Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 18, 2017

Every company has ups and downs, but what if yours has had a few quarters of disappointing revenue? You might be thinking it’s time for a big marketing investment, but where would you focus your energy? A. On rewarding regular customers with promotions to keep them coming back. B. On improving the customer’s experience at the time of purchase. C. On providing comparison shoppers with rational reasons to choose your product over another one.

Sales 310

Sales Consulting Consulting Customer emotions 310

Myra Golden Media

APRIL 17, 2017

The twentieth of May marks 16 years that I’ve been in business for myself, doing the things I’ve dreamt about, the things I love – training, writing, designing curriculum. I love where I am and what I do; yet recently I have experienced burnout. Guilt was my first response to burnout. How dare I feel bored, dis-interested and un-creative. So many people would be happy to be where I am; I should be grateful.

Customer Service 229

Customer Service Call Center Contact Center Agent burnout 229

ShepHyken

APRIL 19, 2017

Last week was a bad week for the airlines. The United Airlines customer service debacle hurt all airlines, not just the United brand. It’s not uncommon for flights to be overbooked, delayed and cancelled. Passengers get angry. Airline personnel get angry. “Travel hassle” can be very stressful on everybody. I love it when I take a flight that is on time.

Airlines 218

Airlines Brand ambassadors Government Customer Service 218

Callminer

APRIL 17, 2017

To learn about the various methods for capturing the VoC that go overlooked by customer-facing organizations, we asked a panel of experts to weigh in.

Sales 182

Sales Marketing 182

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Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 19, 2017

A new Kibo study called the “ Consumer Trends Report, 2017 Edition ” reveals that 76% of respondents research prices on a product they want to buy, up 10% from the year previous. Moreover, 68% said price is the biggest reasons they shop where they do. These numbers would lead one to believe that price is still king in Customer Experience, but one would be wrong.

Consulting 307

Consulting Consulting Personalization Customer Experience 307

ShepHyken

APRIL 21, 2017

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post my colleague, Dianna Booher, shares ideas for handling tough personalities while offering great customer service. Solving customer problems is expected. The key is to do it in such a way that also restores confidence, even when the customer is difficult. – Shep Hyken. Know-it-alls walk the halls at almost every organization—from the basement to the executive floor.

Airlines 212

Airlines Customer Care Engineering Accountability 212

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 19, 2017

Launching a contact center is like a juggling act. You may want to start simply by throwing and catching one ball correctly, but soon there are three or four balls that you’re trying to keep in the air. A competent juggler might want to stick there for a while, but the master juggler is already […].

Contact Center 179

Contact Center Call Center 179

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 17, 2017

When United Airlines brutally forced a senior citizen off a flight this week to accommodate United crew members, the social media world lit up like a Roman candle. You’ve probably seen the viral video of the man being seized by his arms and roughly dragged down the aisle by police officers, his shirt riding up, his face bloodied, and his glasses skewed on his head as horrified passengers watched.

Airlines 276

Airlines Customer centricity Consulting Consulting 276

Steve DiGioia

APRIL 17, 2017

lets highlight some great examples of service This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. April is Customer Loyalty Month. To celebrate, I share a few examples of great service that were submitted by the loyal readers of this blog. It’s nice to read something positive – aren’t we all getting tired of that United Airlines story? Lindsey Hartig , Marketing Manager at Martin Resorts on California’s Central Coast, shares this story….

Airlines 133

Airlines Accountability Marketing Management 133

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Reports of the death of in-store shopping have been greatly exaggerated. This year’s retail survey found that more than 60 percent of consumers start and end their journey by visiting a store. Retail customers value price above everything, but the importance of other factors varies for different brands. In-store shopping is valued highly by grocery and home improvement customers Technology retail customers place less importance on in-store experiences – for them it only ranks sixth Digital exper

Surveys

ShepHyken

APRIL 17, 2017

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. Getting More Referrals = Letting People Your Customers Care About Know About Brands That Care About Them by Joseph Michelli. (Joseph Michelli) Here are some broad approaches to activating promoter behavior in your loyal customer base.

