Tracking metrics related to telecom customer satisfaction is essential for making sure every customer touchpoint is working effectively and for spotting areas where improvements can be made. Some of the metrics that may be tracked include service response times, website metrics, resolution times, call backs, customer lifetime value, and customer feedback data. Creating Personalized Interactions To create a quality customer experience, technology should be balanced with the human touch. According to an article by Techsee on improving customer experience in telecom: “Despite companies spending millions on the technology, 60 percent of callers bypass IVR altogether. Meanwhile 83 percent would avoid a company after a poor experience with an interactive voice response.” To remain competitive, telecom companies need to consistently remain up-to-date with changes in customer expectations and technology, including omni-channel customer service, AI tools, website presence and products and services. To discover new ways your business could improve customer experience to gain advantage in an increasingly competitive telecom market, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. FACILITATE ENGAGEMENT FOR REMOTE CONTACT CENTER AGENTS April 8, 2021 Remote Agent Engagement As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers, including contact center agents, have transitioned to working remotely. Although working from home has some great benefits such as lower overhead costs, the elimination of commute time, and reduced missed days, it can also result in less engaged employees. One of the challenges of working remotely is balancing work and home life, especially during difficult times such as the COVID pandemic. Another challenge is that it can be harder to monitor employee satisfaction in the remote environment since you don’t see the reactions of agents in person or have regular meetings with them face-to-face. To deal with these challenges, it’s essential to implement ways of ensuring remote employees are happy and engaged. The Importance of Remote Agent Engagement Agent satisfaction and engagement are significant because they affect customer satisfaction, which in turn impacts customer loyalty and business profitability. Also, happy and motivated employees are more likely to stay with a company, which means reduced turnover rates. Here are some ways to promote contact center agent engagement. 1. Support Agent Well-Being Because agents are on the front lines of providing customer care and have a direct impact on customer experience, it’s important to support their physical and mental wellness so they feel their best. You can create a wellness program that offers choices, such as meditation tutorials and yoga classes. Also, encourage agents to take breaks away from their desks by going outside and getting fresh air. Offering extra time off, when possible, also helps employees to recharge. 2. Create a Culture of Effective Communication and Collaboration Promoting a culture of effective communication and collaboration is especially important for keeping remote employees motivated. Encourage agents to work together with others on the team to solve problems. This can help to resolve issues more effectively, foster teamwork, and reduce feelings of isolation among remote agents. According to an article by Techsee.me on how to motivate work-from-home contact center workers: “Research shows that collaborative contact center work environments perform 50 percent better and reduce errors by 25 percent. In addition, agents working in a culture of collaboration display greater levels of motivation – 54 percent go above and beyond what is required – and display greater job satisfaction with a 17 percent higher intent-to-stay rate.” Some of the ways to promote a culture of collaboration include encouraging agents to socialize online and giving them work that involves collaboration. Create a culture where members of the organization are open to feedback, offer support, and share acknowledgement and positive words of encouragement. 3. One of the best ways to get –and keep – staff engaged is by providing consistent recognition and opportunities for growth. · “ASK Employees of the Fortnight” may sound like a video game competition, but it’s actually an extension of our Employee of the Month program. Winners are voted on by management and receive special perks like ASK swag, a great parking place (pre-COVID) and Door Dash coupons. You’ll notice the prizes aren’t that big, what matters most is the recognition. Winners are announced company-wide and through our social media channels. · We implemented a leadership course two years ago based on the book The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership by James C. Hunter. We embrace this concept wholeheartedly at ASK. Leaders are required to take the 8-week course, which counts as paid time. · We also do about 30 “kudos” per week to call out above-and-beyond performance with prizes like 30-minute paid breaks. 4. Provide the Right Technology Providing remote agents with technology that increases collaboration and engagement will help to keep them connected and feeling they are a valued member of the team, while also helping them to better serve customers. Some of the technology to consider includes collaboration tools, video conferencing, screen sharing, virtual whiteboards, social networks, team messaging and knowledge databases. For training, you can provide online learning, Zoom presentations, and roleplaying using video. 