November 2009 Archives

Here's a budding new and potentially more profitable and much less costly option to those hated (and in turn heavily regulated) cold-call telemarketing calls: paying people to pitch goodies via their social networks i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A story published in the Nov.21 New York Times reports that Amazon.com will start "paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a program in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.)".

But the bigger opportunity, it says "may be in matching advertisers with so-called influencers -- the more popular users of services like Twitter."

The Times story opens with how Vancouver, B.C., Canada blogger and Web entrepreneur John Chow earned $200 by telling his 50,000 Twitter followers, amidst a discussion of his city's typically wet, miserable weather where they could purchase M&Ms with customized faces, messages and colors.

Those numbers add up. In October, reports the paper he made about $3,000 from Twitter spiels. "I get paid for pushing a button," he said.

The benefits of social media for marketing in this fashion are enormous. The messages get through because the de facto marketers are known and trusted, unlike underpaid agents confined to crowded noisy cubicles, located in the middle of nowhere, and often in another country, hooked up to dialers that spit calls that make them work like chipmunks on amphetamines. The Times points out consumers "increasingly ignore nearly ever other kind of ad message in print, on television and online."

Another benefit is very low costs i.e. no dialers, PCs, and offices, and no wages/benefits. Just the virtual piecework.

Naturally there is a very real risk that all too many marketers will get greedy and stupid leading to annoyed customers and prospects with social media---like they did with phone calls, faxes and e-mail---leading to these channels being washed out for business purposes and consequent legislation to restrict these practices. The mindset of these characters is slash-and-burn, roasting the golden geese they've strangled.

There are hopeful signs that in this space that they may have, at last "get it", that in a limited pool of buyers--who communicate to each other at light speed--you can't afford to tick them off.

"We don't want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network," Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. told the Times "All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us."

OK contact center managers and execs, here's a winner of a tip to make money and not leave it on the table: clean up your automated voice a.k.a. IVR self-service and quit treating it as the back of the bus for all those 80 percent of non-elite customers who generate the 20 percent of revenues.

Because if you don't you're going to lose that 20 percent who can easily go elsewhere. And they may not come back when they do qualify to speak promptly to a live agent.

Don't believe me? Then check out this new report from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, The Cost of Poor Customer Service. It estimates that lousy treatment of those who put money in the hands of businesses ding the U.S. economy to the tune of $83 billion. Where is this coming from? 71 percent of consumers have ended a relationship due to a poor customer service experience.

What is the impact to enterprises? How about an average value of $289 in one year of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned. Add those up and we're talking serious money.

So why do customers leave? The Genesys reports points to having them repeat themselves, being trapped in automated self-service, forced to wait too long for service, contact centers that don't their history and value and an ability to switch channels easily.

Which is the most problematic channel? You got it. Automated voice self-service, where 33 percent of respondents cited it as the most challenging mode. Moreover 38 percent said "it is critical to improve voice self-service to make it more intelligently integrated with human assisted service."

One reason is the nightmares of busy consumers trying to get out of automated Hades to reach live agents. The Genesys report revealed that spent more than 9.5 minutes trying to reach a person.

"As a result, even paper mail is preferred to poorly implemented voice self-service," says the paper. "Consumers say the biggest issues are that voice self-service does not recognize the value of the consumer, lacks context, and needs to recognize customer needs and intent better. Another consumer said: "I don't mind automated systems but...I hate it when I am unable to reach a human, and the automated voice continues to make me repeat over and over, and when I finally get close to being connected to a human, I am disconnected and have to start over again."

In contrast while not surprisingly most people are happy with live agents, more were satisfied with Web self-service than not. If anything they were neutral.

So what gives, folks? Why can't you make automated voice self-service as pleasing or at best not as offensive as web self-service?

The solutions are there. They include 'trimming the menu trees' and making it easy for customers to zero out: throwing obstacles in their way is only going to make them consider tossing your business into the recycle bin so don't be stupid. They also include going to user-friendly speech rec. Microsoft has an increasingly sophisticated and affordable array of premises-installed and hosted (via its Tellme subsidiary) speech products.

So what are you waiting for? Your competitors to take the money off your table?

Image via Wikipedia

In the piece, titled 'The sad illusion of happy customers' Mr. Lazarus takes a sharp look at electronics retailer Best Buy's new nationwide marketing campaign 'They'll be happy, you'll be happy, we'll be happy.'

"What they're saying is that the company will bend over backward to help you shop for gifts this holiday season and will do whatever it takes to ensure that gift recipients are pleased with what they get. This, in turn, will warm the hearts of Best Buy shareholders.

"Happy customers is a long-term strategy for us," Best Buy's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, told me. "If they're happy, they'll want to buy more."

"That's the idea anyway. But after visiting a couple of Best Buy stores and chatting with customers, I'd say the company still has some work to do on the happiness front.

"The trade-off is that you get the selection and square footage, but you have to hunt to find someone to help you," said Glendale resident Howard Erickson after buying a mini-fridge at the Best Buy in Los Feliz.

So how'd he do?

"I had to hunt to find someone to help me."

"I had a similar experience in the computer section until I finally spotted a salesguy and asked if he could show me a computer for under $500. He steered me toward a Hewlett-Packard model. I asked if there was anything else. The salesguy pointed me toward a Dell model for about the same price. I asked which was better.

"I don't know," the salesguy replied. "I guess they're about the same."

"Not that I'm picking on Best Buy, even though this week's TV and print ads all but dare consumers to judge the company by the quality of their shopping experience.

