Leveraging Parature Email Templates

Email Templates is one of the new features Parature introduced in the Parature ‘10 Release. Parature’s Email Templates can be used to improve readability of emails, enhance branding of email messages, and provide more control over the support experience. Check out the points below to see how you can improve the customer experience with the Email Templates feature:

Email Styling
Customize the design of the email notifications received by your customers and CSRs. These customizations can range from including a company logo or custom fonts, colors, and layouts. This feature also provides the ability to include applicable text, such as disclaimers, contact information, or department links.

Contextual Variables
Modify email notifications with information specific to the ticket of your customer. This feature enables you to include any ticket, customer, or account fields in the email. Any relevant information can be personalized to the account or customer. This will allow for more consistency in email responses, as well as an improved customer experience.

Email Template - Sample

Customize Email Subject, Sender, Reply-to
In addition to the email body content, this feature provides you with the ability to customize other specific items including your email subject and senders. This feature can be used to provide more helpful content in the email subject and improve readability of emails.

Different Templates for Customers and CSRs
Defining different content for internal and external email templates allows you to personalize the email appropriately for your audience-a CSR versus a Customer. Creating different templates will let you present personalized emails to customers and include extra issue details in a CSR email.

Email Template - Sample

Create HTML and Plain Text Versions
Generate emails in either HTML or Plain Text versions to make content appropriate for any email client.

Preview Email Template
Preview Email Templates in HTML style and formatting as they will appear to customers. The Edit and Preview features will make it easier for you to develop an effective Email Template and allow you to eliminate errors in email template customization.

Variable Inserter
Utilize an intuitive control to pick contextual email template variables. This includes all customer, account, and ticket fields.

Email Template - Sample

To find out more about Email Templates and additional features offered in the Parature ‘10 release, be sure to navigate to the Parature Support Portal and check out the articles located in the “Parature ’10-Latest Release” folder!

Parature for Facebook

Newly Available Parature for Facebook Helps Companies Increase “Face-Time” while Keeping Support and New Customer Acquisition Costs Low

Today we announced the general availability of Parature for Facebook, the industry’s first and only customer service application that enables direct customer engagement through Facebook. The Parature for Facebook application, delivered on-demand through Parature’s software-as-a-service model, helps companies, educational institutions and government associations directly engage with their Facebook fans to resolve service issues, answer pre-sales questions and conduct one-to-one customer interactions, all within Facebook and accessible through an easily installed Support Tab on a Facebook page.

Several new and existing Parature customers have signed on as users of Parature for Facebook, but language learning software giant Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) made history today when it became the very first company in the world to unveil support and service through Facebook to its more than 6,000 fans.

“We are excited to be the first company, ever, to provide live support through Facebook. Our Facebook presence is key to our customer acquisition and retention strategies, and we knew we needed a way to foster stronger relationships and resolve any questions or issues encountered by our growing Facebook fan base,” said Jay Topper, senior vice-president of customer success, Rosetta Stone. “Parature for Facebook empowers us to do just that, while fully integrating Facebook as an additional channel into our customer success operations.”

Parature for Facebook is designed to meet the market’s increasing demand to provide rich and meaningful communication, service and support through the world’s most popular social media platform, Facebook. Recently surpassing Google as the most visited website according to Hitwise and announcing it reached its 500 million member milestone, Facebook is a cultural force that is changing how and with whom people communicate. Companies desiring stronger and more profitable customer relationships need to figure out how to use social media to build their brand and drive more business through the emerging channel.

“Social Media has taken over several business functions over the past few years, and most organizations are beginning to understand how Twitter and Communities work for Customer Service,” said Esteban Kolsky of ThinkJar, LLC. “The continued migration from several social networks, as well as the rise of Facebook as the destination for more and more customers has put organizations in a particular uncomfortable situation – most of them are not even sure whether Facebook can or should be treated as a channel for Customer Service, or what to do if they decide to move into it. As a result, most of the implementations we are seeing are escalation recommendations for clients. Research has shown that companies that engage customers in the channels of the customer choice are going to have higher customer satisfaction. It is time for companies to consider how to engage customers across all social channels seamlessly, as they have done for email, chat, and other customer service channels.”

