Are You Using 1999 Metrics to Measure 2019 Customer Care?

It’s 2019, which means contact center metrics from 1999 are almost old enough for their first legal beer (and already knocking them back in Canada.) Those metrics were born in an era when customer service was a race, where whoever got to the finish line first (i.e. off the phone) – upsetting the least number of hurdles, extra points for a graceful gait – was the champion, the most successful, the most likely to win “customer service agent of the year.”

Today’s consumers and their shifting expectations have turned that perspective on its head. Instead, we live in a customer-centric world, where metrics like Average Speed of Answer (ASA), Average Handle Time (AHT), and First Call Resolution (FCR) are, by themselves, short-sighted and more focused on controlling costs instead of enhancing the experience. That said, the contact center accumulates millions of data points every single day. How do we use that data to improve the customer experience?

Fighting the Cost Center Mindset

We get it; earning executive buy-in on the decision to outsource your contact center usually includes a discussion about ROI. But calculating how the costs of your customer service solution make an impact on your bottom line can be complicated. For example, at first glance, an hour-long phone call with a customer that doesn’t result in first call resolution or a sale appears to be a high-cost, low-efficiency interaction.

What you may not initially see is how that hour inspires the customer’s lifetime loyalty and widespread promotion and advocacy, converting other customers on top of increasing their own spend. If that call was cut off at two or three minutes in the name of low AHT, an important opportunity to provide exceptional customer experience would have been lost.

Though hour-long calls are extraordinarily rare (though still nothing compared to the Zappos record customer-service call of 10 hours, 43 minutes!), this example holds its integrity even when scaled down to mere minutes and seconds. The point is, while data that describes an agent’s efficiency has its place (no one wants to be kept on hold unnecessarily or sit through minutes of pointless back-and-forth with a less-than-stellar agent) these metrics, taken alone, do little more than tell us to work as fast as possible to disengage from the customer.

Even if we are committed to delivering an exceptional customer experience, the fact is that many businesses turn to these metrics by default when making an outsourcing decision. Changing this approach and perspective is the first step in becoming a brand that your customers love. (For the same reason, we also believe that contact center pricing should never be your first question in the quest to outsource). But where do we start?

One Metric to Rule Them All

What one metric best reflects the state of your customer experience? Consider that today’s consumers are loyal to the brands that personalize the experience, are instantly responsive to their needs, and are authentic in the way they deliver service. The more loyal those customers are, the more they buy.

With that in mind, it’s clear that the quality of your customer experience is directly correlated with Lifetime Customer Value. (We discussed the LCV metric in more depth in our recent blog post, The True Cost of Losing a Customer.)

When you focus on improving that metric, what you’re really doing is shifting your efforts to decrease churn rate and increase retention. In our blog post about the cost of losing a customer, we referenced the example of a client who worked with us to implement a 24/7 team of Subject Matter Experts in support of a customer who had threatened to leave after a disappointing experience. The increased effort to meet expectations and provide a better experience was highly successful. Not only did the client stick around for the long run, their continued business meant a higher lifetime value.

Data is the GPS Mapping Your Customer Experience

While Lifetime Customer Value is a critical measure of your customer experience, it can’t by itself tell you what to focus on in your efforts to improve it. That’s where you have to take a holistic approach with the underlying data.

For example, we can’t forget about Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT). NPS was a metric first introduced in 2003, which feels like a lifetime ago. But instead of growing obsolete, this metric has simply entered its wiser golden years. Asking a customer to rate the probability of their promoting your brand to friends and family is a highly effective way to measure how well each interaction is being handled. We are big fans of the “Willingness to Assist” (WTA) metric which we measure through post-contact surveys. WTA is an actionable coaching point for your agents and relates directly to the customer experience. Moving the bar on Willingness to Assist is almost always correlated to an increase in CSAT and/or NPS.

That said, it’s important to remember that most customers respond to an NPS or CSAT survey with one specific interaction in mind, which doesn’t necessarily reflect their big-picture perception of your brand or their lifetime loyalty as a customer. A high NPS score after one successful interaction doesn’t guarantee a customer won’t switch brands next month. Thus, NPS, CSAT, and other scores like Customer Effort Score (CES) are still only a fraction of the big picture when it comes to improving the end-to-end customer experience.

