Whether your realize it or not, your call center agents may be your organization's best tool in meeting its marketing objectives. When you look at some of the most successful brands, many of them rely on customer service driven models to increase their bottom lines. And in order to do this -- achieve maximum customer satisfaction -- organizations have to be truly focused on understanding your customer's journey and experience with your brand and deliver consistent engagement across all communication channels and touchpoints.

Customers expect service to be agile and seamless whether the interaction is in-person, mobile or online. It's perfectly natural for today's consumers to begin an interaction with your brand on one channel and end it on another. Additionally, understanding that one customer's recommendation can travel across many digital platforms and have long-lasting, positive effects for your brand is also key to developing a customer service-driven marketing strategy. However, the converse is true as well. The digital life of bad reviews can also having lasting impact.

Marketing benefits greatly from the insights provided by customer service. And while your customer service team is primarily responsible for responding to, and perhaps in some cases, monitoring the voice of the customers, organizations should establish a collaborative partnership with marketing to ensure continuity in brand messaging and the quality of interaction through every engagement. This requires strategic planning and solid execution.

By reviewing customer feedback about products and services regularly, important information can be gathered, reviewed and used to develop new initiatives and campaigns. Customer service agents can also be used as a vehicle to share key marketing messages in each interaction with customers.

At the executive level managing this process of using customer feedback to drive marketing is gaining traction. Call center leadership is able to translate this information up effectively sharing the voice of the customer and offering insight into the channels they are using and how they are using them. This is imperative in the digital age because of the sheer amount of information to which consumers have access. They can very easily go online to compare rates, read reviews and get started with a competitor easily and quickly. Organizations have to be nimble and ready to adjust quickly to retain customers.

It has been said that, marketing is the new customer service and customer service is the new marketing. However, it's important that departmental silos are broken down and synergistic partnerships can be formed. Meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations using reliable data is now a critical component to managing the customer experience well. It not only leads to a more invested, engaged customer, but also creates more efficiency within the organization.

A focus on building superior customer service should be at the top of your organization's business objectives and CRM is key to making it happen. The long-term benefits of this collaboration go beyond reaching marketing goals. They include achieving multi-departmental goals and the success of departments individually. Additionally, organizations are more likely to maximize profits and increase market share.

As social media continues to play a major role in how companies engage and  support their customer's needs, an increasing number of companies are evaluating whether this engagement requires its own department or if it can be incorporated into the existing customer support infrastructure. If call centers handle customer service, the question becomes how, and to what extent social media can be integrated into operations.

It's clear that when it comes to customer support, call center agents are most likely already the best trained personnel to handle issues. They're already familiar with responding to various complaints, inquiries or comments. They know how to handle a high volume of interaction. They are trained to address issues in a timely manner. They know how to implement escalation procedures. They're  accustomed to reporting findings. And they're comfortable dealing with the public. But while all of these skills make the call center a feasible resource for handling customer service issues channeled through social media, there are major considerations to vet.

Qualifications of a social media call center agent

The most obvious requirement is that the agent come to the table with some level of understanding of the different social media platforms, how they function and the nature and tone of their conversations. Facebook interaction will look much different than Twitter interaction; Reddit links and YouTube comments will require an altogether different kind of handling. The agent will need to be flexible and adept enough to approach each service issue appropriately based on the social media channel or channels it comes through.

How success is measured will change

Vadim Anikanov, an expert on social media-based customer care, says to measure success you can still adapt the main KPI groups: Quantity, Quality, Customer Feedback, Call Outcome and Call Economics.  He explains that the key challenge is correctly determining the base unit – unlike a single phone call, interactions in social media may lack a clearly defined end. It would be fairly normal to see a customer responding to an agent a few hours later, or maybe a few days. It would still be part of the same thread.

Anikanov also says that it is normal to see multiple media shifts within the same interaction. The issue may start on Twitter or Facebook, continue on company forums, do a direct VoIP call or Skype chat or refer to an instructional video on YouTube.  All of these communication ‘bursts’ would still be part of the same communication, he writes.