Prior to Parature for Facebook, companies had to manually monitor and respond to individual posts. Now, organizations can take advantage of a fully integrated solution that automates and streamlines the service and support process within Facebook. By offering customers direct access to service teams through Wall posts, private chat sessions or tickets, the application enables one-to-one engagement in a very social forum.

Faster and Lower Cost Issue Resolution with Live Chat, Ticket Submission, Knowledgebase Access and More

Parature for Facebook includes several features all directly accessible through a Facebook page and designed to help customers gain access to sales, service representatives and tools that help rapidly resolve service issues and answer questions while keeping support and new customer acquisition costs low for companies. Parature for Facebook features are accessible through the application’s Facebook Support Tab, which is easily installed on any corporate Facebook page, and include:

Real-time Facebook Wall Monitoring for Quick Customer Response
Via the ‘Parature Page Monitor’ all relevant posts containing chosen keywords will be read from the wall and sent to the Parature Service Desk as a ticket, enabling service representatives to easily monitor and respond to otherwise unmanageable wall posts and comments without ever leaving their Parature software;

Knowledgebase Search Right from Facebook The ‘Find an Answer’ feature enables customers visiting a page to enter a search term and receive the relevant answer directly from the organization’s knowledgebase without ever leaving Facebook. Additionally, the customer can use the ‘Ask a Question’ feature for resolution if their question wasn’t answered via the aforementioned method;

Live Chat Direct from a Fan Page
A customer visiting a page can ‘Chat with an Agent’ to discuss a service problem, issue, or to ask a question directly from Facebook. The representative will respond to the Facebook user via Parature Chat™ for quick issue resolution and a rich one-to-one interaction;

Sharing a Customer Service Experience
Using the ‘Share’ feature, a customer who uses the support functionality within Facebook can share their answers and service experiences on their personal wall; attracting new customers and building positive brand perception for organizations

Parature for Facebook is available as a stand-alone application, or as a component of the complete Parature Customer Service™ software suite. All Parature software support solutions are delivered on-demand in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment.

“With today’s release of Parature for Facebook, Parature becomes the first software company, ever, to provide organizations the ability to extend their sales, support and marketing operations to Facebook and provide direct engagement,” said Duke Chung, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Parature. “We are extremely proud to be the first to market and to, once again, demonstrate our commitment to innovation by delivering a cutting-edge product that addresses evolving business issues for our customers.”

How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers 'Like' You in All Social Channels

The webinar “How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers ‘Like’ You in All Social Channels” was attended by hundreds of customer service and support professionals who submitted numerous questions during the webinar. Due to the time constraints of the event, Rich was unable to answer all of the great questions submitted; however he has been gracious enough with his time to answer each one within our blog.

Whether you attended the webinar or not, you may find that the answers to these questions may also help you understand how to leverage social media for better service.

If you did not attend the webinar, we invite you to watch it now. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

Sure, silence CAN imply that we’re “not clued in” and “not connected”….but what about when the mention is a rant? Or has definite potential to negatively spiral out of control?  How do we determine what’s safe and what’s too risky to respond to?

Excellent question. Remember that silence is a response too, so thoughtfully decide if your interests are best served by that response. In general, I prefer a strategy of providing at least *one* reasonable answer – especially when you and the “rant”-er are both branding yourselves in front of a public audience.

-Rich

It seems there is a focus on negative feedback, is the majority of information out there negative?

Check out Facebook fan pages or online support communities for some of your own favorite products. I think you will find that the community itself reflects what they think of a business – for example, when a *good* company is criticized; people will generally come to its defense, while an unpopular one may provoke a feeding frenzy of criticism.

For example, I am currently finishing a masters degree at an accredited (and fairly well respected) online program. When someone posted a “rant” complaining about its distance learning format in its community, nearly 25 people responded, all defending the school! If your customers generally like you, you will often see similar outcomes.

-Rich

What is the best way to send out a message on a fan page in Facebook?

Once you “like” a business fan page (using the “Like” button at the top of its page), you are generally able to post to its wall which can be a great soapbox for you to share your own opinions!

-Rich

If you are fairly certain an ex-employee is the one complaining, how do you handle that situation?

Exactly the same way as any person who complains. Take the high road and respond in a way that is factual rather than defensive. That said, you often do have the option of “blocking” people who violate the standards of your online community, particularly if they are repeat offenders.

