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Top 7 KPI’s to Measure Your Customer Experience Levels

Enhancing customer experience is an absolute priority for corporations today. To determine if customer service meets expectations, you need the ability to measure the key performance indicators (KPIs). There are numerous KPIs for measuring the success of your customer service strategies. Following are the top seven KPIs your business might consider utilizing to measure customer experience and service levels. Net Promoter Score (NPS) Customers who are pleased with your customer service may suggest your business to family and friends. This becomes your company’s NPS. The rate of people who recommend your company to others can be a valid measure of customer satisfaction. Brand attributes Obtaining feedback about how customers describe your brand is a good measure of customer service and an indication of where you stand in your customers’ eyes. Also, you’ll discover what qualities to focus on to enable customers to see your brand in a selective light. Competitor comparison While customer retention and overall satisfaction are useful metrics for measuring service, it is critical to discern how your company stacks up against competitors, because even loyal customers may choose competitors for single purchases or interactions. External industry benchmarks It is crucial to recognize how your brand stacks up against the competition. Collect external benchmarking survey data to compare your brand to your closest competitors because even the highest-rated companies only succeed about 88 percent of the time, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Conversion rate Following an interaction with a customer, determine the likelihood that they will take some action, such as making a purchase. This number should be high if your customer service is excellent. Resolved issues Looking at all of the issues that your customer service team has fixed is an ideal method to form a snapshot of your company’s customer service. Regardless of your firm’s success, there will be problems and grievances. However, if your team can solve them efficiently and in a manner that creates a good experience for the customer, that is evidence of valuable service experiences. Overall satisfaction Although every business aims for 100 percent satisfaction 100 percent of the time, it just isn’t realistic. What is realistic is to expect customer satisfaction KPI to always be rising. You can track whether or not your rating is going up by setting internal benchmarks. You can target problem areas, set goals, and make changes to enhance your customer satisfaction rating the intelligent way. To improve upon something, it must first be controlled. To control something, measurements are required. Your business provides an experience, satisfies the customer, and builds a relationship that ultimately translates to conversion. Monitoring the health of your business requires measuring customer experiences and understanding which KPI to select to enhance customer experiences. With the right KPIs, you can recognize the direction your business is going and whether or not your customers are satisfied with your service. Etech Global Services delivers intelligent sales, technology, and customer service solutions. Contact us today for help building a stronger brand, strengthening customer relationships, and gaining your share of the market.

Organizing Customer Support on Social Media the Right Way

These days, social media and customer services are essentially one and the same. Companies are better able to take care of their customers, and customers are better able to connect with the companies they support. No matter how large or how small your company is, there are a few things you can do to better organize your online customer services. Respond in a Timely Manner Technology has accelerated our expectations, and that has never been truer than when it comes to social media. Take a lesson from airline companies dealing with customers with lost luggage and work on responding to social media questions and comments as quickly as possible, at least within 60 minutes. If not, you risk angering and potentially losing a customer. Use Tools to Better Manage Your Social Media While it’s good to have several different social media accounts, those multiple accounts can become a bit of a hassle when you have so many different lines of communication to keep up with. If you find that you’re constantly feeling overwhelmed, consider offering customers live chat and implementing social media tools like HootSuite, Tweetdeck and Klout to manage all of your platforms in a single place. Make Your Responses More Personal Instead of sounding like a robot in your responses, make them more personal and inject them with a bit of personality. A canned response can not only send the wrong message about your company, it can also anger the person and make it seem as if you don’t pay attention to what’s being said. A bit of humor can also help to lighten the mood while making sure the individual is still being taken care of. Train Your Customer Service Employees Utilizing the most effective and up-to-date online customer support strategies and technology won’t do your company or your employees much good if your customer services team doesn’t know how to use the technology or strategies the right way. Before you cut your team lose to dominate the world of customer service, train them properly and thoroughly. Not only that, but you should update and refresh their training as necessary. Just as businesses aren’t operated the same now as they were ten years ago, the same is true of customer service. Give your team the tools and education they need to stand the best chance of succeeding. Have a Backup Plan in Place Just as there are bound to be people complaining about your products or services no matter what you do, there are bound to be times where you experience a power loss or lose your network connections. Despite unfortunate circumstances, your customers still want answers to their questions and want to have their concerns addressed. Have a customer service backup plan in place to handle these situations and make sure your company’s reputation doesn’t take a hit during times of technological crisis. For instance, you might have to temporarily outsource your customer service department. If you do, you’ll want your outsourced team to be familiar with how you handle customers to keep things flowing as smoothly and as normally as possible. An organization is one of the essential cornerstones of operating a successful business. Keep your online customer service department well organized and informed and you’re sure to remain in your customers’ good graces. Original Source : LinkedIn