Social media is very human

By its very nature, social media is about personal connections. It's informal and conversational. The agent in this role will have to lose any script-like responses to issues. There will still need to be set procedures and protocol to follow, but their delivery should match the tone of the medium. Stodgy, canned conversation won't resonate in the world of social media and might even cause more damage.

Customers who reach out via social media are different in that they are quite relational. Social media gives your company a unique opportunity to connect with them on a personal level which can be far more valuable than a phone call with an agent. The key to making the most of these interactions, however, is to make sure you recognize early that call center customer service and social customer service won't be carbon copies of each other.

The debate has been raging for some time now, and though petitions have been circulated online, the issue still remains. Should 911 call centers be funded by cell phone surcharges or by taxpayer funds?

In New York State (as well as in seven other states across the nation), the $1.20 cell phone surcharge, which used to be called the 911 surcharge, does not help fund 911 call centers in the cell phone owner’s local area. Instead, these monies go into the New York State General Fund, and counties and cities must dip into local taxpayer funds in order to cover costs for their 911 centers.

Funds of some sort are of critical importance to any 911 call center. In addition to paying staff, these centers must also purchase and maintain equipment in order to continue to provide their life-saving services to the public.

Funding Without Surcharges

When cell phone surcharges are not put towards the funding of these centers, counties and cities have no choice but to raid taxpayer funds for this purpose, so that services can continue. But taking money from taxpayers to fund 911 centers is strongly discouraged by the federal government – so much so, in fact, that because of this, these seven states are not allowed to apply for several Federal Grant Programs.

If this situation were changed, those extra streams of income would become available to these states. In addition, taxpayer funds could be put to other important uses. And the cell phone surcharge would cover the basic needs of the 911 centers.

Since emergency call centers are always growing and evolving, though, additional funds can become necessary. With changes in technology, systems often need to be upgraded and replaced. And who knows what the future may hold as far as new ways of requesting help from 911 services! Texting, email, and chat are just a few of the possible methods of communication that may soon be incorporated into 911 contact centers.

Funding With Surcharges

To cover these extra costs, there is a simple solution. Right now, customers who own prepaid cell phones do not pay that $1.20 surcharge. But prepaid devices account for 42% of cellular sales today. If every single phone that has access to 911 were charged the surcharge, and all those funds went to the 911 center closest to each phone’s owner, it would go a long way towards solving the current funding problem.

The New York State 911 Coordinators Association, a group of 911 professionals from around New YorkState, has petitioned their state senators to push for a change in the legislation that would allow both the allocation of these funds towards the 911 centers, as well as the collection of the surcharge from prepaid customers. But as of today, nothing has changed.

The cell phone surcharges continue to be placed in the NY State General Fund, which is used for such mundane items as hotel rooms and new staff cars for government officials. This just doesn’t make sense.

When a crime occurs or disaster strikes, families need to be able to reach 911 easily, and rely on their services to help them. Without the proper funding, they simply cannot provide those services reliably. Common sense dictates that the cell phone 911 surcharge be put towards 911 services.

 

No matter what type of contact center you run, from customer service to technical support to sales, eventually, your employees are going to have to deal with an angry customer. It’s never a pleasant experience, but there are steps that can be taken to make sure that the situation is handled as smoothly as possible, and that the customer hangs up feeling calmer than when he called.

Thorough training is imperative to prepare agents for these situations, and a cheat sheet with a list of tips at each station couldn’t hurt, either. It’s helpful to have a reminder in sight when emotions begin to run high. The most important thing of all, however, is for your employees always to keep in mind that the customer is not angry at them personally – that realization can go a long way towards helping them keep their cool while being yelled at.