-Rich

What do you think about the notion of relying on organized customer advocates to assist in customer service issues rather than relying exclusively on staff?

This is a fantastic idea *if* your company is big enough. You need a substantial economy of scale to have your own user community to respond to customers, unless you specifically groom (and reward) your own paraprofessionals. For the big players, like Apple and Microsoft, I personally often get much better answers from “the wisdom of crowds” than even the best support knowledgebase.

-Rich

Our company has a high concentration of consumers whom are 65+ and have been loyal customers to our company.  If a company focuses on social media in order to keep up with current trends does this not alienate those consumers who are not on Facebook, Twitter or who do not even have a computer at home?

When Carolyn Healey of SupportIndustry.com first proposed this webinar, she and I were discussing exactly the same issue – some companies (which shall remain nameless) seem to openly favor “trendy” social media support channels over their regular ones, leading unwittingly to a perception that they could give a “tweet” about their other customers.

In my view, social media should be just one channel in an integrated support environment – which in turn may mean re-thinking your entire support process around more interactivity and faster response.

-Rich

Does Facebook sell our contact information?

Not that I am aware of. According to their privacy policy, “we will not provide your information to (third-party) marketers without your consent.” However, they certainly do use your information to stream targeted ads to your FB page. Facebook’s privacy policy is actually pretty readable – check it out at: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

-Rich

How do you balance privacy needs with quick and open communication (specifically dealing with personal or financial type business transaction)?

Privacy is very important in a social networking environment, particularly because being contacted through Facebook or Twitter does not provide implied consent to disclose personal information. Combine a public response with a link to contact you: for example, a tweet saying, “We can accommodate your request. Contact us at (link) and we’ll have the details ready for you.”

-Rich

How would you recommend responding to social media rants that contain mis/incorrect information?

By first acknowledging and validating the person’s concerns, then making a factual and non-defensive response. For example, “We completely respect your concerns about privacy. We share the same concerns as customers with families of our own. Regarding the issues you have raised, we want to reassure you that we do not, in fact, sell your contact information to third-world spies and computer hackers, as you state here.”

-Rich

Can you explain the benefits of having a Facebook Page for a company?

Facebook is now the third-largest “country” in the world, with over 500 million users, most of whom visit daily, and many of whom spend hours on it. Increasingly, most major businesses now have a FB presence because that is where their customers are. And many consumers – particularly younger ones – are starting to expect you to have a social media presence as a way to connect with you.

Try dipping your toe in the water by setting up a FB fan page for your company – which is very easy to do – and then perhaps try Parature’s free monitoring tool to see what kind of activity you get, once you promote it.

-Rich

How can or should companies budget for providing customer service using the social media discussed today?

I believe companies should budget for providing support, period, with social media being just one channel. Gary McNeil did a wonderful job of laying out the folly of trying to put social media support as a layer on top of your normal support process. And I will give a shameless plug for products like his Parature for FB – they get us closer to a world where social media seamlessly feeds in to an integrated support environment.

-Rich

Can this concept be applied to the company’s normal Web support web site?  Not just Facebook.

I’m going to ask my friends at Parature to answer this one.

-Rich

Everything that Rich has communicated can be applied to all of your support channels. You should be using multiple integrated support channels to service your customers, and you can use Rich’s tips – acknowledge and validate concerns or issues; engage your customers, listen to them and make things right – in any support channel whether it’s a live chat, a phone call, a trouble ticket, or a social interaction. Social media is just one support channel that you should be leveraging.

For more strategies and techniques on how to effectively communicate with your customers, we invite you to watch some of our previous webinars with Rich.

Getting Your Worst Customers to Love You: True Tales from the Front Lines of Customer Support

How to Tell Anyone Anything: Coaching Your Service Team to Success

What to Say to a Porcupine: Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Customers

-Parature

Re: Consumerist.com…replying from the company could end up fueling the fire if readers don’t like or respect the response.

It certainly could, depending on the response. But in my view, no response is often the worst response of all. This is why I spent so much of this webinar discussing how to communicate in a social media world. You have to drop the officious corporate prose and speak honestly and authentically to consumers, if you hope to make a good impression. If your company is not organizationally prepared to do this, I agree, it may be best not to respond.

