{"id":31839,"date":"2018-11-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/guest-blog-4-easy-ways-to-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/"},"modified":"2023-10-10T21:14:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T21:14:44","slug":"4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Blog: 4 Easy Ways to Achieve Difficult Customer Contact Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<em>This week we feature an article by Brian Cantor who\u00a0gives us a list of ways to achieve success and consistency when communicating with customers on any channel.<i>\u00a0<\/i><\/em>\u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shep Hyken<\/a><!--more-->\r\n\r\nMaking for a jointly admirable <em>and<\/em> problematic reality, the customer contact community often takes a lofty, wide-eyed approach to strategy and technology.\r\n\r\nGiven the importance of competing on the customer experience, the idealistic approach is an encouraging sign. Today\u2019s thought leaders and customer contact professionals clearly understand the importance of delivering exceptional experiences. They clearly view the CX function as an <em>opportunity<\/em> rather than an unavoidable cost.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, idealism too often becomes the enemy of action. If the ambition is too broad, the organization will struggle to determine the first step \u2013 and ultimately refrain from taking <em>any<\/em> action. If the vision is too aggressive, the organization will struggle to achieve results in the short-term \u2013 and lose faith in the endeavor.\r\n\r\nThis briefing will help you avoid those pitfalls. It reveals specific, immediate steps for achieving the lofty, high-level objectives that have the community buzzing. By taking these actions, you will achieve \u201cquick wins\u201d <em>and<\/em> position your organization for valuable long-term transformation.\r\n\r\n<strong>Goal: Improve Customer Loyalty<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Task: Remove one \u201cno\u201d from your vocabulary<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe best policies and procedures do not compel agents to say <em>no<\/em> to certain customers. They instruct agents on why and how to say <em>yes<\/em>.\r\n\r\nDo all your processes fall under the latter umbrella? If not, it is time to make a change.\r\n\r\nTo begin, identify the situation in which your agents most commonly say \u201cno\u201d to customers. This may involve your return policy, your strategy for handling missed flights, or your interest in repairing products after the warranty expires.\r\n\r\nUpon identifying the problematic policy, devise a way in which you can more frequently say yes.\r\n\r\nWhether this involves altering the policy or empowering agents to ignore the terms in certain situations, the move will result in more harmonious interactions \u2013 and more loyal customers.\r\n\r\n<strong>Goal: Improve Agent Satisfaction<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Task: Measure Agent Effort<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWhen speaking about the agent experience, thought leaders often focus on parties, fun work environments, and elaborate compensation structures.\r\n\r\nActual customer contact agents, however, prioritize something else: the effort required to perform their work.\r\n\r\nAgents obviously value bright contact centers and great salaries, but their daily happiness hinges far more greatly on systems and processes. Are the tools easy to use? Can they solve a customer\u2019s problem without jumping through numerous hoops?\r\n\r\nReducing agent frustration is indeed the most surefire way to boost agent satisfaction, and <em>measuring agent effort<\/em> is a crucial first step in that process.\r\n\r\nBy establishing metrics for factors like \u201ctime spent in the knowledge base,\u201d \u201cscreens to resolution,\u201d or \u201cquestions to authentication,\u201d you will learn what agents experience when supporting customers. This knowledge will, in turn, allow you to optimize backend tools and technologies.\r\n\r\n<strong>Goal: Adopt Chatbots<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Task: Identify a \u201cgap\u201d in the customer experience journey<\/strong>\r\n\r\nCustomer-centric organizations do not invest in chatbots for the sake of \u201ckeeping up with the Joneses.\u201d They invest to meaningfully improve the customer experience.\r\n\r\nThe proper first step therefore involves identifying a clear pain point or efficiency gap within the customer engagement journey.\r\n\r\nAs an example, evaluate abandonment within your web self-service channels. If the abandonment rate is disproportionately high for a particular form of transaction, an opportunity for a bot may exist.\r\n\r\nAlternatively, dissect average handle time for your agents\u2019 phone conversations. If the majority of handle time for a particular issue is spent on \u201cqualification\u201d rather than \u201cresolution\u201d or \u201cconnection,\u201d the issue is likely a simple transaction that does not benefit from a live agent conversation. A bot may be the optimal support mechanism.\r\n\r\n<strong>Goal: Delivering a Consistent, Omnichannel Experience<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Task: Define greatness within each channel<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn reality, the first step to creating an omnichannel experience is to fully integrate all contact channels. Customers and organizations agree that the ability to seamlessly span channels is the hallmark of the omnichannel revolution. Trouble spanning channels, meanwhile, ranks as one of the biggest customer experience pain points.