Customer Satisfaction Starts from Within

Contributed Article by Renaud Charvet, CEO of cloud calling Ringover

Customer satisfaction starts from within 

~ Keeping customers happy starts with employee experience ~

Anybody working in sales will have been told “the customer is always right”, probably several times, throughout their career. Keep them happy, and everything else will fall into place. But ensuring customer happiness requires a domino effect — starting with employee satisfaction. Here, Renaud Charvet, CEO of cloud calling Ringover explains how having access to the right business technology can enhance the employee experience and generate business value. 

Keeping customers happy has always been important, but with constantly evolving expectations, it’s increasingly becoming a challenge. The premise behind ensuring customer satisfaction hasn’t faltered — a prompt, complete service delivery on the first try. But the reality of how to meet this expectation has changed.

Previously, being served promptly meant a few days of back-and-forth email communication, or a couple of long-winded phone calls to resolve a query. But now, with the rise of chatbots and a culture of instantaneity, people want, and expect, service now. Nowadays, 60 per cent of customers expect a response within ten minutes to regard it as ‘immediate’, according to Hubspot. Keeping customers happy is the cornerstone of any successful business. But to ensure outward satisfaction, it’s important to first look within, at employee experience.

Happy employees, happy customers 

Fulfilled, driven and content employees are the first piece of the pie in ensuring customer satisfaction. In order to have a sincere, pleasant demeanor and deliver a more attentive level of service, employees have to be genuinely happy to do their job. It’s not something that can be faked. And as the face of the business from a customer perspective, the demeanor of front-line staff has a direct impact on customer experience, and ultimately satisfaction.

It’s backed by data too. Combined analysis of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and a survey by company review site Glassdoor revealed that across all industry, customer and employee satisfaction are positively linked. In particular, across retail, food service and healthcare, a one-star improvement in Glassdoor company rating on average resulted in a 3.2-point increase in ACSI score.  

So, for businesses where front-line employees are closely linked with customer experience, the impact of employees’ mood and attitude on customer satisfaction is glaringly clear. After all, customer satisfaction is intrinsically linked to customer loyalty. And loyal customers directly benefit business profitability, with a five per cent increase in customer retention rates increasing profile by between 25 and 95 per cent, according to Bain and Company. So, to keep customers happy, it’s crucial to first look at the employee experience.

Elevating employee experience 

To improve employee experience, it’s first important to define what it looks like. And for the majority of America, the future looks hybrid. According to Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index, 38 per cent of Americans have adopted a hybrid blend of working from home and the office, with 53 per cent considering making the switch from their current practice in the next 12 months.

More and more interactions are happening virtually — whether those are internal collaborative conversations or front-line customer service delivery. As such, technology is now a central part of the employee experience. In fact, the two are virtually synonymous, with some people’s entire work experience taking place through, and relying upon technology and workplace tools.

With this in mind, ensuring employees have a seamless set up and are equipped with the right tools to do their job is crucial. According to research conducted by Qualtrics, just 30 per cent of employees say their experience with company technology exceeds expectations. That leaves 70 per cent whose expectations are either just met or go unmet. And unmet expectations ultimately result in a negative employee experience.

Technology for the future 

The customer service landscape is shaping up to be increasingly digital, and so it’s crucial for businesses to implement technology that’s capable of meeting growing needs. A simple desk phone is no longer sufficient — to meet the needs of the modern-day customer, companies need to be adopting a multichannel customer service platform designed to work with the new employee experience, not against it.

Platforms that can be integrated with modules backed by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) abilities not only provide a more intuitive, seamless user experience, but they also open up new opportunities to automate simple tasks. By alleviating some of the workload from typically high-pressure customer service positions, automating in this way will improve employee experience and provide employees with more time and energy to focus on delivering excellent customer service to those that need it.

While employee incentives like gift cards are a nicety, they certainly aren’t the deciding factor in determining employee satisfaction. Listening to feedback and providing the tools required for employees to do their job is far more valuable for both employers and employees. A well-equipped workforce that can perform is likely to be happier, delivering quality service to a more satisfied customer base.