-Rich

Rich’s Social Network:

Twitter: @gallagherPOC

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rich.gallagher

Blog: http://point-of-contact.blogspot.com

Website: www.pointofcontactgroup.com

E-mail: gallagher@pointofcontactgroup.com

Webinar: How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers 'Like' You in All Social Channels

Customers are increasingly turning to social media to air their service issues – especially when they feel companies could give a tweet about them through other channels. In the process, your service reputation is now out in the open for everyone to see. But some companies are leading the charge to use services like Twitter, Facebook, and virtual communities to brand their 21st century service identity.

This webinar will show you how to leverage social media for better service if you’re new to it, and how to sharpen your virtual service image if you’re an old pro. Topics we’ll cover include:

• Why your service is going public and going viral: a look at today’s digital consumer
• Social media service success stories: Comcast, Southwest Airlines, Zappos, and more
• Understanding virtual service channels:
  • Twitter: A public dialogue that takes place in real time
  • Facebook: Building a community around your brand
  • Virtual communities: Communications channel or feeding frenzy
  • The blogosphere: Everyone has a soapbox
• Do’s and don’ts: How to communicate effectively in a cyber service world

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

Webinar: Why Customer Service is NOT Enough

The webinar “Why Customer Service is NOT Enough” was attended by hundreds of customer service and support professionals who submitted numerous questions during the webinar. Due to the time constraints of the event, Lisa was unable to answer all of the great questions submitted; however she has been gracious enough with her time to answer each one within our blog.

Whether you attended the webinar or not, you may find that the answers to these questions may also help you understand some of the strategies for improving the customer experience.

If you did not attend the webinar, we invite you to watch it now. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

What about organizations who don’t really need to be on the phone all the time? We have an email to phone ratio of about 80:20. We only get on the phone if the issue is complex or critical, and needs personal explanation. We schedule calls with customers, and then get on the phone.

It sounds like your approach is a good one. Make certain your email responses are timely, within 4 hours is considered fast. Go back and check the content of the responses – eliminate jargon, write in complete sentences, be respectful and conversational. When on the scheduled call, have the “right” person on the call. Make certain that person is prepared and calls when promised and buy the Employees lunch…pizza, etc.  This would give the leaders a chance to visit with the Employees of the locations.

-Lisa

Customer service strategies should be implemented throughout the org. How can we sell the value to management so they participate in training and are a Champion? You have a great approach, fab stories and new ideas. Thank you! -Carol Davis, Inspiring More

Management typically responds to data. Your best sales strategy may be via data and best practices from other companies. Give them examples of management involvement in training as well as championing efforts. Invite management to listen in on calls or supply them with a link to listen in. Make it easy for them – download calls on to an iPod. Also create a role for them in training classes. Have them talk about purpose and the service culture.

-Lisa

What in an organizational culture reinforces a customer service mentality? Especially when you can’t give pay increases…..

How you treat people is important when no pay increases are available. Consider these options – Compliment their service efforts and do not take them for granted. Keep customer service on the agenda at team meetings so they realize how important their role is for the organization. Ask for their improvement ideas. Find ways to celebrate them with some fun rewards like food, movie tickets, gift cards etc.  Also be direct about the limited pay. Not acknowledging this issue will only lead to frustration and turnover.

-Lisa

I heard what you said about a businessman being a consumer but do you think B2B Customer Service needs to be a different level?

B2B customer service does need to be different yet many of the same elements must exist. B2B requires a closer relationship and possibly have a team “assigned” to the customer. The service should be more proactive. With a close relationship, you should be anticipating needs and working to meet them via conversations.

-Lisa

Don’t you find that the simplest things often make the biggest differences? -Vess

The simplest things can make a huge difference. You heard me say that the best get better by focusing on the fundamentals and the basics.

-Lisa

Why did you continue to use Delta Airlines when the service was so bad? -Michael

Good question – it is a pretty simple answer. I fly out of Atlanta where Delta is headquartered. They have the most direct flights going where I need to go. Luckily, they have flashes of improved service so it keeps me hopeful!

-Lisa

How do you effectively route customer questions to networking sites and other media such as text messages and Web chat from call centers while keeping the same enthusiasm?

Go ahead and answer the issue. Once you have taken care of them, educate on other ways to access answers in the future. Give them the “bonus” to using that method next time, i.e. time saving, convenience, 24/7.
-Lisa

When working in a tech support call center, we are looking to ‘reduce’ the number of people calling in to reduce cost. Is there a way to reduce calls and still maintain great customer service?