Another thing that is vital for your agents to remember is that the customer is always right – even when they’re wrong. With that in mind, here are 7 tips to handling an angry customer:

1. Agents should never argue with a customer. Arguing will only make the situation worse. Even if the customer is clearly in the wrong, train your employees to remain calm, positive, and professional at all times. Their goal should be to calm the customer and resolve the situation in a way that satisfies him or her – not to prove them wrong.

2. Agents should listen more than they talk. You know the old saying about the reason we have two ears and only one mouth, right? Angry customers need to feel that their complaints are being heard; otherwise, they’ll become even angrier. Train your employees to hear them out completely, rather than jumping in with comments and suggestions right away.

3. Agents should empathize with customers. Once the customer has had a chance to voice their complaint, your employees should convey to him or her that they understand and empathize. This alone can sometimes diffuse the tension instantly. Letting the customer know they are on their side, and will do all they can to help them, will contribute greatly to the successful resolution of the situation.

4. Agents should be patient. Patience is a virtue, remember? And doubly so in a contact center environment. An emotional customer may need things explained more than once, or may repeat himself in an effort to make sure his concerns are understood, and it can be hard to remain calm and patient. But doing so will pay off immensely when your customer feels that things have been handled satisfactorily.

5. Agents should remain positive no matter what. Angry customers don’t want to hear about what agents can’t do, or what isn’t possible. They want solutions. Luckily, any negative statement can easily be turned into a positive one. For example, instead of saying “I can’t…,” agents should try, “What I can do for you is…”

6. After a negative call, agents should take a little time to de-stress. Even the most patient, positive, professional agent will need a few minutes to regain their composure after a tough call. Allow them to take 5 to get a cup of coffee or take a short walk around the office to shake off the stress. Their performance afterwards will demonstrate just how important this is.

If you are looking for a more efficient way to train your contact center workforce in areas such as customer service, why not take a look at KOVA’s Verint Media Recorder eLearning and Verint Media Recorder Coaching solutions? To find out how we can customize a solution for your call center, contact us today!

Effective UC (unified communications) solutions can play an integral role in streamlining the communication processes and outcomes for any contact center. As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speeds, a well-thought-out UC (unified communications) plan that allows for ongoing change can help your enterprise communicate more efficiently and ultimately, more profitably.

UC has long been a buzzword in the world of I.T., but what does UC mean? In his blog post on this very topic, Rick McCharles’ definition of unified communications is spot on. McCharles defines UC as “An evolving communications technology architecture which automates and unifies all forms of human and device communications in context, and with a common experience. Its purpose is to optimize business processes and enhance human communications by reducing latency, managing flows and eliminating device and media dependencies.”

Essentially, you have multiple people, having multiple conversations, using multiple devices, communicating in multiple formats, at different times and from different locations. Simply put, UC solutions can help make these conversations more efficient. It’s important to note, that there is no one-size-fits all UC solution. Most enterprises will need to integrate multiple UC solutions into their UC architecture plan.

If your enterprise is in the process of developing your UC architecture, and considering which UC solutions to incorporate into your UC plan, there are several key factors to keep in mind.

1. Cost Justification. UC solutions can come with a hefty price tag, and your leadership team will need to know how this investment will pay off and how soon. In other words, what return on investment (ROI) can you expect to see after implementing your UC architecture plan and over what period of time? What ongoing costs are associated with your plan? After assessing your enterprise’s operation, your potential UC solution vendors should be able to help you answer this question, so be sure to ask. This information will also be helpful when comparing one vendor’s solution to another’s.

2. Adaptability. We have all seen how quickly technology changes, and today’s great innovation will be old news before we know it. When evaluating UC solutions, look for technology and vendors that are looking toward the future. In other words, can the solutions being offered today be easily updated as technology evolves? How well will different solutions work together? The adaptability factor is crucial for protecting your investment.

3. Reliability. This factor is especially important for emergency contact centers, where mere seconds can mean the difference between life and death. How reliable is the solution and how reliable is the vendor when it comes to resolving issues with the solutions they provide? What back up systems are included should the main solution fail? How helpful will the vendor be when the need to integrate new or different technology arises? Ask for references and talk with all of them before signing on the dotted line.