Understanding the Leadership Qualities that Lead to More Engaged Employees

One of the most widely-used yet misunderstood terms in the business world is “employee engagement.” While plenty of executives, team leaders, and consultants call upon this statement in their attempts to motivate, few actually use it correctly. That’s because most interpret it to mean working hard. While hard work is certainly found amongst the effective skills that successful teams of professionals share, it doesn’t equal employee engagement. Rather, the former is merely a byproduct of the latter. To understand what employee engagement truly means, we have to take a closer look at the term itself. “Engaged” is defined as “having ones full mind, energy, and attention.” Herein lies the difference between an engaged employee and one that is simply hard-working. Whereas a hard-working employee can potentially only be partially-invested in that which he or she is doing, an engaged employee has his or her mind fully concentrated on the task at hand. This requires a certain level or “buy-in” into a company’s culture, which is not something that’s achieved easily. The Skills Needed to Facilitate Engagement Engaged employees require an equally engaged leader to guide them. That person has to convey through his or her leadership skills the importance of the work that each and every member of the team does, and why only the utmost effort on their part is acceptable. To do that, it helps if he or she can demonstrate the following qualities: Focus: Every company has a vision that should drive every decision and action that it employs. Yet far too many allow the pressures of meeting their everyday job duties to keep them from stepping back and seeing how their particular roles benefit their companies as a whole. What’s needed is a boss or team leader that keeps members focused on the mission, vision, and values of their company, and how the work that they do supports that. Creativity: This may sound strange, but many people actually fear doing their job too well. That’s because they worry that should they create effective solutions for the problems they’re meant to address, they’ll be out of jobs. A good leader helps inspire trust in that no matter the results of his or her employees’ current work, they skills that they bring are in high demand and can easily be applied elsewhere in another way if needed. Empathy: This includes not only being empathetic towards employees, but towards corporate leadership, as well. Too often, the higher-ups are painted to be cold, calculated number cruncher that only care about results on paper. However, that’s rarely the case. Their concerns over those results are typically driven by their equal concern for their employees. Once subordinates are able to see that, the beginnings of a healthy company culture in which they are not afraid to fully invest themselves are born. As we conduct analyses of the many businesses with whom we work here at Etech Global Services, we find that those that are the best at incorporating the skills and services that we introduce share the same attribute: a highly-engaged workforce. Having seen the tools and practices needed to create such an effective environment, we’re more than capable of sharing these with you. Together, we can help create a shared vision and commitment from the top to the bottom of your organization.

5 Things You Can Do to Become a Great Leader in the Contact Center

Great leaders aren’t born that way, and most dedicate their lives to learning, applying and mastering leadership skills. When it comes to being a leader in the contact center, don’t be discouraged if authority doesn’t come naturally to you. With a little training, hard work and perseverance, you have the capacity to become a respected part of your contact center leadership. Here are five things you can do to start transforming yourself into a leader. Promote Action : Contrary to popular belief, a leader isn’t someone who bends the will of others. A leader is someone who shows the way and encourages others to make their own choices. Even if you can see that someone’s decision is likely to lead to inopportune consequences, it is important to give them the freedom to choose. This doesn’t mean you can’t give them your opinion or try to help them see a better way, but you should never coerce them into doing things your way. Recognize Achievements : Never ignore the achievements of your fellow workers. Instead, publicly recognize their good work and genuinely congratulate them for their efforts. The best leaders are those that encourage the repetition of good behavior by giving praise and encouragement when it is due. While monetary reimbursement will always be excitedly accepted by the recipient, it is not always necessary. In most cases, employees are more than content to simply be recognized for their efforts and given a verbal “thank you”. You might also choose to randomly reward a superior performer with movie tickets or a gift card to a fancy restaurant. Keep generous monetary reimbursements reserved for special occasions or very rare achievements in order to keep them from becoming mundane and expected occurrences. Take Advantage of Training Opportunities : Training opportunities most likely arise on a daily basis, but if you aren’t actively watching you can easily miss them. When you see an opportunity to train someone, consider training the entire group at the same time instead of singling out one person. You may also want to reinforce the importance of proper training by holding annual or monthly training conferences. Always maintain a positive tone and focus on the way training can elevate the entire department and give them the knowledge necessary to further their skills. Listen and Learn : A good leader recognizes that there are always opportunities to learn from others. Make it a habit to carry a notepad and paper with you, and jot down notes anytime you hear or learn something new. When you listen to others and take their words to heart, you will make a positive connection with them and enhance your leadership qualities. Learn to Act : The best leaders are better at acting than hesitating. Rather than second-guessing yourself and letting opportunities pass you by, seize the moment and take action. If you see something that needs to be done in the call center, just do it, even if it doesn’t technically fall under your list of responsibilities. Being a leader is more than holding a position of authority. In fact, it is much more about becoming than being. Become the best call center leader you can be by following these five simple leadership tips. This blog was first published on LinkedIn

How to BRAND Your Company through the Hiring Process

At all times, your employees determine the rate at which you company grows because they make your customers either happy or unhappy. When you have a dedicated, competent, and loyal team you experience growth annually. However, when you have the opposite, your company struggles to grow. The secret is in attracting and keeping the right employees. As you think about the ideal candidate to work with, job seekers are also looking at whether you qualify as a good company to work for. What does your brand stand for? Is the information found all over the internet about your company building or killing you? Remember, your PR department needs to be continually building and maintaining a positive brand reputation. First impressions matter. You also need to brand your recruitment process to attract the right candidates. It is important to do this because It helps you stand out in the noisy marketplace. It improves your application rates from the right candidates. It improves employee engagement, which will lead to loyal employees who attract other loyal employees to the company. With that in mind, here are top three tips to guide you through the branding process. Market the Vacancy The first thing job seekers rate your company with is the job description. The job description should sell the available position, not just be a list of requirements and qualifications. Look at the job description as an advertisement. The job is your product and the target audience is the potential candidate. Follow the simple marketing AIDA principle. Create Attention to the right candidates Create Interest by giving relevant details of the job and its benefits Create Desire in the minds of the prospects to pursue the wonderful opportunity Make the advertisement lead to Action – the potential candidate applying for the job And don’t forget to have your company logo somewhere in the advertisement. You are not the only one looking to get the best talent in the market; your competition is also looking. Your job announcement should stand out and represent who you are as a brand. Shortlist the Candidates With the right job advertisement, you will be sure to attract many applications. The next step is to shortlist these candidates. Most resumes today are professionally written; just reading them will not give the best result. Shortlisting is narrowing down the candidates to a manageable number who can then move to the next phase. Because we are so connected, how you respond to the rejected candidates can affect your brand negatively or positively. Keep in mind what these rejected candidates say reaches so many others searching for a job. You can stand out in the eyes of all applicants by making the screening criteria public thus building credibility with them. Remember to be polite when communicating to every candidate who applies for the job. Carry Out Face-to-Face Interviews After shortlisting the candidates, it is time to carry out interviews. There are different ways of conducting interviews; you do not have to change your current style if it is working. The commonly used method includes these various stages: Pre-screening – Draft your online application forms well to capture the essential data you need from the potential candidates. You can also take them through a personality test that will determine the right fit for the particular job. Speak to them over the phone and ask more questions before inviting them to the formal interview. Structured interview – This is the second stage of the interview where you get to meet face to face with the applicants. You are both weighing each other out for the best fit. You can either meet in the office for them to experience the company culture, or have a breakfast interview. Reference checking – The last step is to speak with the references provided. Maintain professionalism throughout because once they put the phone down, they will be calling your prospective candidate. You can heighten this further by arranging a meeting between the selected candidates and the immediate team members followed by the senior management. All parties will be in a position to interact more and learn a little bit more about each other. The aim is the find the right fit for the opened position. In a nutshell, branding your company to potential employees is as important as branding for customers. Take proactive measures today and brand your business. Incorporate the company core values in all steps and the selected candidate will pick it up from the onset. In what ways are you branding your company through the hiring process? Enjoy!

