Speech Analytics is Talking; the Industry is Listening
by Tim Dreyer on February 3rd, 2012
In my first post on this topic, I covered at a high level the basics of how speech analytics can bring deeper customer engagement to the contact center. In this follow-up, we’ll look at why the industry is starting to take notice.
A lot of the industry interest in speech analytics is being driven by a heightened focus on the customer experience. In today’s hyper-competitive economy where there the meager opportunity for product differentiation and operational efficiency has been squeezed as much as possible, customer experience, driven by customer service, has emerged as a primary area of differentiation. There is a realization that a lot of learning is needed to before an organization is ready to deliver differentiated customer service. Organizations are looking at their existing data such a recording
that they already have, to see if they can extrapolate more value out it and turn it into a true enterprise asset.
Customer interactions are becoming increasingly complex. With so many customers seeking self-service routes before they engage with the enterprise, agent-customer phone interactions are more complex than they used to be. Because of this, organizations are trying to figure out if they can better understand those interactions, some of which are using speech analytics to do so.
Customers have changed. They are more connected, they are more informed, and due in part to the increasing use of social media, they have a voice like they never did before. And while the customers have changed, what they want from their service provider has changed as well. Speech analytics can help an organization get a quantified view into those changes.
At the same time, technology has evolved such that the actual recordings are easier and cheaper to capture and store. Unified communication has contributed to that by reducing the reliance on hardware and shifting it to software which, due to falling storage costs, is easier to configure and maintain. And speech analytics options have also increased such as text-to-speech and even phonetic-based approaches. Plus, speech analytics solutions are increasingly more open, enabling data to be extracted and integrated easier than in the past.
In some ways, it’s a perfect conversational storm: the drive for service differentiation, the need to understand the new customer and their new needs, and technology evolution.
Tim
Social Shopping
by Amy Wagner on December 20th, 2011
The holiday season is again upon us, and many of us are in full-court-press holiday shopping mode. This phenomenon prompted me to examine the way we, as consumers, shop and select the retailers and vendors who we feel deserve our business.
In my youth, I remember dressing up and going “downtown” with my grandmother for special buying trips. We would visit the retailers available to us in the form of storefront shops. If we wanted something special ordered, we had no way of researching the item we desired unless we talked with friends and family or “heard it through the grapevine.”
Then, once we decided an item was worthy, we waited six to eight weeks for it to arrive. If it turned out to be less than expected, we hoped for a phone number or address to which we could address concerns, complaints and, if necessary, the return process. Honestly, we pretty much were at the mercy of the retailer or manufacturer. We played the customer service game according to their rules.
For example, in the 1960s, just how would you have returned or complained about a damaged lava lamp?
Of course, an alternative option when considering a purchase was to write the retailer (yes WRITE – through snail mail), receive a product description and possibly some testimonials. Seriously, how reliable are testimonials? If we wanted to know the customer service history of the retailer, we perhaps contacted the Better Business Bureau.
In my 20s, buying from catalogs such as LL Bean, J Crew, and Land’s End became easy and cost effective. According to Kevin Hillstrom, database marketing enabled companies to tailor catalogs to specific audiences, increasing profitability.
During the 1990s, retailers established e-commerce websites and used catalogs and e-mail to attract customers. However, it was mostly impossible to reach out to the customer community to compare such things as quality, order delivery history, and customer experience with the retailer, not to mention customers’ experiences with specific items.
Fast forward to today. As consumers, we can not only access the plethora of data on retailers themselves, their parent companies, and their vendors but also research their community, national and global activism, how they treat their employees and customers PLUS we can also, with very little effort, access most of their dirty laundry. Most important, we now can interact with their customer community and compare specific customer experiences, with the company or a single, specific item. The customer community actually is presented to the consumer with a few quick clicks of their keyboard.
Consumers are empowered and can decide if they want to do business with a particular company. It matters little whether it’s a $10 transaction or a $10,000 transaction; they are now able to make an informed choice with a few keystrokes.
