Service Untitled

I work with a small technology company that has a reputation for being a great customer service company. The company is growing fairly quickly, and as a result of that, they’re hiring more and more people. Their growth is great (their rate of growth is manageable, so they don’t really have many growing pains), but as they hire more people, it becomes harder for the company’s founders to watch the level of customer service. As the company grows, all the employees aren’t as knowledgeable as the first couple of employees and the founders.

To help see how they’re doing, the company decided to start surveying their customers. They started with a simple quarterly satisfaction (using Net Promoter) survey and are starting to do a ticket survey that is sent out after each ticket is marked as resolved in their help desk. The company managed to do it all for less than $250, too. Here is how they did it (with my help, but they could have done it themselves without any problems):

1) I already had a copy, but most people will need to buy The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld. It is a pretty good, 200 page book about measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction using the idea of Net Promoter. Total cost: $20

2) Purchased and installed the Lite Version of iSalient (survey software). The software is pretty user friendly - it only took me (a fairly non-technical person) about an hour to fully install and customize. Total cost: $197

The best part of this? It is only a one time cost. They can run this survey any number of times and can setup several other surveys to run as well. They already have the software and the knowledge. There is cheaper survey software (even free software) out there, but this company had already used and liked iSalient. A lot of the software is leasable or setup where you only have to pay by the number of respondents. This makes things pretty cost effective as well. $250 isn’t that much for any company with a couple of employees. Having a good idea about the level of service you’re providing and how happy your customers are is well worth the time and the financial investment involved with setting up some basic survey software and processes.

Take an hour, your credit card, and start measuring your customer satisfaction. You’ll learn a lot about your customer service, your customers, and your company.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Experience, Customer Service Representative, Small Business, Surveys

I read about a company that saw an increase in the number of elevations they were seeing. More and more calls were being elevated from level 1 to level 2. The reason, though, was mysterious to the company. They weren’t sure why the calls were being elevated and why level 1 technicians were unable to resolve the issues. Their question and concern was how to find this out and what is truly the cause versus what seems to be the cause. Of course, there are a lot of potential causes and potential solutions:

Have you asked the representatives?
A great place to start is by asking the representatives why they are elevating calls. A lot of them will be quite honest about why they’re elevating calls, especially if you make it clear what they say won’t harm them in anyway. If necessary, do an anonymous survey about why calls are being elevated. More often than not, representatives want to provide their feedback and because of the nature of their job, they know (and are) the frontlines.

Any trends?
Are there trends in the types of issues that are elevated? If you can identify clear trends (i. e. there are 50% more elevations between midnight and 8 AM), you can more accurately judge what is causing the elevations (the night shift is not as good as the day shift).
Product problem.
Never dismiss the potential of an actual problem or defect with the product or service. If a lot of customers are calling up about the same issue consistently, it is probably something wrong with the product.

Consider the talent pool.
Was the standard lowered on the type of level 1 representatives that were hired? Are new level 1 agents being paid less than they were 6 months ago? Did company Y (a competitor of company X) open up a call center 10 minutes away (and they could pay more)? The talent pool and any significant changes in it will more than likely change the number of elevations that occur.

Procedures in place?
Are call times limited? Are elevations factored into the customer service representative ratings? If representatives are elevating calls to get customers off the phone, there is obviously a flaw in the system. Make sure there are no policies or procedures in place that would actually encourage unnecessary elevations. You never want to put a policy or procedure in place that discourages elevations that are actually called for, but elevations should not be done frivolously.

These are probably some great ways to start. It never hurts to ask (customers or employees) and it never hurts to ask yourself the tough questions, either. See what you’re doing versus what you should be doing and hopefully, what needs to be done will be clear.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Customer Service Experience, Elevations, Policies

When I wrote my post about moving help outside of the help center, I promised to write a post about one of the main benefits of actually moving hep outside of the help center (besides the logical conclusion that customers will actually use the documentation more). The second benefit (and perhaps more importantly) is that help outside of the help center can teach customers how to use parts of your software or service that they may not be familiar with already. This is very valuable for a number of reasons.