How to Maintain Policy and Procedures for Effective Quality Analysis

Quality analysis is an ongoing process in the call center to guarantee that agents are delivering superior customer service. Thus, monitoring is essential to keep your finger on the pulse of how your teams are interacting with the end customer. This allows for timely coaching and behavior modification as needed. A quality monitoring system must operate under established policies and procedures to consistently deliver calibrated results. You may have an experienced quality analysis team with an expert leading them, but if you lack commitment to adhering to policies and procedures you are at risk in the effectiveness of the analysis this team delivers. Here is a list of how you can maintain policies and procedures for effective quality analysis. Step 1: Outline the Policies and Procedures First you must create the policies and procedures that will govern the quality monitoring of the call center. Policies are documentation of rules, principles, and guidelines that an organization establishes to reach a long-term goal, in this case, quality control. Procedures, on the other hand, are the specific methods that will convey the policies in the day-to-day running of the organization. This process may take a while, but it is important to invest your resources in setting a good foundation. You can look at policies and procedures as your quality delivery strategy and tactics. Areas which need to be addressed include: Productivity measurements Workflow Calibration expectations Reporting standards Escalation process Dispute process Audit the Analyst (ATA) process and communication Monthly scorecard requirements and review Company policies Career Development Step 2: Document the Standards You should have an outline of the policies and procedures governing your quality assessment process within the call center, but you need to take it a step further and document it. By publishing your policies and procedures, you make them available to all within the company. This will easily facilitate the review with new hires and allow for documentation for all team members’ adherence to standards. Step 3: Train the quality analysts Leaders are responsible for formulating policies and procedures. However, the people to implement them are the quality analysts. You need to do an intensive training for the QA’s to ensure they understand the policies and procedures and thus be in a position to deliver quality service. Step 4: Coach the quality analysts Employee coaching is paramount for continuous performance improvement. When managers coach the team members on a regular basis, they further develop their knowledge and skills. Proper coaching supplements formal training and goes beyond on-the-job training. Matters relating to quality need reinforcement regularly so that the weaker QA’s can catch up and the strong performers can become better. There is always room for improvement and as a manager and coach your role is to guide all members of your team to engage in continuous performance improvement. Step 5: Monitor and review Finally, monitor the implementation of the policies and procedures. Policies should be formally reviewed annually to ensure that efficiencies are captured and modifications are made. Adding analysts to the review team will give you a hands-on perspective as well as allow for more ownership from the QA team. In conclusion, when you create policies and procedure, document them properly, train and coach your quality analysts on the best practices and then monitor and review the process, you will maintain the policies and procedure and carry out effective quality analysis. You can have an in-house quality monitoring team that is dedicated to only quality measuring and analysis. However, it is advisable to incorporate a third party audit team to audit your internal QA team. The external team will give you additional data based on their analysis that will help you improve your quality standards and provide the operations teams with actionable data to help modify agent behavior.

The Motivations of Servant Leadership

In my 34 years in contact center management, I have seen a variety of leadership styles. What is important about leadership styles is that it sets the tone for the way a business operates. While I have participated in a variety of leadership styles over the years (autocratic, participative, democratic, etc.), I truly believe that servant leadership enables employees to feel empowered, included and valued; it is the foundation to a culture that fosters all people to reach above and beyond anything they think possible. When this happens, everyone benefits – the company and its people, the customers, the stakeholders and the communities. At its core, servant leadership is not about what a leader does, but why they do it – the motivations. Servant leaders operate in a way that tells their followers I’m here to help you succeed. Their motivation is to see others thrive, and their focus is on what they can do to help make that happen. Servant Leaders are able to view their position, not simply as a place of power and authority, but as an opportunity to hear the voices of others empowering and equiping them to succeed. They seek out the ideas of others and facilitate a place for those ideas to become realities. Servant leaders are driven to see others thrive, they place team member needs first. The natural result is the raising up of new leaders. When leading with a desire to see others thrive a culture of trust will often develop as you train and equip your team members to do their jobs, and then empower them to do them well. Employees will begin to take greater pride in their work as you allow them to step into places of leadership and ownership over their projects. Leadership that equips and encourages, trusts you to own your work and to succeed. When this happens, team members rise, teams rise, departments and the company rises. As with anything, the proof is the results and the rewards. Results and rewards of the journey as well as the destination. In 2007, we began our journey of building a culture with servant leadership at the foundation. While I believe that this is journey that is continual, a solid foundation has been built and Etech’s results have reflected this – Ninety-One (91%) percent growth in the last three years. As we continue to grow, our servant leadership culture and twelve (12) character commitments should not just grow with us, but be the catalyst to support the growth! Culture is the collective habits of our people. It is not the aspirations of leadership, culture is not what we wish it would be or think that it is; it is what it is. However, I believe that like anything else, it all rises on the leader. Every single day, every leader impacts culture by the way they walk, talk, act, lead, serve and treat others. I recently completed a book called Leaders Made Here: Building a Leadership Culture by Mark Miller. Below are some ideas presented by Mr. Miller. Be Clear – What are the key elements of your culture? How could you institutionalize these attributes? If life-long learning is a cultural norm, you could require everyone to have a personal development plan. Make no mistake, vagueness will scale and when it does, you have nothing but vagueness. Are you clear on the elements of your culture that matter most? Are you clear on the actions that can foster scale? Be Selective – You can’t scale everything. I believe attempts to do so quickly look like micro-management. In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about power of keystone habits – those habitual behaviors which have a ripple effect. Work to discover these for your culture. Be Accountable – If you want to scale a certain behavior, determine how you’ll measure your progress. And by measure, I mean real numbers, not approximations or estimates. Be Relentless – We watched a video recently of our founder asking, reminding, and telling us the appropriate response when someone says thank you is … what? We practiced saying “My pleasure” in groups as large as 5,000 people. The interesting thing about the video – it was pieced together from clips over a ten-year period! What are you relentlessly and tirelessly communicating regarding your culture? These are some thought provoking ideas. There are many things that Etech does that fall under one of these categories, but there is always more that can be done. Culture is powerful – so powerful, Peter Drucker once said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If we believe this to be true, then it is our responsibilities as leaders to ensure that we are inspiring the culture we desire and that we are the shining example for all to follow. Every day you will influence company culture. The question is will you be a positive or distracting influence? Until next time, may you make a difference in the lives you touch each day! This blog is first published on LinkedIn.