5. Provide Advancement Opportunities In addition to providing effective training, support, and recognition to remote agents in their current roles, also consider how to offer opportunities for advancement. Advancement opportunities help to increase agent motivation and engagement and reduce the employee turnover rate by giving agents an incentive to stay with the organization longer. To make your advancement opportunities as effective as possible, provide agents with clear guidelines for how they can advance in the company. ASK knows employee satisfaction is closely tied to customer satisfaction and has recognition, engagement and advancement initiatives in place to help ensure employees remain closely connected with our mission and client goals. For more information on how ASK can help your business maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. HOW TO SUPPORT WORK-FROM-HOME CONTACT CENTER AGENT PRODUCTIVITY March 11, 2021 Work From Home According to a recent Stanford study regarding work-from-home contact center productivity, “employees working from home were found to be 13% more productive than their counterparts operating from designated workspaces.” The study also concluded that “employees who functioned from home completed their full-shift whereas employees working from office arrived late and left early.” According to a RingCentral.com article on contact center agent productivity, “85% of businesses that offer a remote work option say that greater working flexibility led to increased productivity.” In addition, “53% of remote employees say they take less time off than they would if working in the office.” As you can see, a lot of data favors the work-from-home environment. However, motivation and productivity can be more challenging to maintain and monitor for remote agents than in-house teams. For this reason, it’s important to have ways of ensuring the productivity of remote agents in order to reap the benefits of working remotely. Providing the necessary tools and empowering agents with support is essential to success. By maintaining an optimal level of work-from-home agent productivity, you support a quality customer experience by helping to ensure that customer engagement is efficient and effective. In this article, we discuss ways of promoting productivity in the remote contact center environment. Offer Tips for Managing the Workday Regularly giving agents tips on how to manage their work day can help to increase their productivity. For example: ● Eliminate distractions, such as social media alerts, from your phone and computer. ● Maintain a healthy diet and take breaks regularly to refocus and recharge. ● Do more difficult tasks during the times of the day when you have the most energy and focus. ● Plan your day in advance using a calendar to keep track of activities and the time they take. ● Create a pleasant workspace that is comfortable and free from noise and distractions. Provide Software for Enhancing Productivity Provide agents with an interface that has all the features they need to perform their jobs effectively. This should include an analytics dashboard where they can view their individual metrics as well as team metrics. Include a detailed knowledge database that they can easily navigate so they have information at their fingertips. Also, provide messaging capability so that they can easily send messages to request assistance. Offer Guidance Offering guidance to agents on a regular basis helps ensure they feel supported and have opportunity to provide feedback. When employees feel they are getting enough support, they’re more likely to stay with an organization. For these reasons, it’s essential for managers to offer assistance in various ways such as coaching and mentorship. Agents should feel they always have a resource when they have questions or concerns. This is especially important for remote employees since they do not have colleagues sitting nearby to talk to. Call center software can offer various forms of support to agents. For example, by using an application, you can provide an agent guidance while they are on a call by speaking to them and viewing their screen. Call center software can also help you to assess areas for improvement, which you can use for developing trainings. Monitoring and Tracking Productivity The ability to monitor and track agent productivity is especially important in the remote contact center environment. Thanks to management software, you can gather and analyze a lot of data about agent activity, help agents improve, and optimize your operations for best results. For example: ● Track agent sign-ins, log-offs, and the times when they begin and stop using certain applications. ● Monitor agent screens as necessary. ● View data on customer satisfaction, call logs, handling times, etc. ● Analyze reports consistently to understand agent performance. Using the information you gather, find the weak and strong points of your agent productivity and determine where additional training and support may be needed. ASK is well-versed in agent productivity in the work from home environment. Throughout the pandemic in 2020-2021, ASK continued to operate at 100 percent with a hybrid CDC-compliant office and work-from-home model. For businesses with in-house call centers, outsourcing these functions can provide many benefits, including not having to manage and monitor agent productivity, whether in the office setting or remotely. For more information on how ASK can help your business maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, visit asktelemarketing.com, or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458. 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Feb 8, 2018 December 2017 3 Reasons Why You Need Live Chat Dec 27, 2017 Three Simple Ways to Improve Omni-Channel Customer Support Dec 18, 2017 Three Signs You Need an Answering Service Dec 11, 2017 5 Contact Center Metrics You Should Be Measuring Dec 4, 2017 Home Services Customer Care Sales Delivery / Install Omni Channel Back Office About Our Story Our Team Our Culture Blog Resources Case Studies SOP Agent KPI's Project KPI's Reporting Contact © ASK 2017 | 5665 Carmichael Road, Montgomery, AL, 36117