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What can you do? Give younger callers a 'wow' experience--maintain their loyalty. People over 36 probably have more of an 'emotional bank account' with the company they are dealing with-maybe had some good experience and therefore are more willing to 'forgive.'
In a recent study (CRM Magazine/PeopleSoft Web Seminar on How Usability Helps to Drive a Profitable Contact Center), the number of applications required for agents to access customer inquiries were:
3.7% just 1
81.5% 2 - 5
7.4% 5 - 10
7.4% more than 10
As you can see, the majority of applications are 2 - 5. The goal, of course, is to link every point of contact to one central location for a customer-centric, synchronized approach satisfying customer experiences with every interaction.
Strategies for success for world class service should include:
Respond promptly
Handle requests through the customers' choice of medium
Be brief and clear
Reduce back and forth communications (especially in writing, i.e., email, kick it up to a phone call if it goes beyond two)
Personalized service
Delight the customer
What do we mean by delighting the customer?
Inform and educate them
Establish your expertise and professionalism
Offer options
Diffuse upset or anger, when and if necessary
Escalate, if required
Take ownership of the call
Remember we're still on the first W - the Why. Today's pressures on agents are different than in the past. They are asked to handle more customer, more volume, more complex and/or complicated calls. After all if we could handle our issues with self service, we probably would not call. But if we tried self service and it didn't work, now we're upset and it's an escalated call from the get go.
They're asked to provide more information, do it faster and be available and accessible. But they are to lower costs, generate revenue, incorporate new technologies, ensure closure and commitment, deliver 'great' service and when? Yesterday, of course.
As a matter of fact the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has said that the causes of death for people under 65 are:
21% - environment - war, accidents, crimes
9% - health care system - doctors, hospitals, medications
17% - human biology - not because of lifestyle
53% - because of the way people choose to live their lives!
This is the good news and the bad news. It's bad news because it's more than half. However, the good news is that this is something we can do something about, it's about choice.
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