Consider technology; there are many customer service software suites available that can arm your organization with multiple channels of support in addition to phone. Self-service options such as a knowledgebase and downloads, online ticket submission and even chat for live assistance. Customer’s today want choices for their preferred method of support. Of course we recommend Parature Customer Service software to:

• Reduce support requests, issue resolution times & repetitive inquiries
• Raise the productivity of customer service representatives and reduce volume
• Improve your overall level of service & satisfaction increasing customer retention & loyalty

To learn more about the value of providing customers with choices for their preferred method of support, we invite you to read our free white paper entitled Multi-Channel Service: Enhancing the Customer Experience.

-Parature

We have a supervisor who is constantly late, absent but very good in using our system which is Five9. What should we do with her?

First the obvious question, does she know her tardiness and absenteeism are problems? Have you asked for a change, offered consequences and given her timelines for the change to occur? Too often we don’t do the basics. Stop ignoring this behavior. I don’t care if she if that good at your system. I bet someone reading this may be equally competent and would like that job.

-Lisa

Could you give some examples of how companies are moving toward valuing Customer Service as vital to their business revenue rather than a just a cost?

Pick up the books by Frederick Reichheld. His latest is “The Ultimate Question”. He is the expert on loyalty and provides great company examples on the value of loyalty. Reichheld was one of the first to put metrics to retention. Zappos is a company that definitely knows customer service is vital to business revenue.

-Lisa

How do you put metrics around customer loyalty and retention?

See answer above.

What do you think is the single greatest mistake organizations make that derails their customer service improvement aspirations?

Customer service is seen as a cost not vital to their success. There are many others – such as jumping from one service initiative to another, single minded focus on the shareholder, no one really owns the data and champions the efforts. Most organizations know what to do but execution seems to elude them.

-Lisa

Do I need to praise my boss? Is that needed to be done?

I love this question – go ahead and praise your boss if it is deserved. We all love praise when it is sincere and specific. Do it out of honesty and respect. Don’t do it if you are hoping it will get you praise in return.

-Lisa

How do you implement this philosophy with internal customers (a.k.a. fellow employees/captive customers)?

This is a culture issue. Make it clear from day one that how we treat each other is part of “the customer service philosophy” of the organization. If we do not serve well our internal team, then it is tough for them to serve the external customer.

-Lisa

What do you do if the front line CSRs are giving excellent customer service and other departments of the organization don’t provide the same and the front line has to make up for their inadequacies (lack of service.)

Start documenting the actions and then the costs of how other department’s inadequacies affect the bottom line. Is your team recovering in a way to costs the organization – free shipping, credits, discounts etc? Put those cost together and present to the leaders. Costs will get attention. Invite other departments to sit in on calls. Ask for their ideas on how to they can work together more effectively. For example, the IT team may need to “see” it from your view however you must be willing to understand their issues also.

-Lisa

What is a good way (in fact a best way) to handle the disconnect between the customer service professionals and their IT requests when IT team does not get back to their requests on time – Sasha

See answer above.

How do you keep the positive, energized team when they feel overworked and you can’t hire additional manpower even though they really need it?

Same answer as to a previous question.
How you treat people is important when no pay increases are available. Consider these options – Compliment their service efforts and do not take them for granted. Keep customer service on the agenda at team meetings so they realize how important their role is for the organization. Ask for their improvement ideas. Find ways to celebrate them with some fun rewards like food, movie tickets, gift cards etc.  Also be direct about the limited pay. Not acknowledging this issue will only lead to frustration and turnover.
-Lisa

The estimator at one of our largest customers (Customer “A”) willingly admits that we are his supplier of choice, and provide the best service and take the best care of his product. However, if he receives a lower quote for another supplier, he feels it unethical to call and ask if we have any room on our price, and will award the job to our competitor. He does not go out for lunch… we have a very friendly relationship, yet he has a wall up when it comes to discussing how we may get more of his business. How do we build our relationship to that higher level?