Airlines 198

Airlines Customer Service Customer retention Customer Care 198

CX Global Media

APRIL 17, 2017

Chat has long been touted as a means to lower costs in contact centers. But in today’s marketplace that is a blind way to view chat. You must see that chat is a way for you to get more conversions and drive higher revenue while saving costs. If you do not include getting more conversions in your chat strategy then your cost cutting focus will mask your sales loss dilemma.

Abandon rate 120

Abandon rate Customer emotions Sales Advertising 120

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 20, 2017

Have you heard about the largest Call Center Association in the NorthEast? You may not be familiar with the NorthEast Contact Center Forum (NECCF), but you should absolutely get this incredible regional organization on your radar! The NECCF was founded in February 2001 by contact center executives and specialists who wanted an unbiased “user group” […].

call center association 100

call center association Call Center Contact Center 100

Steve DiGioia

APRIL 17, 2017

lets highlight some great examples of service This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. April is Customer Loyalty Month. To celebrate, I share a few examples of great service that were submitted by the loyal readers of this blog. It’s nice to read something positive – aren’t we all getting tired of that United Airlines story? Lindsey Hartig , Marketing Manager at Martin Resorts on California’s Central Coast, shares this story….

Airlines 113

Airlines Accountability Marketing Management 113

Speaker: Nicholas Zeisler, CX Strategist & Fractional CXO

The first step in a successful Customer Experience endeavor (or for that matter, any business proposition) is to find out what’s wrong. If you can’t identify it, you can’t fix it! 💡 That’s where the Voice of the Customer (VoC) comes in. Today, far too many brands do VoC simply because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do; that’s what all their competitors do.

Customer Experience

ShepHyken

APRIL 18, 2017

Amy Downs on How Customer Obsession Can Drive Your Bottom Line. Are you obsessing about taking care of your customers? If not, maybe you should! Shep Hyken interviews Amy Downs, Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer at Lifesize, a connected video conferencing company, about why you should be obsessed about taking care of your customers. First Up: Shep Hyken’s opening comments focus on April being customer loyalty month.

Customer retention 184

Customer retention Education Analytics Marketing 184

360Connext

APRIL 17, 2017

Have you ever had to deal with a customer who was really angry? While most days aren’t perfect, if generally takes a lot for us to get red-in-the-face angry. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, and some people are just plain nasty. But most of us don’t set out looking for conflict, and that includes your customers. So let’s talk about when customers are furious- when they are so angry they yell at representatives of your company.

Feedback 109

Feedback Consulting Consulting Call Center 109

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 18, 2017

Seventy-seven percent of Americans have a smartphone. Two-thirds of Americans access the Internet via smartphone at least as much as by computer. Of the three launch pads for customer interaction, landline use is declining, computer use is flat, and smartphone use is growing. If you aren’t already on the smartphone bandwagon, those facts ought to […].

Contact Center 100

Contact Center Self service Call Center Technology 100

Mindtouch

APRIL 17, 2017

We evaluated thousands of members within the Customer Success community and created a measurement that took into account a wide range of metrics including internet presence, influence, authorship, individual contributions, community engagement and participation. The TOP 100 Customer Success Strategists list is frequently updated and always evolving.

Chief Customer Officer 91

Chief Customer Officer Education Consulting Consulting 91

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

Feedback

Kayako

APRIL 20, 2017

Customer support teams focus their efforts on three goals: Delight your customers, make them happy, and treat them with respect. After all, the customer is always right, right? Support teams want to maintain a consistent and repeatable customer experience. The way we go about achieving these staples of support may vary, but we’re all working to earn top satisfaction ratings with the resources made available to us.

Sales 89

Sales Customer Support Customer Experience Marketing 89

Customer Service Life

APRIL 20, 2017

This article was originally published on CustomerThink in my monthly advisor column on March 9, 2017. Click here to read the original. . A customer contacted support because she dropped her beloved Winston and he could no longer stand on his own. She and the support agent discussed various options like fitting him with a peg leg, but ultimately decided that it was best to replace Winston — at no additional charge to the customer.