Creating Glowing Customer Reviews

Glowing customer reviews are the gold dust of modern commerce. Recent studies have consistently shown that customer reviews are one of the most significant drivers of consumer behaviour, with online reviews at least as memorable as any associated advertising. The main psychological mechanism behind the power of reviews is believed to be the innate desire to be like our peers – the “follow the crowd” and “fit in” mentality.   Defining customers and their expectations   You can’t expect to get consistently positive reviews from your customers if you don’t know who they are or what they expect from you. Customer profiling is needed to enable you to define the different groups of customers who buy into your brand, and pick up on the higher values that lie behind their purchasing behaviour. You can tap into these by using a mixture of surveys, questionnaires and more immediate measures such as on-site interviews (for physical stores) and live chat engagement for online businesses. You will discover that customers are less attracted to the features of your products or services and more to the less tangible messages conveyed by your brand: quality, prestige, professionalism, trustworthiness, trendiness, etc. With this information you can start focusing your efforts in the right area.   How to exceed expectations   Once you know what your customers expect from your brand, every touch-point between your brand and your customer becomes an opportunity to reinforce to them that your business can meet those expectations. So if your customers expect your brand to be at the cutting edge of technology, keep up to date with the latest advances and be the first to integrate them into your business. If your customers expect an attentive service, every message communicated to them, whether face-to-face, by email or over the telephone, should be focused on satisfying their every need. By creating a detailed customer experience map you can focus in on every touch-point and ensure your staff and systems support your brand message. Taking this approach will already put you a step ahead of most of your competitors but to achieve those glowing reviews you have to over-deliver on each of these touch-points. A good example is the out-of-town car dealership that not only valets your vehicle as you wait but gives you and your family bus tickets so you can do some shopping.   Soliciting reviews   Many businesses fall down by not actually giving customers the opportunity to give a glowing review. You may have a profile on Yelp! or Facebook, but if your customers are not told specifically that they can leave their feedback on these platforms they may never think to do so. Blog-sale surveys are another place where you can ask for feedback, but make sure the customers have to either opt-in or opt-out of publicizing their reviews. Similarly, if a customer emails you with a glowing review, don’t assume you can use it in your marketing – it is polite to ask them first.   When it goes wrong: rescue tactics   Of course, there is always the possibility that someone will post a bad review of your product or service. This is not necessarily a bad thing as a balanced score – with a range of reviews – can actually look more authentic than a 100% track record. If you do pick up a bad review, don’t panic and take the following steps: Respond immediately – this shows you care about your customers and are conscientious Apologize for their experience Correct any factual discrepancies with a simple, non-defensive correction Apologize for any specific failures and promise to rectify the issue immediately Thank them for their valuable feedback If you want to offer any compensation, contact the customer directly. Bloging an offer of compensation publicly is an invitation for more bad reviews!

Increasing Your Social Traffic With Live Chat

While you might already be perfectly aware of the existence of live chat, you might not be too well versed on how to use the tool to effectively increase your company’s social media traffic. Like most things in life, there’s a right way and a wrong way to utilize live chatting while promoting organic marketing. Learn how to better serve your customers rather than serve as an annoyance to them. The Social Toolbar Some live chat app developers have created a social toolbar for direct use in helpdesk apps and live chats. The social toolbar is intended to link social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook directly into chat widgets. Besides following your company’s Twitter page directly from the chat widget, customers also have the option of linking your company’s Facebook page directly from the chat widget. Both options allow for natural marketing with a minimum amount of effort and pressure, which you and your customers are sure to enjoy. Now you don’t have to go out of your way to market and advertise your company or services, and customers can learn more about your company as well as the products and services you offer simply through your chat widget. Subtlety at Its Best Another great thing about the social media toolbar is that it works just as well with your customized themes, giving you the same benefits with a different layout that’s more in line with your preferences and company. Since consumers are using multiple methods of communication on multiple devices, it’s important to mention that the toolbar works the same on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. No matter where your customers are or which device they’re using, they’ll have full use of your live chat capabilities. Integration Benefits When used on Twitter, the social toolbar can: Bring in more followers Improve the scope of your marketing Help you better interact with customers and potential customers in their natural online environment Let you share informational posts and content When used on Facebook, the toolbar can: Get you more likes Supplement your Facebook app Help you perfect your services and products by giving you more info about your customer’s desires Improve the trust between your company and your customers Rather than look at the most traditional and popular ways to increase your company’s social media traffic, look at the issue from a different angle. Customers have more options than ever when it comes to the businesses they support and turn to for specific products and services. Live chatting and social media toolbars are useful and effective ways to communicate with your customers and take better care of them, but they’re also great ways to improve your brand as well as your reputation. Additional Benefits Live chat can also increase your conversion rate. One of the main reasons customers go elsewhere to do their shopping is that a company has a confusing checkout process or a complicated shopping experience. With live chat, customers can get immediate assistance rather than further frustrate themselves as they scour the company’s website in search of help. Not only can this encourage the customer to leave a positive review of the company on social media, it can also make it easier on the company’s call center and customer services department. Boost your social traffic and your company’s reputation with the power of live chat. When done right, you can soon become the company buzzing on everyone’s lips and fingertips.

