Your XM Weekly Inspiration | 150522

The pandemic happened and I observed a change in business dynamics in my country. I observed how businesses focused more on service delivery by innovating, pivoting and/or improving the quality of experiences offered to customers by people across digital and physical touchpoints.

At the beginning of the pandemic at Niche Customer Experience Group, we worked on a project to audit the quality of customer service experience for a digital bank. This project was interesting as our mandate was to:

• study the personas of customers that interact with its contact centre
• conduct a customer experience (CX) SWOT analysis of its contact centre
• design a best-in-class customer service experience blueprint for the contact centre which included designing an end to end + scenario-based standard operating procedure manual
• design an agent performance management roadmap for agents including rewards, recognition and penalties
• conduct agent quality assurance checks
• share quality assurance feedback with agents and train them to cover gaps identified each week

All of the above was to ascertain that we could successfully activate the designed customer service experience blueprint and within a month (duration of the project), we observed a 29% improvement in agent performance.

Between then and now, we have conducted several contact centre and customer service operations CX audit for businesses in the banking, FMCG, technology, retail and manufacturing sectors. Herein lies my thoughts on what contact centre agents or customer service teams need to deliver great customer service experiences and also shine in the process.

What Effortless Customer Service Looks Like?- A Contact Centre Agent's Perspective

Recently, I was asked to feature in a customer experience (CX) playbook by Freshworks to share my thoughts on what 'effortless' customer service looks like. Based on projects I had worked on recently with my colleagues, I was more than happy to share.

From an agent's perspective, when I think about what effortless customer service looks like, knowing the difference between working hard and working smart comes to mind.

In a time when customer retention has taken centre stage, it's imperative for businesses to balance agent performance with agent well-being so that businesses can rip the benefits of an investment in a functional contact centre or in customer service operations.

From issues on the minimum and maximum number of works hours to average handle time, parameters for assessing agent quality, the design and application of learning and development interventions, availability of multi-channel and integrated digital work tools, agent succession planning, manpower planning, the provision of guidelines, etc, it has become a priority to think about effortless customer service from an agent's perspective. Why? While a business may think of reducing friction in a customer's journey, it's also important to think about the agent's journey when offering assistance to a customer. You can't have one without the other.

For example, you realize that your customers complain about how long it takes for them to get a resolution to a complaint. You decide to increase the first response rate by giving agents access to all the digital solutions where they can access the information. What happens in a situation when the agent has to access more than 3 solutions on 3 different platforms to resolve a complaint or grant a request? What happens when your agent has limited access and has to request approval every time they need a piece of information to resolve a complaint?

Designing a customer service experience blueprint for a contact centre or customer service operations is great but what about the blueprint for how your agents can be effective, efficient and have real conversations with other human beings?

An effortless experience is multifaceted. It requires that:

• Agents are given adequate information about their job roles and expectations.
• Customer information is accessible in a format that’s easy to retrieve, understand and use.
• Businesses have an omnichannel customer management tool that seamlessly integrates with business-specific software
• Agents have an opportunity to share their feedback and be included in designing customer experiences as well as decision-making.
• Agents are given an opportunity to be human in their interactions with customers and not stereotypical sticking to prompts and scripts

XM Inspiration For The Week

My experience management (XM) inspiration for this week is my take on the right actions any business seeking to provide effortless customer service experiences should take while preventing employee (agent) burnout and disinterest.

In my contribution to the recently published CX playbook; the Changing Shape of 'effortless' customer service in the digital-first era by Freshworks, I recommended the act of PEEPING which is an acronym.

With a focus on employee experience (contact centre agents), PEEPING stands for

• P: Provide
• E: Empower
• E: Empathize
• P: Promote
• I: Include
• N: Network
• G: Growth

To read more about my PEEPING acronym as well as read the contributions of 5 other subject matter experts from Belgium, Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, download the customer experience (CX) playbook HERE.

What are your aspirations for effortless customer service in your business or organization for both your customers and your employees?

Are you seeking to transition from delivering a multichannel experience to an effortless omnichannel experience that requires you:

• design and implement a customer service experience blueprint
• select and implement the right omnichannel technology solution
• integrate customer support digital solutions
• design and implement an employee (customer service or contact centre agent) experience improvement program - including a performance management framework
• conduct a contact centre or customer service operations CX SWOT analysis
• design a customer service experience standard operating procedure
• conduct periodic quality checks on service delivery
• train your customer service or contact centre team on customer service experience delivery

I am here to help!

Please send me a DM here on Linkedin or email [email protected] and let's get you started on your effortless customer service experience journey for both your customers and your employees.

Have a good one! ??

Yours always,

deBBie akwara?(Pan Africanism CX Advocate)

Founder & CEO,?Niche Customer Experience Group