4. Roll-out Process. You will also want to talk with potential UC solution vendors about how they manage the roll out of a new installation – whether it’s a solo vendor or multiple vendors working together. An experienced UC solution provider should understand the need to avoid workflow interruptions for contact center agents and be flexible in scheduling installations during non-peak hours and in phases where appropriate.

At KOVA Corporation we work with our enterprise clients to develop flexible, custom, enterprise contact center and workforce management solutions that accomplish their specific needs and goals. Contact a KOVA representative to learn more.

With a growing number of organizations taking advantage of the cost savings associated with at-home, or remote call center agents, managers are learning new ways of overseeing and guiding these employees.  Best practices associated with managing remote agents are similar to what works well in leading traditional contact centers: hiring the right people, who are not only qualified, but motivated, as well as, providing the right work environment and technology needed to do the work. However, at-home agents also need to be skilled enough to be able to figure out minor issues on their own. Additionally, if you're not careful, the old adage "Out of sight, out of mind", will hold true for your remote agents. Contact center managers must be careful to not forget about remote agents, keeping them looped in to any new changes, developments, procedures, etc. so that they can operate at the same level as in-house agents.

Here are a few other best practices to follow when leading a remote staff.

1. Include assessment tools in the hiring process to evaluate potential candidates making sure they not only have the necessary contact center skills, but that they are also self-starters and be able to work well independently.

2.  Consider establishing a trial period for a designated amount of time to make sure the agent can do the job well remotely.

3. Utilize eLearning/coaching software applications to offer training programs on the products, processes, company objectives, and so on. Provide remote workers with the same training opportunities they would get if they worked on site.

4. Clearly document and communicate company policies and procedures as well as job responsibilities and requirements, procedures and policies for remote workers.

5. Develop a formal communication program for supervisors and remote agents. There should also be a clearly defined process for escalating inquiries to supervisors.

6. Be sure to provide remote agents with access to all online or printed product and service information. This may require you to ship documents to remote agents when they come on board.

7. Set regular quality monitoring sessions for remote agent performance evaluations. As with all agents, be sure to provide regular, scheduled feedback and don't forget to involve remote agents in all department-wide quality monitoring and training activities.

8. Be sure to recognize remote agents for a job well done.

9. Always include remote agents in all team meetings and training activities. If your staff is 100% remote, conduct team meetings at least once a week to ensure that your team is connected and interacting well with one another. Try to be creative in identifying ways to create a sense of connectedness and team work.

Contact centers can be costly to an organization if they aren't structured to operate effectively and efficiently. In addition to operational excellence, contact centers must also be able to retain good employees by providing a positive work environment that supports personal and professional growth.  To ensure that your contact center is functioning well on all these fronts, and is also a valuable contributor to your organization's bottom line, there are a few best practices to help you get there.

Draw a roadmap for achieving your goals

As a contact center manager, it's imperative to have a firm grasp on what the goals are for your operation so that it can be clearly communicated to those responsible for making it happen. These goals should represent your company's business objectives. How your call center supports these objectives can be determined by asking questions such as:

Having an understanding how the work carried out by your contact center impacts the entire organization is a best practice that will drive how and who you hire and the service standards you set.

Hiring, Training and Coaching

Attrition rates can be high in contact centers posing major challenges for managers in attracting and retaining good agents. To make better hiring decisions, you should first know the answers to questions like:

Make a list of the qualities your best agents possess and work with HR to develop ways to screen for those qualities. Once you've hired the right person, you must train them to be able to carry out their duties. Investments in training will pay off if you make good hiring decisions.  Once you've provided training, coaching is the next step to make sure agents continually improve in their work. Consistent feedback, performance coaching and recognition for good work is key to making sure you get the most from your staff and that they will see your organization as a long-term career opportunity.