3 Ways Call Center Quality Improves With Artificial Intelligence

The communication that occurs between customers and agents in your call center hold incredibly valuable information. There are many industry advancements that make it easier to collect insights captured by those calls or text-based chats, but Artificial intelligence (AI) is one that has proven incredibly valuable for the call center sector. AI is an especially powerful tool regarding improving and maintaining quality levels in your customer interactions. It Lets You Monitor How Agents Handle Customer Queries Quality monitoring is crucial for the success of a call center, and using Artificial Intelligence to monitor the effectiveness of your customer relations can lead to better results than ever. With AI you are able to record and transcribe every call that comes in, and analyze what was said in the interaction. As a result, you can evaluate how agents deal with various types of questions and ensure they’re following best practices. If they aren’t, it’s easy to provide specific constructive feedback and keep quality levels high. It Detects Useful Business Patterns A powerful asset of artificial intelligence is automated quality monitoring. This gives you the ability to track trends in your customer feedback. For example, after launching a new login portal for a website, calls from users who don’t understand how to access their accounts might go up by an estimated 25%. That’s a shift worth your attention, but you might not notice the severity of the issue without an intelligent call center solution that includes automated quality monitoring. AI is able to report to you on the data that most needs your attention. Some interfaces allow you to look at history-related metrics. These break down the total number of calls received over a chosen time period, by analyzing data and discovering the most common topics. If metrics show that over the last two weeks a higher than average number of callers were highly satisfied and said they had come to your company after leaving a competitor, then your recent practices are worth continuing. Based on the knowledge gained from captured data, you can then determine whether there are problems that need to be fixed. The information also confirms if the business techniques you’re using are working as intended. It Helps You Stay Compliant Many call center managers have their staff members follow scripts. This approach ensures all customers get similar experiences and reduces your liability. Quality monitoring is an easy way to track this, and enjoy peace of mind, knowing for certain your team members are following the scripts as they’ve been trained to do. If necessary, you can intervene and give guidance to maintain compliant communications. Artificial Intelligence is the next step to managing your call center, and maintaining the level of success that your customers have come to expect. AI-derived knowledge from all your calls combines technology with a human touch. Consider investing in one soon. This blog is first published on LinkedIn.

How to Grow and Deliver a Superior Customer Experience

When running any business, even a call center, the goal is to ensure it grows every year and deliver a superior customer experience. In my experience everyone is happy when the company can deliver superior service, the clients, the management, and the end consumers. It’s a win-win for everyone. It is therefore safe to say that, your call center activities should enable you to become superior around quality and delivery of world class service. The real question is what are the reasons holding you back from becoming superior or delivering world class service? As I was thinking about this lately, I looked at the structure and operations of Etech Global Services, what has helped us to keep improving and offering superior quality to our clients? I will highlight three main reasons that I believe have made a huge difference. Leadership The leadership of a company builds or destroys it. As a leader you carry the torch, the vision of the company and everyone looking up to you works in line with the values you portray. The saying that a leader has influence is true; your team will be influenced and follow you only if they see you are worth following. It starts with you as an individual, your character, your values and your behavior. Is your leadership helping your call center get better? If not what areas do you need to work on? Employee turnover You understand the demands of a contact center and you need great agents to help meet all the demands. At Etech, we believe that having happy team members means happy customers. There are dozens of reasons why employees quit; wrong job fit, poor working environment, supervisor problems, poor pay and lack of career advancement opportunities to name a few. Knowing and understanding your agents is the first step in giving them what they need to succeed and make the contact center successful as well. Are you supporting and empowering your agents to help them perform beyond the set targets, and empowering them to happily satisfy the customers? Right tools It is impossible to dig a huge hole in the ground using a spoon, right! The same applies to having the right tools for the job. Using wrong or outdated tools affects the contact center performance. At Etech, we keep up with the ever-changing technology because we know and understand our success lies in having high customer satisfaction levels and the ever changing digital world we all live in. The right tools make our agents work more efficiently and they are actually happier. Important to note is that the right training has to be offered to the agents to maximize their output. Do you have the right tools for the job? In addition, are you training your agents on how to use these tools? As outlined above, answer these questions honestly and you may find the answers to why you are not growing and delivering superior customer experience. You can create and maintain a great contact center program that ensures constant growth, it is not an easy feat but it is possible to achieve. Focus on every stakeholder as you develop it for the good of the business. Effective customer experience is at the heart of a successful business. To exceed your customers’ expectations and maintain a productive team, reach out to Etech. Etech Global Services is recognized as one of the Top Call Center Companies by DesignRush providing innovative contact center solutions and frameworks that your company needs for long-term success.

