www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/11/stop_outsourcin.html

Shopping List Must

Written by Bill Price and David Jaffe - I thought this book
“The Best Service is No Service” (I first learned about from my colleague Dan Faulkner) was a good read for those responsible for customer service. It is also just a sensible book for business. It outlines 7 principles to deliver the best service that ultimately leads to “no service” including
* eliminate dumb contacts
* create engaging self-service
* be proactive
* make it easy to contact your company
* own the actions across the company
* listen and act
* deliver great service experiences 

………perhaps a holiday present for someone on your team?

Great article for those who just heard Paul Gillin or Josh Bernoff at our annual customer event.

Many companies don’t think of their call center as a channel for growth. But with customer acquisition costs on the rise, leading companies are finding a hidden source of revenue already in their organization - existing customers. The call center is the hub of ongoing customer activity. It is central to creating customer lifetime value which drives increased growth and profit. The fact is that best-in-class call center service (Aberdeen 2009 Transforming Contact Center into Profit Center Report) can deliver up to 34% more revenue per customer and nearly half of today’s companies include contact center goals in top-line performance goals.

Leverage outbound messaging (not annoying predictive dialing) to deliver courtesy reminders that also include a promotional message (can reduce inbound call center traffic while driving possible incremental revenue.)

Think about it. Put “profit” next to “efficiencies” in your ‘09 plan. Those of you already doing that, share your thoughts. Is it realistic? how are you doing it?

Jenn at Alaska Airlines changed all that for me.

I was first turned on to Jenn by a colleague who noticed this excellent article in the New York Times highlighting Jenn.  Disbelieving, I tried it out.  “What are your hub cities?”  “What’s the best vacation spot?” “Do you connect to Boston?”  “How can I fly from Boston to Las Vegas?”  “What meals are served on your flights?”  “How long has Alaska Air been in business?”  “Who is Tim the Moose?”  “Can I get miles credit with another airline?”  For all of these, she either provided a direct answer, or guided me to a related page on the site… often with alternative choices in case she didn’t quite get it right.

And my brain lit up on all sorts of levels.  From a technical standpoint, there’s so much to love.  The way her window hangs out unobtrusively to the side, taking up minimal space.  The way it takes you around the Alaska Air website automatically to answer your questions but also lets you choose links.  Meanwhile, the responses are very pleasantly worded — it almost sounds like synthesized speech but my guess is that a real person recorded all the responses.  And the natural language technology is top notch!  It is as helpful and pleasant as a human without trying too hard to impersonate one — no Turing test candidate here, but who cares? 

But forget the geek side of my brain… is it helpful?  Does it add to the customer experience on the site?  Or is it just a cool widget that serves no purpose.  After my brief experience, I’d say there’s no question of its value.  I want a Jenn on every site!  I want Jenn to take me to my portfolio on my online trading site without me wading through 10 tabs and 5 subtabs, 90% of which are irrelevant to me.  I want Jenn on my health insurance site to show me what’s covered and what’s not, to let me look up old EOB’s and claims, and to explain what I need to do to handle disputes.  I need a general purpose Jenn that will let me find out the weather forecast, look up stocks, answer dumb questions, and parse information for me, so that I don’t need to rely on Google, a carefully constructed search, and reviews of five different web pages to find the right information.

My second reaction was to realize that this feat is probably a lot more difficult to duplicate outside of the travel industry.  I’m sure the folks at NextIT would disagree, but certainly limiting the domain of questions made for more accurate answers — my guess is that she’s got quite a knowledge base behind her that can relate each website page to her responses.

My final reaction, however, was that since 90% of most company’s interactions come over the phone, this sort of investment is probably a mostly wasted piece of customer service.  Certainly they’ve invested even more in their phone reservations service, right?  I called their number and was so disappointed to find a typical boring, inefficient automated system.  It had all the classic stereotypical annoyances: “To ensure quality service your call may be recorded.”  “Lower fares may be found online.”  Follow that with a confusing arrangement of options all squished into 5 touchtone options, plus another number to write down and call, and one last dirty trick: the final option was “press 0 to repeat this menu.”  I never did find a way to speak to an agent.  An automation solution that forces people to your website and hides your customer service reps is simply not an acceptable answer in this day and age.  I wonder how many people have clicked on Jenn… and how many have hung up in frustration trying to figure out how to navigate that phone menu maze.  And I wonder how much the company has invested in their website innovations as opposed to cleaning up the basics of their phone interface!

During any change - if you always keep your customers as your “constant” you’ll navigate thru tough times and fly thru the good ones

Some businesses are hesitant to invest as there are concerns about whether or not this type of technology would scare off consumers.  Research we’ve recently conducted indicates that not only are consumers ready for this type of protection for their personal data - they would prefer doing business with a business who offers it.  http://investmentexecutive.com/client/en/News/DetailNews.asp?Id=45664&cat=149&IdSection=149&PageMem=&nbNews=&IdPub=

So in addition to improving security, and lowering agent time spend on inbound calls - voice print is most likely a way to differentiate your brand, level of service offering  - in the very near future.