These metrics are most valuable when you can segment and filter them by type of customer (especially by tenure and lifetime value), type of interaction (related to the channel they use or teams they interact with), and the customer’s score over time. Comparing these metrics against data about buying habits, social media interactions, eCommerce activity and more will begin to give you the bigger picture. This is also where you get to add in those more elementary contact center metrics, like Average Handle Time, Average Speed to Answer, and First Call Response rates.

The key is to map out the data in alignment with the customer journey – even in the moments when they are not interacting with you – creating a picture of exactly how well you are serving a customer throughout the lifetime of their advocacy. How that data maps out for high-value customers will likely look very different than the map for short-term, low-value customers. The differences between the two will indicate areas where you can use the data to improve the customer experience in a way that increases the average lifetime customer value.

Sound complicated? It can be, but the time and energy invested into using your customer service data will be returned ten-fold in the value of your customers.

Need a hand? We’d love to chat about building a better customer experience by using the data at your fingertips. Contact us here.

Source: https://blueocean.ca/customer-care-metrics/

2024 Buyers Guide

Get Listed

Cloud Contact Center Solutions

Page: 1234

1.)

Premium Listing Call Center Studio Call Center Studio Call Center Studio is the world’s first call center built on Google and is one of the most secure and stable systems with some of the industry’s best reporting. It is one of the most full-featured enterprise grade systems (with the most calling features, one of the best call distribution, outbound dialing features and integrations—including IVR, AI Speech Recognition, blended inbound/outbound calling and includes Google’s new Dialogflow and Speech API. Call Center Studio is the absolute easiest to use (with a 10 minute setup), and is the price performance leader with lower equipment cost and less setup time.

2.)

Premium Listing iNextrix Technologies iCallify iCallify: intelligent call center software is one of the most popular products offered by iNextrix. iCallify is developed using cutting edge technologies as well as the predictive sphere of artificial intelligence. This call center software has some intelligent features along with the standard features available in other call center solutions. Thus, it is truly an intelligent call center software solution. This intelligent call center software is built to benefit all businesses, no matter what industry vertical they belong to. This call center software has features to empower different campaigns in different call centers and businesses.

3.)

Accordia Solution Accordia Solution CIS Accordia Solution is an innovative developer of seamlessly integrated cost-effective omnichannel Contact Center Solutions specifically targeted at the micro, small and medium operations.Our core business model involves the development and marketing of IP Telephony and IP Contact Center Solutions. We also strive to develop customer interaction solutions which include contact center and customer relationship management (CRM) that enhances Customer Experience Of The Future (CEOTF) and optimizes agent productivity. Our flagship product, the Accordia Customer Interaction Suites (CIS), offers comprehensive functionality by helping your business meet and exceed the level of service in line with... (read more)Accordia Solution is an innovative developer of seamlessly integrated cost-effective omnichannel Contact Center Solutions specifically targeted at the micro, small and medium operations.Our core business model involves the development and marketing of IP Telephony and IP Contact Center Solutions. We also strive to develop customer interaction solutions which include contact center and customer relationship management (CRM) that enhances Customer Experience Of The Future (CEOTF) and optimizes agent productivity. Our flagship product, the Accordia Customer Interaction Suites (CIS), offers comprehensive functionality by helping your business meet and exceed the level of service in line with the expectations of your customers while driving your employees' productivity and controlling your operational costs. Are you ready to provide exceptional customer experience?

4.)	Adversus Dialer Adverus Dialer Adversus is a web-based dialer and practical CRM solution for telemarketing, fundraising, and appointment scheduling businesses.

5.)

Alcor Consulting, Inc. HoduCC/VoipCor Omnichannel contact center platform which can be deployed on-premise, private cloud or public cloud subscription. Our contact center provides all of the modern features expected in a full contact center solution. Includes voice, SMS, chat, email, and social media integration. Built-in integrations for all major CRM's (Plus a built-in CRM). Survey module and QA module are also available.

6.)