If you flip this scenario around, think about what it means to retailers, vendors, and corporations: they must now serve their customer and their customer community. How do they do that? With technologies that allow them to reach out to customers, at the customers’ convenience, access data on their customers’ experiences in real time, analyze that data, and act upon it at the exact time the customer is choosing to interact with the company. WOW! That’s what I call Next Generation Customer Contact.
Watch for more about Next Generation Customer Contact coming in future blogs.
Analysts See Closer Alignment of Service and Social Organizations
by Tim Dreyer on December 14th, 2011
Last month, Aspect held a summit in Chicago to engage analysts in a dialogue on emerging trends in the contact center industry. Aside from sharing the latest Aspect technology and product developments, we were able to gather insightful market perspective from some of the leading industry minds.
One of the interesting trends we discussed is that more contact center organizations are looking for engagement solutions to help them interact with their customers on their customers’ terms. The primary means to achieve this goal is through mobility and social contact.
Many of the analysts we spoke to noted that more end users of unified communications are asking for social components to solutions. UC users know that increasing numbers of consumers are using social as a means of communicating to and engaging with their service providers and retail outlets. In fact, many of those organizations are moving social media responsibility from their marketing departments to the service organizations. So where end users previously had separate service and social strategies (and separate solutions to support them), analysts report that those organizations are seeking integrated solutions.
This is consistent with the trend of permission-based marketing that pervasive social media users are accepting. Increasingly, they will provide personal information to product or service providers in exchange for targeted and relevant offers based on their profile. A tighter integration of a company’s service and social functions allows not only facilitates information sharing but also makes is easier to assign service/marketing calls to the right agent.
Do you see a closer alignment of service and social in your organization? We’d like to hear about it. Tell us about your experience in the comments below.
Social Media: A Two-Way Street
by Nancy Dobrozdravic on November 22nd, 2011
The vast majority of today’s top organizations will name social media as part of their marketing or customer communication efforts. However, the degree of coordination these efforts receive can vary widely depending on the enterprise.
For those seeking greater ROI in social media and evidence of improved customer engagement, a unified approach to social media may be the key.
The ongoing conversation
How can organizations elevate their responsiveness and enhance the customer experience? Consider channeling enterprise-wide social contact through a single workflow to take advantage of customer-facing processes that may already be in place within the organization.
The contact center is an ideal place to focus this activity. Here’s why:
- It is already established as the customer engagement “hub” within the enterprise.
- It possesses the technology backbone to support an engagement and response program.
- It has decades of experience at customer communication necessary for transforming the customer monologue into a productive, two-way dialogue.
Approaching social media response from a workflow – or workforce – perspective sheds new light on opportunities for workforce optimization. Social monitoring that most companies employ for the purposes of customer sentiment and market awareness may have the capability to send alerts, notifying agents of issues that need to be addressed at the social media level.
Solutions that enable alerts such as these to be channeled into the agent’s workflow have the advantage of further streamlining operational processes without disrupting traditional customer contact or customer service. Aspect Social Media Channel Integration, for example, provides this capability. In addition, Aspect offers advanced add-ons to its social media solution to develop and track social media KPIs, measure outcomes from interactions, and establish benchmarks for performance.
Mastering the social dialogue
As we see it, there are typically four main stages at which organizations interact with consumers through social media: monitor, prepare, respond, and measure. In my next series of posts, I’ll show you how organizations operating at each stage can optimize social engagement, as well as harness new applications and tactics to advance the social dialogue to the next level.
NGCC road show: Coming soon to a city near you
by Chris O'Brien on July 27th, 2011
With today’s online and teleconferencing technology, I don’t know why business travel spending continues to increase. I suspect there are some people who really do love security lines, recycled air, antiseptic spray, public toilets, and smoking sections. Maybe you are one of them! And if that’s true, maybe we can still be friends.