Morale Management

Another call center best practice is morale management. Your goal should be to create an atmosphere where employees consistently bring a willingness to help and a drive to reach business goals with them to work. When morale is low it can reverberate throughout the contact center creating discouraged, bored and irritated agents. Create a positive mood by:

We here at KOVA are thrilled to announce that our partner, Verint Systems, Inc., was recently honored with a 2013 Market Leader award from Speech Technology Magazine in the Speech Analytics category. In order to determine who deserves this prestigious prize each year, the publication considers the following criteria: affordability, customer satisfaction, ease of use, accuracy, depth of functionality, and company direction.

Verint’s win was based on its Verint Media Recorder Speech Analytics solution. Paul Stockford, chief analyst at Saddletree Research, and a judge on the awards panel, had this to say: “Verint’s solution is highly accurate and extremely easy to use and administer, and the ROI has been proven and well-documented over the past several years…Verint is highly regarded in the end-user community. Its reputation for customer satisfaction is exemplary.”

Verint Media Recorder Speech Analytics, a part of Verint’s Voice of the Customer Analytics portfolio, helps companies sift through recorded customer calls to uncover information that is important in creating effective strategies for improved customer experience, customer service, revenue generation, and cost containment. It enables businesses to quickly and easily see trends and opportunities which help in the identification of their strengths and weaknesses. Once these are better understood, they can more effectively be taken advantage of, or addressed, helping to decrease costs and enhance products, processes, competitive advantage, and the overall customer experience.

With Verint Media Recorder Speech Analytics, companies gain a better understanding of customer behavior by categorizing and analyzing call content automatically to explain why customers call, to reveal the core cause of perceptions, and to home in on competitive threats and opportunities. It also provides a focus on companies’ quality monitoring programs, by automatically pushing calls that involve key business issues to management for review. Importantly, it does all this using fewer resources, by sharing intelligence across the enterprise with automated workflow tools.

This solution also helps companies support demands pertaining to their Big Data initiatives, by making use of key capabilities of Verint’s Enterprise Workforce Optimization Suite. By giving companies a holistic overview of the customer journey and experience, this software allows them to use the voice of their customers to turn their new knowledge into action.

“We’re delighted to mark our place in the winner’s circle in this year’s Speech Technology Awards program,” commented Oren Stern, global vice president, voice of the customer analytics, Verint Enterprise Intelligence Solutions. “The distinction complements the award we received earlier this year from its sister publication, CRM. It also highlights the strengths in the solutions that comprise our analytics portfolio, including customers past and present that have been recognized by Speech Technology’s ‘implementation honors’ for advances in their businesses based on the use of our solutions.”

We here at KOVA are also delighted at Verint’s recognition. If you would like more information on how Verint’s award-winning Verint Media Recorder Speech Analytics solution can help your business, contact KOVA today!  We have representatives standing by to schedule your discovery session, so that we can customize a solution that’s just right for your company.

A spring 2013 study by CMIQ shows that more contact center stakeholders are either planning to install or investigate new cloud and hosted technologies in 2013 and 2014, but some major factors still stand in the way. In their Spring 2013, Executive Report on Call Center Technology, Adoption, Reliability and Usability, CMIQ surveyed 111 contact center and customer management leaders from the likes of Best Buy, American Express, GlaxoSmithKline, John Deere and more, representing contact centers of various sizes.

The researchers focused on both cloud (Internet-based, including benefits associated with Internet resources) and hosted (requiring a direct data link) solutions. Of those surveyed, 46.4 percent are using and 62.5 percent are investigating cloud solutions while 57.6 percent are using and 26.9 percent are investigating hosted solutions. They found that both solution styles were gaining headway, for the most part, due to the ease of adding new channels as well as cost effectiveness.

Reluctance to Adopt Cloud and Hosted Solutions for Some

While cloud and hosted solutions are a good fit for some contact centers, there are still a significant number of holdouts. The biggest concern regarding cloud solutions is security (50 percent) with level of investment in on-premise technologies (25 percent) and concerns about integration with current on-premise technologies (25 percent) tying for second place.