The more they use it, the better.
If you have a software product that’s very powerful (I like to use Photoshop as an example), then there is a lot of value in teaching customers how to get the most out of it. If they know how to get the most out of your product, they are more likely to stay with your company and continue using your product or service. They get more attached, more used to it, etc. — all things that can result in higher repeat sale rates.

It helps branding.
Customers like to know how to get the most out of things they have paid for or invested time in. When companies take the time to write up documentation and helpful tips that customers actually can get use out of, it can help branding for both the company and the product.

It saves on support costs.
The more customers know about how to use your product or service, the fewer questions they have to ask. The fewer questions that are asked, the lower the support costs. The math is dead simple and it shows how much sense it makes to actually invest time and money in documentation.

It forms a competitive advantage.
Your marketing department can work very hard touting certain features of your software or service, but it is your current customers that will create your software or service’s reputation. If you have a full featured CRM product, but it is really well known for its billing application, your product may be described as a billing focused CRM by fellow customers. If your help documentation encourages customers to use other features of that same product, you can gain the reputation of a great CRM overall instead of just a great billing CRM.

These reasons, along with those mentioned in the first post, should hopefully make it clear that it makes sense to bring help outside of the help center to some degree. There is a lot customers can learn from engaging with, instead of just reading, the product or service that your company offers. Interactivity as one of several option is a lot better than just static text as the only option.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Customer Service Experience, Documentation, Help, Help Center

I’ve written about firing your customers before. It is a topic that interests a lot of companies, especially smaller ones that don’t have the time to deal with really annoying customers on a constant basis. A reader made an interesting suggestion about how to deal with the problem, though. He suggested using what he described as a star system; essentially, you rate customers on some sort of fairly objective basis (i. e. 1 to 5 stars). The rating is based on their value as a customer - how often they buy, what they buy, who they’re referred, how often the company has screwed up with them in the past, if they are an active customer (i. e. lots of feedback, etc.). Customers that meet certain criteria are given a star rating.

Say I am a customer of company X and I’m a good customer - I buy their most expensive products, I visit their store and buy something at least once a week, I refer others, I have a store credit card, they have screwed up one or two times and I am still a customer, I talk to the store manager every now and then, etc. Basically, I am a good customer who helps the company / store. I would be a 5 star customer. If, on the other hand, I was a customer of a services company and used their lowest end plan, called them 3 times a day, never referred anyone, and have canceled twice before, that would make a 1 star customer.

The idea behind the system is that no one is ever really fired. However, the 1 star customer is not given any extra attention when he threatens to cancel. To that 1 star customer, the company offers little to no rebates, credits, future discounts, etc. When that 1 star customer calls and complains that his hosted service was unavailable for two hours, he gets an apology. The 5 star customer gets an apology, plus two months of free service. They may even get a call from their account manager offering a second apology. As the reader who emailed me suggested, they “get the red carpet rolled out every time they call, visit, etc.”

This motivates the less profitable (and/or more annoying customers) to take their business elsewhere, but encourages the more profitable (and/or less annoying) customers to stay with your company. The general idea is good and I think it is something that a lot of companies use and keep in mind when they are deciding what to do for a particular customer. It is more formalized at some companies than it is at others, but the general idea is very similar.

Something that you have to be careful about, though, is how your algorithm works. It should be fairly objective (though I think you should be able to add some subjective points to it as well), but you have to keep certain situations in mind. Say I am a 5 star customer and I refer my neighbor or best friend to your company. He turns out to be cheap and annoying (a 1 star customer). If you don’t give him the same great service that I’m used to, that could be a problem and reflect negatively upon your company. You may have to tweak the algorithm to be setup so that if a 4 star customer refers someone, the new customer will never go below 2 stars, etc.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Customer Service Experience, Firing Customers, Operations

I know this is the second time this week I’ve written about Apple, but I actually had this idea in the queue before I even ordered my computer. I had also talked about a very similar idea with an executive from a company just a few days before I got this particular post idea.