Some of my Aspect colleagues―several of whom are no longer on speaking terms with me because of what they call my “traveltude” ―are currently making their way across North America on a business trip of epic proportions. You may have heard of it. It’s the Next Generation of Customer Contact series. By the time all counts are in, our travelers will have personally delivered an overview of Aspect’s solutions (along with a complimentary breakfast) to directors and decision makers in 17 cities.
So why is Aspect, a company at the vanguard of addressing the needs of the next-generation consumer, going throwback? This hand-delivered approach is actually very Consumer 2.0 – anticipating what you, the consumer, need and expect, and bringing it directly to you with minimal effort on your part.
It’s not easy for any organization to maintain its footing in today’s ever-shifting consumer landscape. The contact center seems to be the key to that stability. By connecting with customers through the right channels at the right times, companies have the potential to develop long-term, loyalty-based relationships with their customers.
Of course, achieving a Consumer 2.0-enabled contact center is not without its own set of challenges, and this is where Aspect can help.
“Did you know,” I said recently, to one of my traveling coworkers who was preparing her PowerPoint presentations, “that you refer to Aspect as the go-to source for information on integrating these new developments into the contact center?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Go-to source! How very 1.0! You’re actually bringing this information across state lines! Maybe we should call ourselves the come-to-me source! Ha ha!”
I have this bad habit of laughing out loud at my own jokes, which is probably why I was told to stay here in the office and write blogs.
NOTE: Seats are still available for select dates and venues at the Next Generation of Customer Contact series. Reserve yours now. (You can have mine.)
A glimpse into the future of the contact center
by Lynne Levy on July 15th, 2011
As I sat on an airplane this week traveling to team meetings, I spent some time thinking about what would the contact center look like two years from now. Imagine a time when….
- A company anticipated your needs with a product you had purchased before you even knew what those needs were. And then proactively told you about how to address it through either video, email, SMS, IM, etc.
- A company knew your presence―for instance, are you on your mobile phone, landline, on facebook―and then used that information to determine how to contact you.
- You had access to everything you needed to know about your purchased product/service, from any device, at any time. And you could access this information quickly and efficiently.
- You wouldn’t need to talk to an agent when obtaining service. In fact, it’s more efficient to not use an agent.
- An IVR was “natural” so you don’t need to talk in “segments” but rather can talk to an IVR like you would talk to an agent. And that IVR had intelligent access to content within the enterprise and gave you the right information to service your issue.
- Customer service was actually a pleasant experience.
Here’s the reality check: we don’t have to wait for a couple of years for these developments. They are happening right now. In fact, I believe Consumer 2.0 is not a next-generation consumer; they are the current consumer. This is what the Consumer 2.0 requires today. It’s what I expect when I purchase a product or service. It’s what my teenagers expect. And believe it or not, it’s what my parents expect when they purchase a product or service.
That presents companies with a daunting challenge. The moment I cannot troubleshoot issues with a product, my customer satisfaction declines. The moment I have an issue and the company I purchased it from did not anticipate the problem and tell me, my customer satisfaction declines.
Enterprises cannot wait to build their strategy around the next-generation consumer. They’re here today, and you need to have a strategy to support them in the short term. Otherwise, your competitors will take them away. The reality is, within the next two years, we’ll be talking Consumer 3.0 and their needs.
The angry Little Monsters
by Lynne Levy on May 31st, 2011
What does the next-generation consumer and Lady Gaga have to do with each other? Well…ask Amazon. Last week, Amazon offered a deep discount on the latest Lady Gaga album in an effort to entice consumers (“Little Monsters” in Lady Gaga terms) away from iTunes and over to Amazon. The Little Monsters were thrilled and went to the Amazon site to download the album. Apparently, the download took over 6 hours! That’s unacceptable in this day and age.
So what did the Little Monsters do? They went to the music review boards and complained. No, not about Lady Gaga. But about Amazon! Amazon, which has spent years building brand loyalty, had one instance that caused thousands of people to take to the message boards to complain.