Allstream Contact Center Contact Center is a powerful tool that you can add to your unified communications (UC) solution to ensure you've always got the right resources available to both customers and employees, no matter the communication channel they're using — voice, email, web, chat or social. Contact Center’s enhanced call routing and workforce management tools can help increase employee productivity. And with the advanced reporting and forecasting tools, you’ll be able to properly staff your contact center and enhance your customer experience. It has everything you need to deliver superior customer and employee experience.

7.)

Alvaria Alvaria Cloud Alvaria Cloud is the only enterprise cloud contact center solution that allows you to adopt best-of-breed Customer Experience (CX) and Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) applications modularly. Start with one or more applications and then add applications with ease when ready for additional capabilities, as your needs change. With the Alvaria Cloud Platform, you have the advantage of knowing that all provisioning, security, user management and other administrative tasks are already configured and in place.

8.)

Alvaria Noble Contact Center Noble offers a modern communications platform for optimizing all customer interaction. Put Noble’s unified platform to work for you — building performance and productivity, improving the quality and effectiveness of customer contacts, and reducing costs. With the critical software technologies that contact centres need most, our solutions provide seamless integration to existing corporate environments, reduce your learning curve and protect your technology investments.

9.)

Amtelco Genesis Intelligent Series Genesis is the latest advancement in Amtelco’s long line of call center solutions. This call center technology is entirely software-based and virtualized, with cloud-based capability. Genesis provides skills-based automatic call distribution (ACD), built-in speech recognition, text-to-speech (TTS), and voice services to improve call routing and management.

10.)

Arise Virtual Solutions The Arise Platform Arise is a pioneer of on-demand customer management business process outsourcing solutions, headquartered in Florida. Through the cloud-based Arise Platform, Fortune 50 and other companies connect to Service Partners who deliver authentic, loyalty-building interactions with their customers. Delivering radical flexibility to meet even extreme contact volume fluctuations, the award-winning Arise Platform is an innovative alternative to the traditional contact center.

11.)

Astute Solutions Astute Agent Astute Agent gives your agents everything they need to work cases confidently and efficiently. This modern case management CRM is the preferred choice for Consumer Relations and Customer Care teams who support some of the world’s most prestigious brands. Astute Agent balances agent efficiency with customer experience. Here’s how: - Automated email responses Using natural language processing, Astute Agent reads incoming customer emails and automatically supplies a response to agents to review and send. - Auto-populated case fields AI capabilities automatically suggest reason codes, product codes, and other case information, saving agents minutes per case. - Time-saving case feat... (read more)Astute Agent gives your agents everything they need to work cases confidently and efficiently. This modern case management CRM is the preferred choice for Consumer Relations and Customer Care teams who support some of the world’s most prestigious brands. Astute Agent balances agent efficiency with customer experience. Here’s how: - Automated email responses Using natural language processing, Astute Agent reads incoming customer emails and automatically supplies a response to agents to review and send. - Auto-populated case fields AI capabilities automatically suggest reason codes, product codes, and other case information, saving agents minutes per case. - Time-saving case features Integrating all contact channels into one CRM interface, combined with time-saving features like field auto-complete, ensures agents can work cases quickly and effectively. - Customer profile and history Show agents relevant customer information, like location, loyalty status, and interaction history, right on the CRM case screen. - Next best actions With suggested next actions like case codes, responses, and enclosures, even your newest agents can work cases with confidence. - Built-in knowledge Astute’s integrated knowledge engine lets agents quickly find answers to any question – without having to leave the case workflow.

12.)

Brook Trout Solutions CCaaS, SIP Trunking, SD WAN, Interconnectivity Brook Trout Solutions provides Technology Guide services to help Contact Centers find the best possible solution for their business. We represent the leaders for CCaaS, CPaaS, SD-WAN, SASE, SIP. We identify the best fit for our customers and help them manage the lifecycle of the customer engagement. We also have an excellent solution for mobile marketing and can raise call acceptance by more than 50% with a Next Generation caller ID for mobile phones. We solve problems and give our customers time back to run their business. Give us a call we have world class expertise and resources that can help you build an exceptional customer experience.

13.)

Callnfax Voice & Video Services at the Speed of Business CallnFax offers global virtual telephone numbers with Flat-Rate pricing, A-Z termination service with full CNAM support, and full-featured video meeting solutions. CallnFax has been delivering reliable solutions since 2009, accompanied with personalized customer support, designed for Call Centers, Contact Centers, and Global Enterprise.