Customer Service 78

Customer Service Contact Center Scripts Interactive Voice Response 78

aircall

APRIL 21, 2017

There are many factors which will determine the success or failure of an outbound call effort. Most of these factors can be tipped in your favor with the right planning and preparedness. Approaching an outbound campaign requires a sound outbound calls strategy. Detail your outbound calls strategy. Your outbound call strategy needs to be defined long before anyone picks up the phone.

Best practices 81

Best practices Scripts Outbound sales Coaching 81

Mindtouch

APRIL 17, 2017

UPDATE : See 2018 winners. “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” Steve Jobs. So whose responsibility is Customer Success? The answer is everybody’s—support agents, sales reps, marketers, product teams, etc.—and the reality is it’s an opportunity for everyone, internal and external, to advance utilizing your product or service.

SaaS 81

SaaS Consulting Consulting Marketing 81

Dive into the realm of contact center dialers with our infographic! Explore the various types – Preview, Predictive, Automatic, and Progressive Dialers – and unravel their roles in boosting call center performance.

Contact Center

CustomerGauge

APRIL 20, 2017

We’re thrilled to announce the release of our 2017 NPS® and CX Benchmark Survey, made in collaboration with MIT CISR! In honor of this release, we’re launching a series of blog posts, aptly named, “Know Your… ”, to promote CX and NPS best practices. This week it’s all about surveys. I’ve seen a lot of companies who have invested in capturing customer […].

Surveys 72

Surveys Marketing Benchmark Best practices 72

ijgolding

APRIL 19, 2017

This month, in my exclusive column for CustomerThink, I continue to explore in detail my perspective on seven ‘tips’ that will enable any organisation to become genuinely customer centric. I must remind readers that the ‘tips’ are in no particular order – tip number five is no less important than tip number one – although all the tips are connected to each other in some way.

Customer Experience 76

Customer Experience Customer centricity Metrics Construction 76

Amity

APRIL 21, 2017

When it comes to managing relationships with your customers, the old axiom holds true: “Change is the only constant.” Because you know things will change - both positively and negatively - in your relationships with your customers, your customer success teams need to be proactive in managing the relationship. Being proactive means having a good plan on how to capitalize on regular events in the relationship lifecycle like business reviews, subscription renewals.

Coaching 72

Coaching Feedback Management 72

ClearAction

APRIL 19, 2017

10 Keys to Organic Growth via Customer Experience Lynn Hunsaker. User experience design, customer care, CRM, VoC, engagement / retention / loyalty programs — all of these inject insights and tailoring to customers’ needs and the company’s growth. However, the combination of these efforts falls short of what’s need for idiot-proofed customer experience excellence.

Customer Experience 71

Customer Experience Morale Customer centricity CRM 71

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Over the next 12 months, what do you think will have the biggest impact on your CX automation efforts? When asked the same question, only 10% of CX leaders surveyed by Verint chose telephony. It’s no longer the engagement channel leading CCaaS conversations. The customer engagement challenges facing organizations have changed – so a new approach is needed.

Self service

CustomerGauge

APRIL 18, 2017

CustomerGauge is extremely happy to welcome Dr. James Borderick from Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software join us for NPS® best practice series interviews. James currently leads the Net Promoter Competitive Loyalty program at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software. His official position is Master Strategist, leading multiple analytical projects, driving strategy and innovation, and providing intelligent business insight.

Metrics 68

Metrics Enterprise Best practices Analytics 68

Influitive

APRIL 19, 2017

When it costs 6X more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one, does it still make sense for marketers to focus mainly on generating new leads, rather than nurturing current customers? (Nope!) As more and more companies turn their focus away from short-lived marketing campaigns, and towards building ongoing.

Marketing 70

Marketing B2B Customer advocacy Metrics 70

Amity

APRIL 19, 2017

When I first started at Internet Creations , I was given the luxury of a relative “blank canvas.” We knew changes were needed, but we weren’t sure what would make sense. Our Salesforce consultants worked as Success Managers for a small collection of our customers, serving as a key technical contact outside of the Account Executive.

Consulting 69

Consulting Consulting SaaS Accountability 69