What started out as a great opportunity for providing the next-generation consumer with something they want―a discount Lady Gaga album, an opportunity for top-notch customer service through a solid user interface, and speed for the download process―turned into a public relations nightmare for Amazon.
We’ve talked about the next-generation consumer: you have one and only one chance to satisfy them to obtain/maintain their loyalty. This truth was on full display this week with the Amazon situation. It is about much more than when a customer calls the enterprise to voice a question/issue/complaint. Its every part of the product/service offered. If it’s not what consumers want or if their expectations are not met, they may not give you a second chance, and they will probably hit the blogs to tell everyone about it.
Every part of the customer experience needs to meet the expectations of the consumer: from delivery (in this case, download) to product quality to customer service. You have one chance to be rock solid in each and every facet of product/service quality. If you fall down on one part of the experience, the next-generation consumer will hold you accountable and complain to the world.
Remember, each interaction is an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with the consumer―even (or especially) if that consumer is a “Little Monster.”
What do Consumer 2.0 and Walt Disney have in common?
by Mike Butts on May 24th, 2011
Last week, nearly 500 contact center, IT and business leaders attended the “Customer Contact in a Consumer 2.0 World” online symposium to hear customer experience experts and a top Microsoft executive discuss how companies are leveraging today’s technology to close the gap between consumer experiences with social, mobile and Web 2.0 and their expectations for customer service interactions. Miss the symposium? You can catch any of the recorded videos or sessions free of charge here.
Much of the discussion focused on a creating the ultimate customer experience—one that meets or exceeds the service requirements of Consumer 2.0. Bruce Temkin, acclaimed customer experience expert and managing partner of the Temkin Group, shared a quote from Walt Disney that fits as well today for Consumer 2.0 as it did many decades earlier: “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” Bruce eloquently stated what Walt Disney understood many years ago: excellent customer experiences create loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth referrals are critical.
Temkin also shared the latest Consumer 2.0 research on social media, customer loyalty, and customer-centric plans. He closed the session by providing four key steps that contact centers need to take to meet the service requirements demanded by Consumer 2.0 and avoid extinction.
Ashima Singhal, Microsoft group product manager for unified communications, explained how unified communications, once considered an internal productivity improvement tool, is evolving into a vital customer experience platform because its flexible infrastructure can make the vital connection between the contact center and the rest of the enterprise.
This connection allows organizations to provide a higher level of service and resolve more first interactions by easily engaging subject matter experts throughout the organization. The key take-away from this presentation: unified communications is a critical customer contact platform, and no discussion about deploying unified communications should take place in any organization without the contact center being involved.
Mike Sheridan, Aspect’s executive vice president of worldwide sales, led “The Customer-Centric Enterprise—A Roundtable Discussion,” where executives from Newport City Homes, American Century Investments, American Home Mortgage Servicing, and Aspect shared best practices and lessons learned from migrating their contact center and enterprise to this new customer-centric model.
Nancy Dobrozdravic, Aspect’s VP of marketing solutions, and Serge Hyppolite, Aspect’s VP of product management, spoke about the importance of empowering consumers to access the contact center across multiple communications channels and engaging the enterprise in order to provide service that meets the requirements of Consumer 2.0.
I encourage all contact center, IT, and business leaders to watch the complimentary on-demand replays to learn how their companies can gain competitive differentiation by providing superior customer experience.
Til next time
Mike
Aspect’s online symposium continues robust dialogue on customer contact
by Nancy Dobrozdravic on May 23rd, 2011
This past Thursday, Aspect hosted its third annual (confirm) online symposium entitled “Customer Contact is a Consumer 2.0 World.” I had the pleasure of presenting with my colleague, Serge Hyppolite (our VP of Product Management), on “Defining the Pathway to Next Generation Customer Contact.” We discussed the broadening role of contact centers and the key technologies and capabilities organizations should consider to serve Consumer 2.0.