Excellent Customer Experience as an Expectation: Trends in 2023

Contributed Article by Liza Smyth, SVP of Customer Experience for Formstack

With an economic downturn on the horizon for 2023, customer experience is paramount. A positive customer experience drives customer loyalty, leading to retention and, ultimately, a stronger bottom line. According to McKinsey, improving customer experience is the fastest-growing priority for surveyed customer care leaders.

Let’s look at how we expect customer experience to evolve in 2023 and how it will impact forward-thinking organizations.

Keeping pace with customer expectations in 2023 

In the coming year, companies will continue to focus on customer experience, but must also keep up with heightening customer expectations amid stiffer competition. Because of the last few years of digital-first experiences driven by the pandemic, customers now increasingly expect personalized interactions and a secure, seamless buying experience that intuits their needs, regardless of the channel they choose to make a purchase.

An exceptional customer experience is a key factor in your organization’s competitive edge. In fact, 73% of surveyed customers said that experience was a driving factorin their purchasing decisions. Exceptional customer experiences keep customers coming back, and retaining existing customers is essential during times of economic turmoil when new customers are difficult to come by.

Look at the customer experience holistically 

In 2023, the responsibility of customer experience will be shared across the company — from tip to tail, every segment of an organization will play a role in improving the customer experience. Ensure your departments are communicating with each other to deliver the most unified experience, as 85% of customers expect cohesive interactions across departments, according to Salesforce data.

But how do you know if you’re improving your customers’ experiences? The best way to measure CX is to listen to your customers. Customer satisfaction surveys will clarify what you’re doing right while allowing customers to provide feedback. These results will let you dig deeper into what is working and identify pain points to address. This information can help you recognize any silos to break down between departments, which will ultimately improve interdepartmental communication and the comprehensive customer experience.

Invest in digital transformation 

Digital transformation’s second wave will bring humans into the digital experience. This is crucial, as 82% of surveyed Americans said they want more human interaction in their customer experience. Even as digital transformation becomes more commonplace, the human touch is still integral to customer satisfaction.

The most forward-thinking organizations will invest in digital transformation even with the forecasted economic uncertainty. The shift to digital will determine how to personalize experiences, anticipate customers’ needs, and offer a smooth customer experience from start to finish, overall increasing value for the customer and strengthening customer relationships — a result that 72% of surveyed leaders said they expected from a digital shift. Strong customer relationships are linked to improved retention and increased loyalty, both of which will play a part in where consumers decide to spend their money during 2023.

In the coming year, vendors will commence this next wave of digital transformation by using different channels and forums to communicate with customers. Using multiple channels for communication will lead to better data to analyze to identify key insights. Using this data, you can more effectively fulfill customers’ needs and facilitate seamless, intuitive self-help. This pivot to digital will contribute to improved customer experiences.

As the importance of customer experience continues to trend upward, businesses will increasingly look to differentiate themselves through their offerings. The smartest organizations will look at the customer experience as a whole to better unify experiences, while also investing in digital transformation to personalize experiences and assume customer needs in 2023 and beyond.

How Can CRM Implementation Boost Employee Engagement

Employee engagement involves job satisfaction, growth, and the quality of employee output. While pay raises are undoubtedly essential, these three elements directly impact your business’s success. Luckily, they are easy to achieve if you have the right tools to support you. Here are some of the ways CRM implementation can develop and sustain employee engagement. 

What is CRM?

CRM, or customer relationship management, is a software system designed to manage interactions between a business and its customers. It helps organizations track customers’ data in one place and organize them to utilize later. CRM enables you to improve efficiency and time management and impress customers. 

6 Ways CRM Implementation Helps in Employee Engagement

Reduces Workload

CRM solutions are primarily concerned with client data. Thus, software that can manage this data well would enable staff to reduce workload and avoid menial duties, freeing up their time for essential work, such as improving your digital marketing strategies (i.e., earned media) to generate leads. 

TechTarget’s insights on the most recent CRM automation highlight a humanized method of engagement by ensuring that bots give customers information that is specifically relevant to them and pairing them with real people for more complicated queries. It keeps consumer interactions from becoming overly virtual and guarantees that employees are only involved when necessary. Employees will be more productive in related work tasks by having faster access to the information they require for specific clients, thanks to the consolidation of customer data utilizing CRM solutions.