If you use an iPod (like I do - mine looks a lot like the one to the right), you may know about the “On The Go” playlist feature. A lot of iPod users don’t use it (I rarely do), but if you have ever navigated to the menu and look at the playlist when it’s empty, it does something interesting.

What the iPod does that is so interesting (to an extent) is display help documentation about how to use the on the go playlist feature. It actually makes a tremendous amount of sense to display how to use the feature when it isn’t being used. What would Apple put there otherwise - probably something saying “No songs in this playlist.” or something stupid. When you add songs to your on the go playlist, the help message goes away.

This entire aspect of help tips and information within an actual program (or in this case, an interface) and more generally, outside of the help section. is a great idea. More and more products are starting to implement the help within the product idea and that is because it makes so much sense. Customers seem to prefer help within the actual software or interface because they then don’t have to go out of their way to navigate to a separate help section.

Something companies should also do is consider having more help information show when customers just start using a product or service. Then, as they use the features more and get more accustomed to the nuances of the software, the tips and information slowly disappears. It is a classy way to help new users without really forcing it upon them.

I am going to write a post next week about one of the main benefits of moving help outside of the help section: teaching customers how to use parts of your software or service that they may not be familiar with already.

Think about where you can put tips and similar help within your software or within the interface of the product you design. Moving help outside of the help section makes a lot of sense - your customers will probably use it more, it will probably be easier for most customers to understand, and it can teach customers how to use products and features they may not use.

A lot of executives seem out of touch with what actually happens on the frontlines of their customer service department. When executives are out of touch (some are more removed than others), it creates not only a cultural problem, but a problem of the ability to keep frontline employees in mind when making decisions.

An executive’s job is not to answer the phones and as such, they shouldn’t be expected to do so on a daily basis. However, it is an executive’s job to be able to relate to the employees he or she is in charge of. The reality of the corporate world is that the decisions executives make usually have a very significant affect on the frontline employees. The changes that come from the top affect those on the bottom. It isn’t fair to those providing the actual service to customers when executives are making uninformed decisions.

The problem in a lot of businesses and with a lot of executives is that they assume. They assume they know the frontlines of a call center is like and they assume they know what challenges individual employees are facing. It sometimes takes more than surveys, more than manager reviews, and more than consultants to get a thorough understanding, though. Sometimes, it takes sitting in a cubicle and answering the phones.

When an executive spends a couple of hours or even a full day answering phones or replying to emails, he or she can learn a lot about what the frontline employees experience on a day to day basis.

The phones may be bad, the chairs could be uncomfortable, the computers are too slow, the Internet keeps crashing, etc. Suddenly, the complaints on the “other comments” part of the employee satisfaction survey start to make more sense. On the other hand, the experience of helping customers fix a problem or hearing positive feedback about the company’s product is rewarding. It gives executives yet another (very valuable) perspective.

Make it a point to schedule a few hours, or even a full day, to sit in your call center and do what your frontline employees do on a daily basis. I guarantee you that you will learn a lot.

I read an article in Inc. Magazine about self-service in customer service. Self-service is extremely important to a lot of companies (like the company mentioned in article, Carfax) because it helps reduce the number of necessary customer service interactions, thus keeping costs low. It also keeps representatives from going insane because they keep answering the same questions, which reduces turnover and saves money by itself. As a customer service consultant, I advocate self-service, as long as it isn’t the only option and isn’t forced upon the customer.

I found it difficult to get a live demo from any of the companies mentioned in the articles without going through a lot of hoops, but did I manage to track down these two pages, which are good examples of self-service at work (and I think use software from RightNow and eGain, respectively):

• Carfax.com - Help Center
• LucasArts.com - Yoda’s Help Desk

Quite frankly, I think both of them are terrible (which is often the case with self-service). I like how the Carfax articles show related questions and how the LucasArts one has a “did this help answer your question” prompt with a comments box. If you look at a third example such as Google’s Help Center, you’ll see both the “was this helpful” and related articles feature. There is also a contact us link for all three, which is good.