Sounds like quite an interesting customer. I am glad to hear you have a friendly relationship. Your best bet is to simply continue to encourage a two way conversation. Let him know how important his business is and how happy you are to be the supplier of choice. Then don’t be shy about approaching this issue. Your honesty about wanting him to call and your willingness and desire to work with him may play into his ethics. You are being ethical with your honesty, respect, delivering as promised and responsiveness. I wish you the best with this one!

-Lisa

How do you handle a situation when you did not receive sufficient training?

Start to track the issues and questions where you feel your training and knowledge is lacking. Then ask for help from the team leader or appropriate person. Look for resources that might be online or on a shelf around your department. There may be some soft skills training DVDs available if that is your need. My DVD series, How to Give Exceptional Customer Service, is used by many for ideas on handling customer situations. It can be found at www.lisaford.com. Another idea may be to find a more experienced person who is willing to mentor and help you.

-Lisa

I work for a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) organization, are there different ways of measuring customer loyalty besides focus groups? 2. Would you recommend a feedback link on the webpage?

I certainly recommend a feedback link on the webpage. Make certain someone is assigned to tracking the feedback. Only ask for information if you are willing to act on it. You can also use some of the surveys available such as surveymonkey.com and polldaddy.com. The one question I recommend asking is – If there is one thing we could do to improve our service, that one thing would be….?

-Lisa

Good customer service telephone habits?

Here is a laundry list – a short greeting, enunciate the greeting, avoid jargon, keep hold times brief when checking information, always thank the customer for waiting/holding, when transferring do a warm hand off if possible (get the other person on the line), use a tone of voice that is appropriate and respectful. The key is when the call is over did the customer feel served or processed?

-Lisa

Bad telephone habits to avoid?

Bad habits are when the greeting is so rushed and difficult to understand, poor listening so the customer must repeat themselves, transfers to voicemail, too much time with silence while the rep is checking on the answers and employees who lack knowledge or have an attitude.

-Lisa

Our agents are all home based so how do we keep then motivated and excited when their work load is very high with little time for breaks?

Ask for their ideas. You may want to create a forum for them to discuss their issues. They need community and a chance to feel a part of something. Then start thinking about how you can surprise them with some perks. I do believe small stuff works – send them a gift card, iTunes card, food, movie tickets.

-Lisa

I am wondering how Southwest came to be considered a standard for customer service excellence when they seem to randomly apply rules and regulations for customers of size. I have heard they have no standard for enforcing this “size” policy and that it varies according to agent. This seems a rather discriminatory policy to me, and a terrible customer service experience.

I do agree that consistency needs to be applied on the issue you mention here. However Southwest has been able to be a service star in many ways. Some of their strength has been in allowing employees to be empowered and use their judgment on behalf of the airline while balancing the needs of the customer. They also shine due to how they treat the employees. It does show in how employees create a fun service experience and help each other out. On the customer of size issue, I bet they are the first to admit that there is plenty of room for improving that process. The best organizations know every service can be tweaked and fixed.

-Lisa

For more information on Lisa Ford, please visit www.lisaford.com
Check out Lisa’s Customer Service Blog
To check speaking availability and fees, you can contact 760.603.8110 – Speakers Office
Follow Lisa on Twitter

Webinar: Why Customer Service is NOT Enough

Today’s customers want an experience that engages them and gives them a reason to remain connected to you. Their mindset is one that is fickle, demanding, vocal and not very loyal.

In this webinar, customer service expert, Lisa Ford outlines her strategies for improving the customer experience.

• Go beyond average service to a relationship
• Ask tough questions to examine the quality of your experience
• Learn the customer connection rules
• Focus the culture on everyday service excellence
• Create a team that is inspired to keep customers loyal

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

Moving the Needle on Customer Satisfaction Ratings

More than once during my management career, I have been involved in successfully “turning around” customer satisfaction levels in customer contact centers. It isn’t an accident, nor is it just the result of hard work – it is a reproducible process that has more science behind it than you might think. Here are what I feel are the four keys to changing customer satisfaction levels.

1. Move from smile training to skills training
   The phrase “customer service training” has nearly half a million hits on Google. But many of these involve attitude-based “smile training.” In my experience – and more important, according to research – you need customer skills training targeted to specific contact center scenarios. So instead of hiring a motivational speaker to teach courtesy, teach people skills like active listening, defusing anger, delivering bad news, and managing customer expectations. More important, follow service leaders like FedEx and Southwest Airlines  and use role-playing for the most common scenarios in your organization.