Provides Honest and Regular Employee Feedback

CRM is essential for many internal business activities, including motivating staff and getting feedback. Team leaders and company executives must encourage workers to discuss their workplace experiences and regularly offer candid feedback. Why? Because you can only hope to enhance your internal procedures, make your employees’ lives easier, and make their days more productive with proper and timely feedback.

Your CRM may be the ideal tool for achieving these objectives. A decent CRM platform might include vital feedback functions and forms you can customize because of its reporting capabilities. If you want to encourage your staff further to give direct feedback to management, make these end-of-shift feedback forms or mental health check-ins anonymous.

Increases Employee Confidence

Nowadays, additional features may connect most CRM products to offer more capabilities across a company. In this approach, technology aids internal business activities among staff and handling customer data and interactions. Inspiring teams to collaborate more effectively through CRM-based solutions can increase self-assurance and a sense of community. Over time, this benefits staff productivity because they can work together and manage crucial data on a wide-ranging platform.

Enhances Corporate Wellness and Employee Needs

It’s critical to remember that your wellness initiatives must adapt to meet the changing needs of the modern workforce. The pandemic has significantly accelerated this process, pushing the employees’ demands to shift quickly. It means you must research your workplace, culture, satisfaction, and the elements influencing employee engagement and output in your company.

Suppose you are still managing a remote or semi-remote company. In that case, you may discover that your staff members are hampered by communication breakdowns, organizational silos, and tedious, repetitive duties that sap their energy and productivity. Here is where a solid CRM can come to the rescue.

Ensures Accountability, Trust, and Collaboration

In the new typical, modern enterprises are facing some very particular difficulties. As more businesses adopt hybrid or remote work models, it can be challenging to ensure accountability, trust, and productive cooperation.

Fortunately, good reporting, project and customer monitoring, data storage and conversation logs, and other CRM software features can help reduce some of these problems. Your CRM system stores everything you input, and your staff may instantly access critical information.

A CRM may assist you in maintaining accountability by keeping everything recorded and all data safely held on the platform, which is crucial to workplace culture and general pleasure. It means that by having access to a clear communication track record, everyone—including higher management—will always have a way to settle workplace misunderstandings or disputes.

CRM enables individual team members to remain on top of all projects and activities, monitor customer-specific tasks and objectives, and more, which can help teams collaborate better and hold each other accountable. Stress is decreased by working together in this way, but more crucially, it helps distant teams break through departmental silos.

Boosts Organizational Communication

The idea of cooperation and departmental silos is strongly related to how CRM facilitates better internal and external team communication. Internal communication software, such as that found in CRM applications, typically enables teams to communicate in real-time and directly discuss tasks and projects by attaching notes and messages.

A CRM solution can remove communication bottlenecks and keep all projects and activities going ahead when used in conjunction with a good communication hierarchy in which everyone knows how to use the appropriate communication lanes. On the other hand, CRM enables you to continue having effective and efficient external communication with your clients.

Conclusion

While CRM software is typically used by businesses to increase client acquisition and retention, it’s crucial to recognize the advantages it may provide to your staff as well. When appropriately implemented, high quality use of CRM can improve various factors, including your internal communication and teamwork, as well as your company’s culture.

In 2022 and beyond, make sure to expand the use of CRM beyond sales and marketing and take advantage of the technology to create motivated and engaged employees.

Contributed Article by Katie Pierce

Is Customer Experience The Ultimate Marketing Tool?

Contributed article by Frank Hamilton

Advertising surrounds us everywhere. Companies have to try hard to stand out from the crowd and prove that their product or service is trustworthy to customers. Improving marketing customer experience is one of the top opportunities to turn customers into brand ambassadors, win more clients, raise brand awareness and get a competitive edge. But is customer experience the ultimate marketing tool in 2022? Let’s find it out.

What Is Customer Experience?

To put it simply, customer experience in marketing is a general term that covers all the impressions the customers have when interacting with a brand. In response to digital marketing development, customer experience has become one of the strongest digital trends of recent years.

This marketing tool creates the conditions for interacting with customers to meet or exceed their expectations. Customers go through many points of interaction with a company. And it is very important that at each of these points your customer is satisfied.