Our keynote speaker, customer experience expert Bruce Temkin, spoke on how the world is changing and the necessity for contact centers to evolve in order to keep pace with Consumer 2.0. We were also fortunate to have Ashima Singhal from our global strategic partner, Microsoft, discuss the role unified communications can play in a customer-centric organization. The symposium closed with a roundtable with Aspect customers on the “Customer-Centric Organization.” Our thanks again to everyone who presented – and to those who attended.
A pleasant surprise was that the number of registrants exceeded our expectations by quite a margin – almost 3x what we had anticipated. But quantity is not everything – and happily we also enjoyed high-quality exchanges with the attendees. It is not a good feeling as a presenter when you ask if there are any questions at the end of your spiel and there is deafening silence.
This time around, we had a great flow of questions coming in at the end of my and Serge’s presentations, and really thoughtful questions to boot. I hope in some small measure that was due to our talk hitting on topics of real concern and interest. So, it was a great event – well worth the anxiety one has before presenting in front of a group, even if only virtually.
If you missed the symposium, the sessions are available on demand. I hope you find them worthwhile…and keep those questions coming.
Delivering customer service at the speed of Consumer 2.0
by Mike Butts on May 9th, 2011
We’re in the midst of an exciting consumer evolution known as Consumer 2.0 that is fundamentally changing business, and Sunday night offered a prime example of just how much people rely on technology to stay connected.
At the Mets–Phillies game, 44,000 people attending broke into a “U-S-A” cheer after receiving the breaking news about Osama Bin Laden. While watching the replay on ESPN, I quickly noticed how many spectators were glued to their mobile devices to get the latest updates of this historic event. Granted, this example is not a business scenario, but it does reinforce how people have become so accustomed to receiving up-to-the-minute information. Now how does this translate to business?
The good news is that the extreme advances in communications, Web 2.0, and mobility technologies are providing consumers with more flexible ways to communicate, stay connected, and interact with the companies they do business with.
The bad news is that instantaneous information availability is decreasing already low patience levels and heightening service demands because consumers know what is possible and worse, they expect it from the companies they do business with. It’s our responsibility as business leaders to ensure that our contact centers and enterprises evolve to keep pace with these increasing service expectations.
Not sure what Consumer 2.0 is and what it takes to deliver increased service levels? Microsoft and Aspect are presenting a complimentary online symposium titled, “Customer Contact in a Consumer 2.0 World” on Thursday, May 19, 2011. Simply register and watch (learn) from the comfort of your desk.
This online symposium, many months in the making, will feature a keynote presentation from acclaimed customer experience guru Bruce Temkin, who will share the very latest research on customer experience, social consumers, and how contact centers can take the lead to help the enterprise prosper in this new consumer-driven environment.
The other keynote presentation will be led by Microsoft’s Ashima Singhal, who will discuss how unified communications technology can provide the platform to connect the contact center and the enterprise to serve Consumer 2.0.
Aspect’s Mike Sheridan, executive vice president of worldwide sales, will host a customer roundtable discussion where leading organizations will share best practices, lessons learned, and benefits earned as they migrate to this new customer-centric model. Nancy Dobrozdravic, Aspect’s vice president of solutions marketing, and Serge Hyppolite, Aspect’s director of interaction product management, will discuss the key steps that organizations can take now to deliver next-generation customer contact.
This is a rare event where you can learn from customer experience experts, technologists, and real-world companies on how to meet the service demands of Consumer 2.0. All you need to do is register to attend any or all of the planned discussions. Check out the agenda and speaker pages for more details.
This event promises to deliver a high level of educational content through live presentations, group chats, and staffed virtual exhibits. Looking forward to seeing you there.
Til next time.
.jpg "Nancy Dobrozdravic (11 posts)"){kind=avatar}
Improving the way companies communicate internally and externally with their customers is an important objective for all organizations. This blog is focused on levaraging the collective knowledge withing Aspect.