   This is one area where your customer service software can help you drive your customer sat ratings. Mine your system for common training scenarios, and then use it to correlate training outcomes with service metrics. In time, your goal should be to make organizationally-specific skills development part of your orientation, your in-service training, and ultimately your culture.

2. Move from deficit-based coaching to strength-based coaching
   Most of us practice deficit-based coaching with our teams: in other words, we find something wrong and try to correct it. But this is precisely the wrong approach to use in a high-stress job like customer contact. In my experience, improved customer sat goes hand-in-hand with creating a blame-free, criticism-free environment centered around learning. Here are the basics of strength-based coaching:
   • Start in a safe place. For example, change “you did this wrong” to “walk me through how you handle this situation”
   • Ask good questions and take a learning posture
   • Understand mistakes and turn them into learning opportunities
   • Troubleshoot facts instead of criticizing performance
   • Speak from the agent’s incentive: more confidence, more skills, greater leadership

   Ultimately, your goal is to move from a stance of “You did X wrong” to “Here’s how to be great at this.” Agents often feel they lack control and are over-measured, so they resist and reject criticism. As a result, coaching works best as part of a broader career development and personal growth process.

3. Measure (and react to) the right things
   The quickest way to ruin performance is by measuring the wrong things. If you demand short calls, for example, then you will certainly get short calls – along with higher turnover and lower customer sat.  The right measures motivate people, while the wrong ones demoralize them.

   Think about what metrics directly benefit customers and the bottom line. I recommend publicizing primary metrics like customer sat and revenues, but keeping secondary metrics (like average handle time, time in seat, first call resolution, etc.) close to the vest – use them to coach people who stray far from your norms, and let everyone else feel they are doing great.

   Above all, think hard about the unintended consequences of your metrics. When you have 12 different performance criteria and a high bar for each of them, you create an environment where people feel they are never good enough and are constantly being pushed in the back. Instead, leverage your own metrics as a strategic tool that bolsters performance AND motivation.

4. Create a culture of leadership and responsibility at the cubicle level
   Look critically at the title and responsibility pool of your agent base: leading organizations put more responsibility and authority at the front line level. When people on your team go from being faceless customer support agents to being training coordinators, team leaders, and subject matter experts, their own motivation and leadership will drive your customer sat. Look at areas like peer coaching, a team-based hiring process, and greater industry visibility in your in-service training.

   By employing techniques like these, you can turn customer sat from something you want into something you plan for – and the results will have a dramatic impact on your morale, turnover, and profitability as well as the obvious benefit of happy customers. Best of success!

Rich Gallagher is a communications skills expert, author, and former help desk executive. His book What to Say to a Porcupine: 20 Humorous Tales that Get to the Heart of Excellent Customer Service (AMACOM, 2008) was a national #1 customer service and business humor bestseller that was a finalist for the 2008 Business Book Awards, and his latest book How to Tell Anyone Anything (AMACOM, 2009) explores the mechanics of difficult workplace conversations. Visit Rich online at www.pointofcontactgroup.com

White Paper: Lessons in Loyalty: How Southwest Airlines Does It - An Insider's Point of View

Southwest Airlines recognized long ago that they were in the Customer service industry, they just happened to fly airplanes. Subsequently, they built and maintain one of the most faithful Customer bases in existence today.

Parature is pleased to offer you this free white paper entitled Lessons in Loyalty: How Southwest Airlines Does It – An Insider’s Point of View

Phenomenally successful Southwest Airlines is renowned for its stellar Customer service. Their continual dedication to achieving the highest level of Customer service led them to:

• Always capitalize the “C” in Customers to emphasize their importance
• Imbed each employee paycheck with a reminder message that their “Customers were responsible for providing this paycheck”
• Design a hiring system to attract and retain “Warrior Spirits” with innate Customer service skills
• Implement a recognition system and invite the external Customer to help recognize employees
• Utilize fun as a strategy to find the kid in everyone

Read this white paper to discover the principles and practices that, when implemented correctly, will boost the level of Customer loyalty in your organization, ultimately positioning your company as a leader in your industry and giving you a tremendous competitive advantage.