Modern marketing is customer-centric so the customers are the only ones to decide what kind of products to buy, and what level of service to choose.  In a couple of clicks, customers can view product features, reviews, and ratings, and decide “To buy or not to buy?” They can quickly change brands without compromising themselves if a competitor offers a better product, or service or anticipates their desires.

In such an abundance of choice, when the customer experience is far from being enjoyable, 32% of modern users are willing to give up on their favorite brand. At the same time, one unsatisfied customer will tell about their negative experience to 16  friends and damage the company’s reputation with the word of mouth.

Why Is Customer Experience So Important?

Let’s be honest with each other – there is no perfect marketing tool that will fit every company and every brand. But improving customer experience day after day is a must-follow strategy for every company. Firstly, a positive customer experience is a confirmation that your core business processes are set up right. After all, if at any point of interaction your customer isn’t happy, you need to make adjustments to your team or your marketing strategy. What’s more, the customer experience is directly dependent on employees being competent, responsible, and proactive.

Here are a few more reasons why companies should care even more about a successful modern customer experience:

 1. Increase the Check

Modern customers will never be satisfied with little. Today, they want the most from brands and companies at every stage of interaction. Studies show that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for good service. This means that companies with a customer-centric marketing strategy will be able to earn even more and grow their company faster.

 2. Win More Customers

Customers want a personalized approach that will cater to personal wishes and requests. Targeted advertising, smart content marketing and blogging increase customer trust and loyalty, allowing you to stand out from other similar brands. And as a result, grow the number of leads and customers. Surveys show that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if a company offers a personalized approach.

 3. Stand Out From the Competition

Customers today have a wide range of services and products to choose from, so companies should try hard to stand out. A positive customer experience is one effective way to stand out from the competition, and most importantly, to build loyalty and retain customers for a long time.

 4. Lower the Cost per Lead

Word of mouth is free advertising for your company. And it’s worth noting that it’s very effective. According to studies, more than 92% of consumers use reviews to make a purchase decision. Therefore, every satisfied customer can become an ambassador for your brand in the future and help you attract new leads with the power of social proof. Here is how you won’t have to spend any extra money to acquire new customers.

 5. Create a Recognizable Brand

Loyal customers help take a brand to the next level. After all, globally popular brands have become popular because of the consistent digital consumer experience they delivered for years. One of the ways to create a recognizable brand is to tell your potential customers about it as much as possible through highly qualified content since to date, content importance for blog is growing. This is the tool to build loyalty and improve your SEO performance at once.

How To Improve Customer Experience? 

Customer experience is one of the most important marketing tools that determine how successful your company or brand will be. So here are some important tips that can help you stand out with the best customer experience.  

• Develop an omnichannel strategy to enhance the customer experience. Always be accessible to your customers. For example, if the customer feels more comfortable contacting you through social media, you should be ready to support them via social channels. If the user likes to find information on their own, run a meaningful blog. If the customer wants to contact you after business hours, it would be nice to offer them a chatbot. It will stay in touch with your customers 24 hours a day, which will allow for a better customer experience. Look here for more insights into omnichannel customer experience and the benefits it drives.
• Train your employees. At certain stages of interacting with the brand, your customers will work with your employees. Be sure that they correctly communicate the company’s values and culture, and have perfect knowledge of the product and the algorithm for dealing with various atypical situations. Regular training sessions can help your sales, customer support, and marketing teams provide impeccable assistance.
• Provide feedback on time. Listen to and read feedback from your customers. Use this information wisely to improve your service and product. Once you have worked out the weaknesses, try to keep your customers informed about the work done, the troubleshooting, or the improvement of the service.
• Optimize the customer journey. Identify all stages of the customer’s interaction with your company. Think about how you can make customers’ experience of choosing, buying, using, and committing to your brand stronger and more positive. Use analytics and Big Data to keep up to date with your customers’ preferences and desires.
• Collect feedback and ratings. Monitor the feedback and ratings you get from customers. If some of these are negative, respond immediately and try to rectify the situation by offering an alternative, a discount, or a personal offer. This will help to retain the customer and save your reputation. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive feedback as well.
• Implement loyalty programs. The main aim of a loyalty program is to build long-term relationships. Only sincere attention and a personalized approach will persuade customers to stay with you for the long term. A good loyalty program helps increase lifetime customer value (LTV), the loyalty index (NPS), and grow brand advocates, who are particularly useful in attracting new leads at no extra cost. 