Self-service FAQs are terrific, but there should be some quick rules associated with self-service:

1. It should not be forced. Companies should never require their customers or users to use self-service. They can suggest it or make it more noticeable, but they should never force it.
2. It should be intelligent. FAQs and self-service options that are static are worthless. The systems should update based on popularity, helpfulness, etc. There should also be humans watching the self-service systems and how customers are using them. Use Google Analytics if your system doesn’t already have an analytics tool.
3. It should ask for suggestions. Like Google and LucasArts, good self-service centers should ask if articles were helpful, if they helped resolve issues, etc. To take it a step further, human representatives should ask if customers tried self-service. If they say no, ask why. The answers may be surprising.
4. It should be up-to-date. There are very few things that are less helpful than an out of date help center. Make sure yours stays up-to-date and contains relevant information.
5. It should be easy to navigate. It should also be easy to search. Make sure your help center is easy to navigate. It should be easy to go back, easy to explore relevant entries, and all of those good things.

There you have it, the 5 Rules of Self-Service. Try to apply them to your self-service systems and see what sort of results you get.

I have a confession to make. I am obsessive with keeping track of my bank balance. I don’t check it 30 times a day (more like once a week), but I do know how much money I have in the bank to the penny whenever I need to. I know this without having to login to my bank’s web site.

Apparently, Bank of America knows that I don’t use their web site as often as they’d like. They sent me this email the other day. The subject was  Can we help you with online banking? (which I really like).

It’s been a while since you’ve signed in to Online Banking, so we wanted to remind you of just a few ways it can help make managing your finances easier. Sign in again today and:

• Access your accounts online. Check your available balances, view your transactions and transfer funds.
• Pay 10 bills in as little as 3 minutes with free, unlimited Online Bill Pay.
• Rest easy with our $0 Liability Online Banking Guarantee. You’re not responsible for any unauthorized activity on your accounts if you report it promptly.

Take the Online Banking Test Drive to see how easy it is to manage your accounts and pay bills online. Or sign in today to get started.

The email (which you can a screenshot of to the right) also had several side boxes assuring that the email was not a scam by listing by name, reminding me of how to sign in, telling me they can reset my password if needed, and so on. There was a clear link to contact Bank of America and another clear link to unsubscribe from the email.

When used correctly, emails can be really useful (see this guest writer post). There is a fine line between useful and annoying and this email was useful. People spend quite a bit of time setting up their online banking and they might have forgotten about it. Or, they were unsure of what to do.

This email could have been better if Bank of America did one or more of these things:

1. Included their phone number right in the body of the email (as opposed to having a contact us link).
2. Addressed the email in a Hi So and So format (instead of Prepared For). This makes it seem more personal and less like a form.
3. Had it so a customer could just reply to the email instead of having to go to the contact us link to get help.

I could see how and 1 and 3 could possibly be a security issue (phishing is obviously a huge problem with online banking), so that might explain why Bank of America decided to not do that.

Overall, the tone was friendly and helpful. It was a nicely designed and well written email that offered to help. Bank of America did a good job and I think everyone could take something from their email and apply it to their own.

What do you think about this email? What other good emails have you received from companies?

And Happy New Year! I’m looking forward to 2008.

This morning’s post is short - just enough to get you thinking about customer service and how to do it over the weekend.

With most companies, when you call (or email) in to get help, they assign you a ticket number. Some companies call it a case number, an incident ID, etc. There are a whole bunch of names for them, but you know what they are. It is some sort of unique identification tag to keep track of your issue, what has been done, etc.