Top 4 Benefits of a Pre-Chat Survey in Live Chat

A pre-chat survey enables the collection of visitor information prior to the chat session beginning and quickly route the session to the agent most qualified to manage the chat. It is beneficial in service and support scenarios because visitors already expect to provide initial information to have their issue resolved. Some sample pre-chat survey questions include: Name Email address User ID or account Order or ticket number When customers request live chat services, they should be able to provide some preliminary data in a pre-chat survey to set the course of the chat session. For example, they can provide their name and a quick description of what they need. At that point, the chat agent is prepared to enter the discussion with solutions regarding the customer’s concerns. Role of Pre-Chat Surveys Pre-chat surveys serve a significant role in supporting your customers. It is the earliest chance to obtain precise information from a client, so it is important to design pre-chat survey questions that count. Pre-chat surveys help you to get to know your customers better. By customizing the questions, you can improve the responses and enhance case resolution. The top four benefits of designing a pre-chat survey include: Handle situations that begin with a pre-chat survey immediately. Thoughtfully designing questions provide a plethora of additional information, eliminating the need to for details once the live chat starts. You can also add options that enable customers to select particular department they want to reach. For example, if they need to change the shipping address for their order, they can go straight to the section that handles address changes without waiting for an agent to get them to that area. Pre-chat surveys produce meaningful discussions. When businesses utilize custom-tailored surveys, the chat lengths decrease significantly. The more information available, the shorter the chats, and the faster that cases can be resolved. Questions are easier to answer with the availability of a pre-chat survey. Not all problems can be solved in one chat because some are just too complex or are too involved to handle via chat. However, custom pre-chat surveys are an extremely successful method for resolving complex situations quickly. More satisfied customers. Anything might be helpful during live chats should be included in the pre-chat survey design. Nonetheless, you need to limit the number of questions. Make sure to ask only about the most noteworthy details that are vital to swiftly resolving issues. The sweet spot is no more than five precise questions, including name and email address. Aside from the issues, the survey should also include a brief welcome message and an invitation to chat. Select questions that help quickly extract the details you need to help solve a problem. What’s more, all the information agents gather is useful even after the chat ends. For instance, you can offer to send a copy of the chat transcript to the customer. Also, by establishing up customized variables, you can display information about your clients directly using live chat software to provide more for your agents to work with when answering customers’ questions.

Are You Coachable?

Even Michael Jordan had a coach, coaching your team is important if you want to drive continuous improvement. Effective coaching is a two-way street, where the coach offers to guide the individual and that person must cooperate and follow through. Essentially, the Coach helps the Coachee to come up with the solutions by highlighting performance improvement areas. We have looked at coaching on several occasions but from the coaches perspective. As I considered this topic, I realized that not much has been said about the Coachee and that relationship cannot work without both parties active involvement. As an employee, are you ready to for coaching? What should you do to ensure that the coaching sessions are successful? Here are my thoughts on how the Coachee can make the coaching successful. 1: Have A Willing Heart A willing heart is a first and most important point. You should be willing to accept the coaching with your manager. Given the nature of coaching where you come up with the solutions to the problems, a willing heart will make the process smoother. A willing heart means that you can take criticism and direction from someone else, and be flexible to use it for the benefit of the company. It will also benefit you as an individual and your career growth. Without a willing heart, the process will be an uphill battle that can lead to hating the job or your manager instead of improving your performance. “Where the heart is willing, it will find a thousand ways: where is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses” Arlen Price 2: Be Committed Coaching is a process that requires commitment, and when you are under fire or criticism, it is easy to give up. Complete commitment means believing you are worthwhile in terms of who you are and what you do. Your coach cannot make you commit to the process; it has to come from within. Allowing yourself and our cause to have sufficient psychological and material resources to achieve your career goals is self-commitment. Without it, you will sabotage yourself by giving all sorts of excuses and negative self-talk. Commit to the coaching process and the outcome will be great. “Nothing will work unless you do.” John Wooden 3: Have Inner Strength Your inner strength will take you miles ahead. When faced with a hard situation at work, how do you respond to it? You can react in two ways, meet with it head on and get a solution or break down. Having inner strength is your ability to control your emotional responses when under pressure and be able to concentrate on what is important. For example, you are an account manager and you lose a key customer. This huge loss will make the leadership ask questions. Your immediate boss will call you for a meeting to figure out what went wrong and how can that customer be won back or how to improve what the company did not to repeat the same mistakes. That is a coaching session, and your inner strength will help you put it together, look at every interaction you have had with the customers and come up with solutions to win them back. Without it, you will not even see where the problem is and the session will be futile. 4: Take Full Responsibility Yes, take full responsibility for your actions and reactions. Remember that at work, when you are being coached, it is more of giving you directions and pushing in the right way. However, you cannot go anywhere if you do not acknowledge your mistakes and successes. When you perform well, accept the applause’s, and when you perform poorly, own your mistakes and be the first to correct it. Your coach will be there to highlight your weak areas, and you can find the best ways to improve them. Taking full responsibility requires you to be humble. 5: Respect your coach Whose advice do you follow? The one you respect or the one you do not? I believe you will listen and follow someone that you respect. To benefit from the coaching, you need to respect your coach. Do not confuse respect with fear. When you fear someone, you will not be open to him or her. When you respect someone, you will be open and have constructive conversations. In summary, when you have a willing heart, you are committed, you have inner strength, you take full responsibility and you respect your coach, the coaching will successful. Remember you are the beneficiary of the coaching. Enjoy and be coachable! This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, Chief Customer Officer for Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