Conclusion

Customer experience is the ultimate marketing tool. If consumers like you, they will happily spend money on your product and recommend it to others. In a world where competition between brands is huge, the one who manages to make more people fall in love with you wins.

Meeting the New Challenges of Employee Training, Coaching and Engagement

Since the contact center agent is the face and voice that often defines a company in the eyes of existing and potential customers, workforce recruiting must focus on identifying vital traits, skills, and abilities in individuals. But even when those who meet the highest qualifications are put in place, they must be trained, continuously coached, and kept actively engaged to be successful.

Companies which can recruit and retain qualified and motivated front-line personnel are positioned to operate more efficiently while building customer loyalty. According to a McKinsey report, “Failure to keep talented employees can have significant repercussions… attrition can erode customer satisfaction while increasing operating costs. Each new agent hire is estimated to cost the contact center $10,000 to $20,000 in training, direct recruiting costs, and lost productivity during ramp up.”

Taking every step to keep top performers onboard is now more critical than ever. Although many consumers have become comfortable with online self-service tools, once they decide to call into the contact center the issues are almost always more complicated to resolve. Since people are already frustrated at being unable to find answers on other channels, they are on edge from the moment when an agent picks up the call.

This dilemma has only grown more acute during a crisis in which many customers are already panicked. According to a recent blog on CrmXchange by Uniphore, 60% of consumers said they were given different or conflicting information on current conditions from the news, leaving more questions than answers. Adding more fuel to the fire is that customers are often faced with longer wait times as companies adapt to a new wave of work-at-home agents. Nearly 40% who were put on hold with a company after calling about crisis-related issues stated that they were annoyed or frustrated.

Further McKinsey research suggests a need for companies to take a proactive stance when interacting with their contact-center employees by focusing on engagement and finding ways to increase their comfort and happiness wherever they are working. They found a startling difference in outcomes. Engaged and satisfied call-center employees are:

• 8.5x more likely to stay than leave within a year
• 4x more likely to stay than dissatisfied colleagues
• 16x more likely to refer friends to their company
• 3.3x more likely to feel extremely empowered to resolve customer issues

So how does a company ensure that these valuable assets are happier and more productive? Actions in three areas can have a major impact– targeted coaching, employment of updated training techniques and applying proven strategies to enhance employee engagement —and they are available for all contact centers to take.

A focused educational alternative now makes it possible for a business’s entire workforce planning team to benefit from the latest innovative thinking without ever having to take so much as a step away from their home offices.

CrmXchange is presenting a premier online virtual conference: Techniques for Training, Coaching and Employee Engagement, to be held from June 15-19. The event is being produced in conjunction with the Quality Assurance and Training Connection, (QATC), a membership association created specifically for quality assurance and training professionals in the contact center environment.

The web conference is structured to benefit contact center leaders at all levels – supervisors, managers, directors, and VPS. The fully interactive event enables attendees to meet with industry experts and colleagues who will answer questions in real time while providing updated strategies and techniques. The schedule is designed to provide direction to meet the changing needs of businesses transitioning to a greater percentage of work-at-home agents but will also provide guidance for companies still maintaining on-premise employees.

Among the topics to be covered in-depth are:

• Learning how to work in a remote world
• Best methods for coaching and training remote and on-premise agents
• How to optimize agent performance in the new reality
• Developing an effective instructor competency program

The event will kick off on Monday, June 15 with a focused keynote address entitled “Do Better Work – Finding Clarity and Camaraderie in a Remote World.” It will be presented by Max Yoder, CEO and Co-Founder, Lessonly who will offer stories of the best ways for businesses to navigate the path to working from home, providing specific examples of how to foster understanding, accountability, and progress from disparate teams.