However, some companies don’t do that. A company I worked with did things purely my account, not by incident. Their actual system kept track of things by ticket number, but they modified it to tie in with their account system. That way, the customer didn’t have to keep track of ticket numbers - only their one account number.

The company had already given printed ID cards to everyone. The ID cards had everything the customer needed related to the company - web site address, phone numbers, account representatives, and finally, account number. The customers’ account numbers is what the company used to keep track of all customer service issues.

Think about it - the average customer doesn’t have to call all that often.

Have a great weekend!

I have already told you about my experience with Toyota (the good part and the bad part). A few days ago I got a survey from Toyota in the mail. I could either fill out the paper version or go to a web site called Toyota Voice and answer the questions there.

I decided that I share the questions that Toyota asked with Service Untitled readers. Commentary will follow soon.

Pre-questions:
They asked these questions to verify that the survey was going to the correct person, that they had their records straight, etc. Toyota said the survey would take about 5 minutes.

• <shows name and address> Is all of the information above correct? (Yes or No)
• Is NAME the principal driver of the VEHICLE TYPE?
• We do not have an e-mail address for you on file. Please provide your address:
• Do you still own/lease this VEHICE VIN# NUMBER? (Yes, No, Never Owned/Leased)
• Did you have your VEHICLE serviced at DEALERSHIP? (Yes or No)

Survey Questions:
This is the actual survey.

• Why did you choose the dealership? Trust dealership personnel; Authorized Toyota dealership; Convenient hours; Referral/recommendation; Coupon/service reminder; Other
• If you made an appointment, how would you rate the following?(If no appointment was made, skip to question 3) Excellent, Good, Average, Fair, Poor, N/A
  • Waiting time on the phone
  • Effort to understand needs
  • Availability of appointment times
  • Confirmation call
  • Comments on question
• Please rate the following when you first arrived and had your service order written up:  (Five Point Scale - see above) 
  • Promptness of greeting you                         
  • Courtesy of service advisor                         
  • Effort to understand service needs                         
  • Recommendation of appropriate work                         
  • Explanation of work, cost & time required                         
  • Length of time to drop-off vehicle                         
  • Comments on question
• In regard to the work done on your vehicle, please rate the performance of the following: (five point scale)
  • Completed all requested work                         
  • Quality of work performed                         
  • Work completed within time promised                         
  • Effort to obtain parts
• Was your vehicle fixed right the first time? (Yes or No)
• If not fixed right the first time, what explanation was given?  (Check all that apply)
  • Could not identify or duplicate condition
  • Deemed normal condition
  • Parts not available
  • Work not performed properly
  • Other
• After the service of your vehicle was completed, please rate the following: (five point)
  • Explanation of costs                         
  • Explanation of work done                         
  • Price paid met estimate                         
  • Helpfulness of cashier                         
  • Ease of picking up vehicle after service                         
  • Length of time to pick up vehicle                         
  • Cleanliness of vehicle
  • Comments
• After your service visit, did the dealership phone, mail or e-mail you to determine your satisfaction with your service experience? (Yes or No)
• At any point during or after your service visit, did you ask the dealership to resolve any concerns regarding the visit? (Yes or No)
• If yes, how would you rate the following?  (five point)
  • Efforts of dealership personnel to resolve the concern                        
  • Outcome of the contact
  • Comments
• Please rate the service department on the following: (five point)
  • Hours of operation                         
  • Cleanliness                         
  • Comfort of waiting area                         
  • Amenities in waiting area (television, magazines, refreshments, etc.)                         
  • Ease/convenience of parking at the dealership
• Please rate the overall performance of the dealership on this service visit: (five point)
• Would you return to this dealership for future service needs? (Yes, No, Undecided
• Would you recommend this dealership to a friend or relative as a place to service their vehicle? (Yes, No, Undecided)
• What aspects of your service experience did you LIKE MOST?
• What aspects of your service experience COULD HAVE BEEN IMPROVED?

What are your thoughts after seeing the survey? I will provide mine in a post soon.