Cultivating Professional Trust

Being in a leadership position in any sort of environment is challenging. No matter the uniqueness of their individual situations, all leaders typically find themselves facing the same obstacle at some point: mistrust. It’s often a natural reaction for subordinates to feel as though those operating above them achieved their positions by only looking out for their own self-interests. This makes being able to cultivate an environment of trust one of the most important leadership skills that one can possess. If you hold a position of authority within your company, it ’s important that you understand the impact that mistrust can have on your team. Not only does affect the way that your employees receive instruction and guidance from you, but it also impacts how they work with each other. When no trust is present, people live in fear of not only asking for help, but also offering it. This “every man for himself ” sort of attitude is the primary obstacle to developing an effective organization culture. How to Show Employees that You Care The responsibility falls to you, then, to create a work environment that’s conducive to trusting in each other. Here are just a few examples of workplace practices that can help to build it: Show how relationships are mutually beneficial: To say that every team member’s role is important can be viewed as incredibly cliche, no matter how true it may be. Employees need to actually be able to see the impact that their work has in order to truly value it. Thus, rather than trying to manage every aspect of employee workflow, consider giving more ownership of your employees’ responsibilities directly to them. This not only introduces an added measure of accountability, but it also demonstrates the level of trust you have in them successfully filling their roles within the team. They, in turn, will trust in your promise to offer them support in order to fulfill them. Let employees do what they do best: No two employees will share the same strengths and aptitudes. When you’re working in an environment where multiple people share the same job description, it’s easy for employees to feel as though their talents aren’t appreciated. Keep a sharp eye out for what each of your team member’s talents may be, and then consider revising their roles to allow them to do more of what they do best. This helps to take unwanted workflow off of other’s plates and raise the overall quality of the work being done. It also shows to your employees that you’ve paid close attention to them and recognized their skill sets. Prove that relationships are more important than outcomes: You don’t want to be viewed as the over-demanding taskmaster driving your team to near-collapse. Simply driving an unmotivated workforce to work harder is only increasing the output of mediocre work. Instead, put people before projects, and let your team know that being at their best means taking care of themselves both in and out of work. If that means taking a day off here or there, so be it. Your success as leader depends largely on having the trust and support of your team members. We here at Etech Global Services have years of experience in working with companies and corporations to help improve their processes. Part of that has been helping individual team leaders develop the skills necessary to motive and inspire those that they manage. Let us help you ensure the full effort of your team by creating an effective and efficient atmosphere of trust and respect.

9 Effective Tips for Customer Service on Social Media

Not only has social media changed the way we communicate and reconnect with old classmates, family and friends, it’s also changed how companies connect with their customers and audience. Learn the nine steps of the customer service dance as you strut across the social media floor. 1. Make Sure Your Support Teams Are Well Trained Anyone who is assisting customers should know where to direct customers and the overall responsibilities of each of your company’s departments. This knowledge ensures questions are fully answered and answered in a timely manner. Some companies have created social media profiles devoted to customer support that are separate from their main company profiles, which makes helping customers even more efficient. 2. Consistency Is Key It’s essential that you have the same individual or team oversee your social media customer services to that customers have a consistent experience. Not only is this a good way to ensure the customer doesn’t feel as if he or she is being passed around, it also helps you to deliver consistent service from customer to customer. 3. Be Prompt Realize that your customers are expecting their questions to be answered just as quickly as they are expecting to connect to the internet or order food. It’s best to aim for taking care of customers within 60 minutes. If you’re unable to answer a question or address a concern in this amount of time, at least let the customer know you’re working on it. 4. Show Your Human Side Don’t make customers feel as though they’re talking to a live chat robot. Show videos and images of your employees having fun at work and add some humor to your responses when appropriate. Taking this route is good for generating goodwill and getting a smile from your customers. 5. Take Responsibility There are times when the customer is clearly at fault for a problem and other times when it’s you who needs to own up. Humans make mistakes, and we should take responsibility for those mistakes, even if there’s a chance of damaging your company’s reputation. 6. Act Rather Than React Instead of always reacting to customer complaints or questions, take out time to act on customer concerns. Sometimes simply acknowledging a customer is enough to restore their faith in your company. Remember that not everything has to be about the bottom line. 7. Man Your Customer Service Stations If you have more than one social media profile, make sure you have someone paying attention to each of them in order that questions don’t linger on the vine unanswered. For multiple social media profiles, you can use services such as Hootsuite to manage all of your platforms in one place. 8. Anticipate Questions Problems are an inevitable part of owning a business. Rather than waiting for customers to ask a question about a website glitch or a product recall, inform your customers of what’s going on and keep them updated on developments. 9. Ensure That the Right Person Is Answering a Question Just like you wouldn’t take a problem with your cable to your doctor, you should make sure an employee with technical knowledge is answering the more technical questions. Putting these nine tips to good use on social media is one of the best things you can do to put your business on the fast track to customer service success.

Technology And Its Impact On Consumer Behavior

Often a company leadership faces unending challenges especially when it comes to the rapid technological changes. Since the emergence of information technology, company communication with its customers took a turn to an unknown destination. Just think back ten years ago or even 5 years, how were businesses reaching their customers? How were customers reaching them? Compare that to how communication is passing between the two parties now and who is driving it. Technology has placed the power in the customers’ hands literally with the internet enabled smart phone and tablets. Note, that these devices are always being improved such that the newest version offers more to the consumers, making the previous one obsolete in as little as six months’ time. How and why has technology changed the way consumers behave? Here are a few things that you need to keep in mind as you reinvent your strategies to keep up with the consumers. Customers are connected Almost everybody is living two lives, a vibrant online life and a somewhat boring offline one. We are all connected in one platform or another through our network of friends. We also own more than one device that keeps us updated. This means that we thrive on being active and informed online, and ExactTarget Marketing content verified this from a study they did, whereby 91% of consumers indicated that access to content across all devices was important. Information technology advancements fuel the connectivity that brings together the world as one big community, from the smart phones to super-fast data. This trend is not about to change because now kids as young as 5 years know how to operate a smart phone, LinkedIn even lowered its age limit to 13years to capitalize on the technology adoption rate. Companies need to meet the consumers where they are and satisfy their sophisticated needs. If your target market spends more time on Instagram or Twitter, be present and respond to them on the same platform. Are you doing enough to leverage technology and handle the informed consumer? Consumer expectations have changed In the past, as a company you set the times that you were open for business, and customers had to put up with it or stay without that particular product. Technology has totally changed that, with the introduction of e-commerce and mobile phones, customers can access products at anytime. They have raised expectations on what is acceptable customer service and what is not. As a business, you have to keep up with the changed consumer behavior or be out of business. For example, if a customer wants to purchase something online at night and has a query, they expect to get instant answers. If they do not they choose another supplier from the myriad available online who can meet their immediate need. Consumers now understand the power they have and will use it when not satisfied with a service. A simple expression of their dissatisfaction on your social media that is not responded to immediately will ignite uproar from other customers who were OK with your products and service. New communication channels In the past, a company provided customer service through emails –that did not get prompt responses – and phone calls. These two communication tools had their own challenges and favored the company more; it was at their discretion what information to give out. This age however, is very refreshed. Social media platforms and live chat place you right in front of your customer; you cannot sacrifice your customer to maintain your brand position. Actually, when you do not respond to a query, you damage your brand reputation because that information is accessible to millions of people. The upside of these new tools is that you have a wider data collection pool; you can fast track your research and development by utilizing the big data. In conclusion, we have seen the growth of technology and its impact on consumer behavior. We have looked at three ways that consumer behavior has changed, from connected consumers to changed expectations and new communication tools use. I believe the statement “Customer is King” has never been experienced by companies like in this information technology era. Customers now know they are powerful, what are you doing to quench their instant information thirst? This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, Executive Vice President of Global Development for Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