Other areas to be explored in this targeted, complimentary virtual conference include:

• How to Foster Agent Engagement and Human Connection Through Coaching Your Remote Contact Center Team in a Post-Pandemic World
• Nurturing Employees to Become Ambassadors and High Performers
• Agent Coaching and Engagement for Remote Service Excellence
• Creating a Solid Gamification Strategy to Engage Employees Near and Far

In addition to the educational sessions, attendees can visit the booths of leading suppliers in the online exhibit hall. They can then download white papers, videos, product data sheets and other vital content from leading solution providers and organizations such as CallMiner, NICE inContact, Calabrio, NICE, Lessonly, C3 Software and Sharpen.

Register now at no cost for the complete four-day event: there is no limit on how many people a company can sign up. For those who cannot attend the live presentations or have the time to visit the exhibits during the event, links to all sessions and the exhibit hall will remain open for one full week after the event is completed.

The Key Ingredients to Increase Brand Loyalty

By John Thompson, Head of Business Development, Americas, Sitel Group

What does it take to keep customers loyal to a brand? A loaded question with a variety of correct responses. Today, we are going to be focusing on the four key ingredients that directly impact the customer experience as it relates to brand loyalty: transparency, employees, change and corporate social responsibility. Let’s dive into the recipe.

Providing Transparency

Earlier this year, Burger King released the infamous moldy burger campaign to promote the fast food chain’s efforts to eliminate artificial preservatives and other additives from its menu. Did the rotting burger look appetizing? No. Did it catch people’s attention? Yes.

The eye-catching image set Burger King apart from the dozens of fast food commercials consumers are inundated with each day. The vision itself of a moldy burger wasn’t mouthwatering, but it told the consumer much more about the values of the brand. The fast food chain was breaking the mold (pun intended) and changing things up for the betterment of the consumer. Not only was the advertisement catching the average viewer’s attention, it was being honest with customers in a bold way.

While unconventional, this marketing tactic focuses on appealing to customers by offering complete and utter transparency. No, the burger did not look appetizing, but it told a bigger story of how the brand was committed to showing the efforts it was taking to deliver fresh and real food, by being real with the viewers.

Engaging Employees

Happy and loyal employees equal happy and loyal customers. A large portion in the recipe for the success of delivering a standout experience to consumers is by making sure that your employees are engaged. This starts with training from the get go. In fact, more than one in three (37%) U.S. employees would leave their job if they weren’t offered training to help them. So, what does good employee training look like?

It begins with teaching employees how to properly communicate with customers. While this may sound like a given, more than half (51%) of employers don’t offer soft skills training like how to speak to a customer or client effectively. Whether it be stepping up in line to order a tasty burger or dialing the support number on the back of a product, the way employees interact with customers in these mundane moments can leave an everlasting impression of the brand. In order to establish customer loyalty, it is pivotal to train employees in the art of communication.

Adapting to Change and Demonstrating Corporate Social Responsibility

Fresh ingredients mattered to Burger King’s customers, so it got rid of preservatives to appeal to the desires of a largely health-focused audience. The brand demonstrated how to adapt to your markets to keep customers loyal. Especially in these uncertain times, adapting to the wants and needs of your market matter more than ever.

The landscape for how brands market to customers is changing each and every day because of COVID-19. One brand that is getting it right in the CSR (corporate social responsibility) messaging category is Coca-Cola. The beverage giant recently launched an ad in Times Square that communicated the importance of social distancing with the message, “Staying apart is the best way to stay connected.” Rather than shying away from addressing the current health crisis, Coca-Cola faced it head on and used its platform to communicate an important message to its customers.

Adapting to change and conveying messages that align with the current concerns of your market matter enormously when it comes to establishing brand loyalty. Customers like to engage with brands that are making a difference. In fact, 70% of customers want brands to be positive contributors to society.

In order to keep business thriving in crowded marketplaces, brands must find ways to keep customers loyal. The practices above are necessary to implement. Brands that focus on building customer relationships and delivering an unparalleled CX will have the loyalty of their biggest assets – their customers.

John Thompson

As Sitel Group’s Head of Business Development, Americas, John Thompson has a passion for customer engagement and how the adaptation of virtualization and digitization complement traditional global contact center strategies. This passion stems from Thompson’s 15 years’ experience in the customer experience (CX) industry. Throughout his career, he has held a variety of leadership positions and has co-founded two start-up companies. Thompson holds an MBA from Creighton University and a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University. He resides in Omaha, Nebraska.