14.)

CallShaper CallShaper Welcome to CallShaper – Harnessing the Power of the Cloud for Greater Sales Efficiency For sales-based call centers, where margins are so tight, it’s all about closing. Thanks to CallShaper, inbound or outbound call center directors can have a dynamic, highly flexible platform that enables sales agents to focus on making the sale. Thanks to CallShaper’s flexibility, call center directors who are managing multiple vendors from multiple locations can have everything they need on one platform that offers 99.999% reliability. And when it comes to reporting, CallShaper has no equal in providing real-time transparency. With CallShaper, clients quickly find that they are better able to manage efficiencies at the sales rep level – and make more money!

15.)

Cloud Call Center Search From AI - WFO and everything in between! Cloud Call Center Search has spent hundreds of hours evaluating and vetting leading cloud software applications (Omni-Channel, Artificial Intelligence, Business Intelligence, Workforce Management and many others) and their actual use in the trenches with real-world clients. As a result, we understand the strengths and weaknesses of cloud-based call center software solutions. At NO charge, Cloud Call Center Search will match your organization with the cloud software providers that are the best fit to drive positive ROI in your customer experience, sales, and back-office operations.

16.)

ContactCenter4ALL CC4Teams Contact Center solutions; that is what we do! So we know, like no other, that integrating natively with Microsoft, making our solution available on the same screen is what your customer contact team needs. CC4Teams enhances Microsoft Teams with features and adds additional functionality to use Microsoft Teams as a complete Omni-ChannelContact Center solution. For example, CC4Teams adds our proprietary drag and drop IVR (no code needed), ad-hoc or scheduled call recording, operator attendant, historical and real-time reporting (integrates with Microsoft PowerBi), wallboards, home workers, supervisor functionalities, and skilled based routing directly to Microsoft Teams. The intuitive CC4... (read more)Contact Center solutions; that is what we do! So we know, like no other, that integrating natively with Microsoft, making our solution available on the same screen is what your customer contact team needs. CC4Teams enhances Microsoft Teams with features and adds additional functionality to use Microsoft Teams as a complete Omni-ChannelContact Center solution. For example, CC4Teams adds our proprietary drag and drop IVR (no code needed), ad-hoc or scheduled call recording, operator attendant, historical and real-time reporting (integrates with Microsoft PowerBi), wallboards, home workers, supervisor functionalities, and skilled based routing directly to Microsoft Teams. The intuitive CC4Teams user interface offers the same user experience you're accustomed to; your Contact Center agents will learn to use the software in no time. Our Contact Center software is designed in close collaboration with people who actually use it. As a result, the user interface is easy to use and easy to manage. Using CC4Teams has proven to translate to a boost in your Contact Center productivity.

17.)	Contaque Contaque VERVE Cloud or On-Premise? Elevate Customer Experience Either Way with Our Contact Center Solutions!

18.)

Content Guru 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺® Content Guru makes engagement easy. A global leader in cloud communications solutions, we deliver off-the-shelf and bespoke customer engagement and cloud contact centre services, through the multi-award-winning 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺® platform. Europe’s largest Customer Engagement and Experience platform, 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺, brings together intelligent automation, third-party systems integration, and on-demand scalability to enhance all customer communication functions. With true omni-channel engagement capabilities, 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺 gives organisations the power to create consistent and seamless experiences for customers, inspiring loyalty and powering success.

19.)

Convoso Convoso is the #1 dialer software for outbound lead gen/sales-related contact centers. Our cloud-based omnichannel solution solves the biggest frustrations call centers have with their dialer, including: *Caller ID reputation *Call flagging/blocking *Low contact rates *Limited insight into list performance *Time wasted resetting lead lists *Dropped calls *Poor answering machine detection Customers report dramatic increases in contact rates of up to 300%, delivering more conversions and significantly improved ROI.

20.)	CSX Cloud CSX Cloud CSX Cloud provides a full omnichannel cloud-based turn-key customer communications solution as a service based on a monthly subscription with no long term commitments. Our easy to use solution and top-notch customer service makes it an easy choice to get started today.

 

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View more from Blue Ocean Contact Centers

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