How IGN is Optimizing Self-Service for First Contact Resolution

Chris Henderson, Senior Manager, Customer Service at video gaming giant IGN Entertainment (a division of Fox), spoke at ParaFest last month and shared some great tips.

She’s been with IGN since 1997 and, as a video gamer herself, really knows her customers. And she’s proven time and time again that you can achieve high rates of first contact resolution even with tight staffing restraints.

Here are just a few tips:

1. When it comes to designing your portal, design for success. Design your support center with the same care your company uses presenting their product.
2. In terms of content, don’t use a lot of filler in your guides. Gamers in particular have little patience wading through irrelevant material to find an answer. Design the page based on the behavior of your customers.
3. Take full advantage of Instant Feedback. There’s no reason to have something on your support center that no one’s reading, says Chris. Instant Feedback is so quick gamers will even use it and quickly tell you ‘exactly where you failed.’
4. “The reports in Parature can really tell you a story you can’t get from your customers,” says Chris. She advises taking the time to do a deep dive into them.

Download the IGN success story

In the U.S. alone, computer and videogame software sales topped $11.7 billion in 2008. In this hot market, millions of devoted gaming fans are online looking for the latest content, news and tips to enrich the gaming experience – and many of them are going to IGN Entertainment sites.

A unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., IGN is a leading Internet media and services provider, bringing news, reviews, videos, previews and forums to videogame and entertainment enthusiasts. In fact, IGN sites attract one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males online.

In a given month, tens of millions of unique users visit one of IGN’s targeted sites, which include IGN.com, GameSpy.com, Direct2Drive.com and AskMen.com. Across all sites, the company’s customer service department fields 12,000 support inquiries every month, from login questions to help finding specific content.

Download this customer success story and learn how leading Internet media and services provider IGN maintains a high level of service without costly staff additions.

Heavy support traffic

Support traffic can spike for any number of reasons: a less-than-perfect launch or an unexpected bug in a product is discovered, a new ad campaign takes off, or maybe a hot new product is released.

That’s what Chris Henderson, Senior Manager – Customer Service for IGN Network faced. IGN is an online entertainment community of Web sites all centered around the busy world of video games. And in Chris’ case, last September three of IGN’s most popular games all went live in the same month. Her challenge — how to help all these customers at once, without driving up wait times.

Here are some tips from Chris on how to approach it.

1. With bigger than average support traffic, reduction of redundancy is critical. Start with making smart use of your support front page. Chris urges customer support managers not to shy away from calling attention to what the majority of your customers want. Make your hottest topics stand out. Use graphics. Her point: you run ads for sales, run ads for support topics when you need to. Customers get the answers they need faster, and that’s what it’s all about. Also, change the front page often to keep it as current as possible. Make it a working “go-to” spot for customers. Minimizing redundant inquiries/tickets that don’t require a human is one of the best ways to ensure your customer support reps can deliver really great, quality support.
2. Know the psychological model of your customers. Common sense, but knowing who your customers are is key to knowing the best ways to support them. In IGN’s case, with a video gaming community, they knew that their customers strongly preferred anonymity and weren’t necessarily comfortable with in-person interactions. IGN customers are particular savvy about online service. Use auto response, but don’t try and “fool” your customers. Tell your customers it’s an auto response and give them links to articles pertaining to their question. For example, “This is an automated response based on the ticket fields you chose when submitting your request.” Or, “Based on the subject of your request, we’d like to suggest the following.” Automating your response can ensure your customers are served without using staff time to answer redundant issues.
3. To be most effective, use your knowledgebase creatively. In IGN’s case, their customers want graphics buttons (oversized, with minimal words) and movies. According to Chris, videos rule. She uses a lot of videos that are pausable, and walk customers through everything. They’re more likely to click on an email with a link to a video than to read an FAQ.

Finally, especially during high support traffic times, give your customer support reps time to give great quality support.

How has your organization successfully or unsuccessfully handled service & support traffic spikes? How will you handle high traffic in the future?