Quick Tips from Organizations that Have Brought Customers to the Forefront

Earlier this month at ParaFest, the panel was asked to give one parting tip. Both Tammy and Jon focused on the knowledgebase. Tammy advised using the knowledgebase to create a valuable internal resource for your own team. Jon said don’t underestimate the power of integrating video, screen shots, and tutorials into the knowledgebase to account for different preferences. Doug stressed the importance of continually evaluating your system: touch base with your CRSs regularly to get a reality check on your configurations. Along those lines, Scott stressed the importance of planning and talking to your team before implementing anything new. Hugh also stressed the importance of planning – for instance, looking at keywords for Facebook carefully when deciding what to monitor.

Please share your quick tips on what your organization does or that you think organizations should do to differentiate their customer support.

Watch: Why the Customer Experience Matters Most - Rosetta Stone's Customer Success Strategy

The webinar “Why the Customer Experience Matters Most – Rosetta Stone’s Customer Success Strategy” was attended by hundreds of customer service and support professionals who submitted numerous questions during the webinar. Due to the time constraints of the event, Jay was unable to answer all of the great questions submitted; however he has been gracious enough with his time to answer each one within our blog.

Whether you attended the webinar or not, you may find that the answers to these questions may also help you with your customer success strategy.

If you did not attend the webinar, we invite you to watch it now. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

Do you have evaluation forms for your customers to fill out via Web or phone?

Evaluations, like feedback? We do use the ‘Submit a Request’ function on the portal. We also use the feedback forms for chat and are looking to implement for emails and phone. The key for us is to keep it optional and simple, so it’s super convenient for our customers and meaningful for our measures.

-Rosetta Stone

Are there a percentage of users from large companies that succeed with Rosetta Stone?

Rosetta Stone language-learning solutions are used by schools, organizations and millions of individuals in over 150 countries throughout the world.

-Rosetta Stone

Are you using work-at-home agents, especially for the native language coaches? How is that working out? Any lessons learned or best practices or ideal profile for these coaches?

Yes, we have on-site and work from home employees.  The key is to ensure that they can technically meet the requirements, and have an inherent cultural fit.  They actually care about our customers and want to make them happy and conversationally proficient in the language they are learning.  We put forth a significant effort in our screening and interview process.  Once hired, the training is thorough and fun for the profiles we hire – then it’s up to a strong QA and customer feedback process to ensure quality.

-Rosetta Stone

Is there a certain timeframe for someone to learn a new language?

We have children who use our product to learn to speak and adults who have been retired for years and are just interested in learning a new language.  Learning a new language can enrich one’s life; introduce new culture and a way to communicate.  Any time is a good time for that.

-Rosetta Stone

Is your customer service desk staffed with internal employees or outsourced?

Both – We have an incredibly low turnover rate internally, and we aim to leverage efficient and effective ways to provide convenient support regardless of location and language.  The number one focus for any person who serves as the face of Rosetta Stone is to be able to communicate our fun and encouraging culture to our customers in anything we do (regardless of communication channel).  We don’t script, but we invest in face-to-face time with our partners.  The training and QA is just as intense in house as it is out.

-Rosetta Stone

While social media is part of the new buzz with marketers, what tools are you using to parse existing users from new users?

It’s hard to track all the different user IDs that customers use in the various communication channels, and we handle that as we learn more from our learners.  We also allow our learners to provide as much or as little information as they would like within their profiles and we use Parature as our customer support database of record.  Generally, people who want to use specific channels are open to sharing the information required to support them easily on those channels.

-Rosetta Stone

How do you maintain high morale within a call center that provides information to the public for other city agencies?

We value all employees at all levels and invest in our customer facing resources from a training and rewards perspective.  Our transparency of our company goals to our employees helps them see how each employee fits into that picture.  Their passion for language learning and for our mission is strong – as long as we hire the right fit, it’s not hard to keep our employees motivated.  Everyone likes to contribute to the success of our learners.

-Rosetta Stone

How can I convince my manager to think about social media for customer service? So far they have been hesitant.

We studied quite a bit before we decided to dig in to each SM channel.  We experiment judiciously, researching the traffic regarding any request related to Rosetta Stone.  We found that our customers are already there, and they’re asking for help – we just needed to provide an official response – it was actually a way to influence, or at least officially monitor, interaction with our customers.  If we didn’t someone else would have, and it would have been out of our control.

-Rosetta Stone