5 Colossal Reasons to Focus on Social Customer Service

The enormous snowball effect of social media has fundamentally transformed the buying cycle. Businesses need to be equipped to answer and discover the best methods for working with today’s customers. Digital innovations coupled with the tremendous increase of social media has driven the evolution of social customer service and the appearance of a new consumer, one who can tumble even the largest brands. This undeniable authority is the social customer. Who is the Social Customer? Social media provides a private, intimate connection between all consumers. More than one million people view tweets about customer service weekly, and roughly 80 percent of all customer service tweets are critical or negative. The social customer is changing everything that businesses thought they knew about establishing customer relations by: Listening to peers Bloging complaints on social media Researching heavily online Expectations are high, and the social customer expects constant connectivity and instant solutions at any hour of the day. Paying Attention to Your Customers The social customer is found everywhere because at least 20 percent of the world’s population uses social media. Here are five colossal reasons that companies should focus on various ways to prioritize social customer services. 1. Social customers listen to their peers, not to your business. Online review sites and forums have replaced marketing and PR efforts, and these reviews are completely out of the hands of business owners. Social customers no longer listen to company messages. They listen to peers instead. The power has shifted from the brand to their customers. 2. Unhappy customers tell their friends, who tell their friends. The words of the customers have become the new trusted voice, so listen to your customers and build relationships with them. On average, one social customer will tell 42 other people about a company. Have a detailed crisis-management plan in place to respond. 3. Ignore the social customer and you’ll lose their business. If a company fails to respond to a question or post on social media, many social customers view this as a breakdown in trust. Select one or more employees to be available 24/7 on social media. 4. Adjust to the social customer’s expectations and you’ll make them happy. The social customer’s expectations are extremely demanding, regardless of whether it’s the weekend, holidays or during peak seasons. Smart companies are scrambling to make necessary adjustments to meet these demands. 5. Actively engage with the social customer and you’ll see better results. Social customers no longer call or email customer support when they have a problem. Now they just post their issues publicly on social media. Intelligent brands that thoroughly acknowledge the authority of the social customer and engage with them can use it to their advantage by providing exceptional customer service. On the average, businesses that engage with customers over social media will see a 20 to 40 percent increase in sales. The Bottom Line Regardless of how you feel when a customer complains about your company on social media, you should always respond. When reacting to the social customer, remember to do it quickly, be human, don’t be defensive, thank the customer and always suggest a solution to the problem.

The Social Enabled Call Center: How to Create a Social Media Call Center (Part 2)

In my last blog post, we defined what a Social Enabled Call Center is, a call center using social media platforms to effectively interact with their customers. We also looked at a couple of ways to enhance the customer experience within the Social Media call center. Hiring customer centric people and increasing response times across all channels were two primary means of building a socially enabled call center. Let’s take a look at a few more ways to create and strengthen a socially enabled call center. Plan for quick and personal service: In addition to developing quick response times, it is essential that call centers develop personal service. Based on recent statistics from Forrester, 82% of consumers say that “getting their issues resolved quickly is the number one factor to a great customer experience.” However, in addition to wanting quick resolution, customers also expect a certain level of personalized service. They want to be treated as a valued customer and one that is known by the company. One of the benefits of social media is the quick and personal response that it offers. A quick and relevant response from the call center via social media is an important component to building your social media call center. Lead from the Front: Train your agents to excellence by providing excellent leadership. The answers provided by call center agents are as good as the advice and direction they receive from their managers. Lead by example and remember that attitude is everything. Train, Train, Train: On-going training of your agents is another key component of the socially enabled call center. Well trained agents tend to be satisfied agents who then deliver excellent customer service. Provide training in all relevant areas and then empower your agents to do what they need to do to resolve the customer’s issue. Always seek feedback: Regular customer feedback is essential to creating and maintaining a superior socially enabled call center. The best way to solicit feedback is through short customer surveys. A short survey ensures a response from your customer; who wants to answer a ton of questions. Making the questions relevant enables you to pinpoint specific areas that need addressing. Short and relevant customer surveys are an invaluable tool for your call center. Social Media is here to stay so creating and maintaining a socially enabled call center is essential in today’s market. If you’re not sure how many times your business was mentioned this week on Twitter, Yelp! Google+ or Facebook then it’s time to make your call center a Socially Enabled call center. This blog was written by Etech’s Jim Iyoob, Chief Customer Officer. If you would like to learn more about Etech and how to develop a socially enabled call center, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

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