\r\n\r\nThat recommendation is, of course, the epitome of a clich\u00e9. You \u2013 and all your customer contact peers \u2013 understand the importance of eliminating channel silos. Inactivity is therefore not a question of awareness but a question of capability. If you are unable to invest in the technology needed to support seamlessness, it is not going to happen.\r\n\r\nYou can, however, embrace the omnichannel revolution <em>without<\/em> revamping your technology framework. You simply need to turn your attention to another tenet of the omnichannel experience: consistency.\r\n\r\nIn this case, consistency does not mean that the experience should be <em>the same<\/em> in every channel. A live chat interaction is obviously never going to mirror a voice conversation, which is obviously never going to mirror a social media thread. Consistency instead refers to a singular, on-brand commitment to customer centricity. No matter where or why they interact, customers should sense the same passion for understanding and resolving their issue.\r\n\r\nTo achieve that consistency, define \u201cgreatness\u201d within each channel. Using the journey map, analytics and voice of the customer data, identify the specific factors that drive satisfaction within each channel.\r\n\r\nNo, this process will not seamlessly connect all your channels. It will, however, yield an experience that is valuable whenever or wherever customers choose to connect.\r\n\r\n<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/brian-cantor-91977b15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brian Cantor<\/a> is the Principal Analyst for the Customer Management Practice. Brian leads all customer experience, contact center, technology and employee engagement research initiatives. Citing this proprietary research, Brian authors CMP\u2019s series of special reports. Additionally, he serves as managing editor and director for CCW Digital, which is the largest web publication and community for customer experience professionals.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/topic\/sheps-articles\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">customerserviceblog.com<\/a>.<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/form\/signup\/freetrial-service-essentials-help-desk\/?d=7010M000000j4Z7QAI&amp;nc=7010M000000j021QAA&amp;utm_source=theshepardletter&amp;utm_medium=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Salesforce-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" \/><\/a>\r\n\r\n<em>Read Shep\u2019s latest Forbes article:\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/shephyken\/2018\/11\/25\/is-a-subscription-model-in-your-companys-future-it-had-better-be\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Is A Subscription Model In Your Company&#8217;s Future? It Had Better Be!<\/a>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week we feature an article by Brian Cantor who\u00a0gives us a list of ways to achieve success and consistency when communicating with customers on any channel.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Shep Hyken<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6797],"tags":[4909,6066,6098],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.5 (Yoast SEO v22.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Guest Blog: 4 Easy Ways to Achieve Difficult Customer Contact Goals - Shep Hyken | Customer Service Expert<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Blog: 4 Easy Ways to Achieve Difficult Customer Contact Goals - Shep Hyken | Customer Service Expert\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week we feature an article by Brian Cantor who\u00a0gives us a list of ways to achieve success and consistency when communicating with customers on any channel.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Shep Hyken\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shep Hyken | Customer Service Expert\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ShepHykenSpeaker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ShepHykenSpeaker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-30T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-10T21:14:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Salesforce-300x214.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"shephyken\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"shephyken\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"shephyken\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b92dbe4f9f734f7c0d600fc8014b7fe2\"},\"headline\":\"Guest Blog: 4 Easy Ways to Achieve Difficult Customer Contact Goals\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-30T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-10-10T21:14:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\"},\"wordCount\":986,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b92dbe4f9f734f7c0d600fc8014b7fe2\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Salesforce-300x214.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"consistency\",\"customer journey experiences\",\"omnichannel customer experience\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Customer Care\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-care\/4-easy-ways-achieve-difficult-customer-contact-goals\/\",\"name\":\"Guest Blog: 4 Easy Ways to Achieve Difficult Customer Contact Goals - 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