The contact center leaders considering hosted solutions have the same concerns, but at different levels. The primary inhibition here was loss of investment in legacy on-premise technology (50 percent), followed by security (38.9 percent) and potential for integration issues with current on-premise systems (16.7 percent).

Choose Your Vendor Wisely

The study also found that here was minor concern about losing control when handing over the reins to an outside vendor in both scenarios: 8.3 percent for cloud solutions and 11.1 percent for hosted solutions. While the study did find that vendor reliability wasn’t a concern for most of those surveyed, finding a quality vendor who you can trust should help ease those concerns that are important to you and your enterprise.

When you do decide to start investigating new cloud and/or hosted solutions, interview recommended vendors and ask for references. Integrating any new contact center technology will take from months to years to plan, install and launch. Make sure the vendor you choose demonstrates these qualities:

One of the biggest benefits of cloud and hosted technologies versus on-premise systems and solutions is the flexibility to integrate new technologies as they develop. This should be a big part of the conversation you have when interviewing vendors.

What steps does your company take to help my company protect this new investment and make it viable and adaptable for years to come?

At KOVA Corporation we develop custom, enterprise contact center and workforce management solutions unique to the individual organizations we serve. We can help your enterprise determine which solution – cloud, hosted, on-premise – or combination of solutions would work best in your environment. Contact a KOVA representative to discuss your options.

KOVA is excited to announce its latest offering: Our brand new Mobile Recording Solution! Finally, professionals on the go have a way to use their smart phones to capture critical information on site, such as interviews and photos, categorize that data on the spot by assigning it a name or number, and then instantly transmit that information to their office’s central database for storage.

Our Mobile Recording Solution has nearly unlimited potential for those whose jobs require them to visit homes, businesses, or job sites, and document their findings.  Below are just a few example use-cases:

Insurance Adjusters can arrive on the scene of a car accident, or show up in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and use this new technology to document the damage and losses with their smart phone. Every picture they snap will be sent immediately to their home office for secure storage, so there’s no delay in processing. And adjusters can easily assign claim numbers to those photos from their phone as well, organizing them for easy retrieval when needed. Any necessary interviews or phone calls can also be recorded and saved instantly.

Health Inspectors can head into restaurants and other institutions with their smart phone, confident that the photos they take during their inspections will be sent directly to their database, and that any interviews they perform will also be captured on-site and transmitted to their office, categorized by institution name, case number, or any other identification method they choose.

Construction or Transportation Inspectors can enter job sites and record their inspections of projects, roads, bridges, and assets with their smart phone, easily categorizing and submitting the data to their home office instantly.

Social Workers can take advantage of most people’s familiarity and comfort level with smart phones to use it for casework, as they capture interviews and document house visits. And since the information is easily organized on the phone itself, and immediately saved in their main office’s system, this new technology will make their lives that much easier.

Our new Mobile Recording Solution also captures every possible detail about each call or interview recorded. Along with the actual audio, it also transmits caller ID data, the actual dialed digits, and the phone’s GPS location at the beginning and the end of each call or interview, to an organizations’ central database.

Security is our highest priority – that’s why our Mobile Recording Solution features 1024-bit encryption, secure file transfer from phone to headquarters, as well as digital fingerprinting of all files to guarantee their authenticity.

And once back at headquarters, the speech analytics built into our mobile recording software can even “listen” to the content of all calls and interviews, reporting on any trends or links.

For any business that requires employees to venture out into the field to collect data, KOVA’s new Mobile Recording Software is the answer. Rather than dealing with cameras and recording devices, or experiencing the hassle of transferring files manually from one location to another, it is now possible to streamline the entire process, making it hassle- and worry-free. For more information on this exciting new product, and how it can help your business run more smoothly and efficiently, contact KOVA today.

 

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