Customer support, says Mr. Lazarus" makes you feel like an uninvited dinner guest. A general indifference among employees as to whether you'll ever shop there again. Sometimes it feels like companies are determined to chase us away, rather than do everything in their power -- especially at times like these -- to build customer loyalty."

"Customer satisfaction has always been a major concern for most companies," Lars Perner, an assistant professor of marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business told the L-A Times journo. "But it's fairly difficult to implement. It's pretty labor intensive."

"He said that as long as low-low-low prices remain consumers' main priority, and as long as turnover remains relatively high among workers at service-oriented businesses, most companies just can't afford to keep sufficient numbers of well-trained staff on hand to meet customers' needs," reported Lazarus.

Columnist Lazarus and Prof. Perner got that right. Great customer-retaining service is nice to have but not if it means having high prices.

The message for contact centers and their parent or contractor organizations are really very simple. Your customers care first about price, second about products/service, and third about service. Therefore orient your business strategies and investments accordingly.

For contact centers that means more automation, and home agents (let the creepy-crawlies take over millstone bricks-and-mortar centers), on finding ways with analytics to reduce headcount, and less on customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction programs. When it comes to hiring and training worry less about smarts and filling them with knowledge--you won't keep let alone attract them into all but the high-paying tech support centers anyway--but who can smile, sell, and do more than speak a.k.a. multitask.

Also focus your CRM initiatives on tracking customer interactions by channel to avoid pouring away money on asking customers to repeat themselves, and on cutting sales and service costs. Customers don't want except for the most sensitive products relatiobnships with your company. You are only as good as your last pricepoint.

Forget total customer lifetime value. With the way many businesses are going--the slow upturn is going to unlock mergers and consolidations to grow by acquisition rather than the more expensive and financially shakier approach of growing organically--the customers are going to outlive them.

Image via Wikipedia

The most moving words that have written about those who fought and died in war, and who continue to do so is arguably the poem 'In Flanders Fields'. It was written, reports Wikipedia by a Canadian military physician, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae on May 3, 1915 during the infamous 'War to End All Wars' i.e. the First World War, after he had watched his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, only 22 years old, die in battle the day before in Belgium.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Lt.-Col. John McCrae

The poem is all the more moving in that the same grounds would see some battle 25 years later, underlining the often senselessness of war. It underscores one of the most brilliant, sensitive, and respectful remarks I've heard, read, and witnessed on the issue of sending men and women into battle whose ultimate sacrifice which we remember today.

For when former Canadian federal Liberal party leader Stephane Dion was asked whether he supported the Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan he replied: "the best way to support the troops is to make sure you have properly thought out why you are sending them, to risk their lives for their country."

Sound words indeed to consider...and remember.

About a dozen years ago I heard a comment ascribed to a longtime CEO of a leading global teleservices firm who reputedly said: "I don't care where in the world you go, self-service will always be cheaper."

Well thanks to technologies such as electronic order entry, improved IVR, speech recognition but more importantly web self-service and more recently outbound notifications there is a growing realization that automation could doom many jobs, such as in contact centers, even in India, long the land of low-cost offshore outsourcing.

A blog entry that appeared in the New York Times last week by Vikas Bajaj says that India too is worried about where the jobs will come from in future (thanks Rich for the tip) 
 

S. Gopalakrishnan, the chief executive of Infosys, told the Times blogger that "he worried that over the next 20 years to 30 years, smarter computers and increased automation could do away with many of the back-office jobs that companies have moved to his country to take advantage of lower labor costs and greater economies of scale.

"He recalled the example of an outsourcing deal his company took on to enter orders into an electronic system for a customer. When the contract started, Infosys put 300 people on the job, but after a short while it dropped that to just 100 people, even though the workers were processing more orders, faster and more efficiently.

"What happened? I asked.

 
"He said that a greater percentage of the orders were now being submitted electronically by the customer's customers. In other cases previously separate computer systems were connected to each other, so more orders were flowing electronically with no human intervention. And finally, he said, Infosys itself had found ways to streamline its processes so that it needed fewer people to complete the work."

What makes Indian contact centers offshoring especially vulnerable are two factors. One, India is moving up the IT food chain, with better paying and higher skilled jobs such as in programming. Two, offshoring-serving contact centers' hours are deeply and understandably unpopular with employees because they must work unsociable (and unsafe) graveyard shifts to match the corresponding daytime hours in North America. That is on top of the typical contact center stresses from demanding and sometimes obnoxious customers while meeting stringent performance targets in very confining spaces at low pay.
 

Does this mean that offshoring will end? Well...no. As India's companies and employees become more expert and proficient with technology, expect them to develop and refine automated solutions...at less cost than their North American counterparts.

Ask anyone who works in the service sector: contact centers, hospitality, retail, and transportation especially, the one thing besides lousy supervisors and managers that drives them up the wall and that is wild scheduling--days, times, even locations worked changed on a moment's notice--resulting in fewer hours and less income.

Too often employees apply for and are hired for jobs that employers tell them will pay X for a given number of hours: 20-30-40/week. What happens though is that many of these 'hours' become 'on call' i.e. they have to be 'Janey or Jimmy on the spot' but they don't get paid.

These practices, often undertaken (you guessed it, by incompetent supervisors and managers) wreak havoc on workers' lives, especially in today's tough economy where both pay, and the money for job-related clothing and transportation, and for child care expenses are tight.

Staff can't afford to waste these outlays to go in for an eight-hour shift only to be told to go home after four or even two hours. They have little leeway, being at the bottom of society's pecking order, to get doctor's appointments changed or find alternative child care when their boss suddenly calls them in. Yet because they are poorly paid they have little choice except to pull their hairs out and pray.

So why should contact centers and other employers care? After all it is a difficult economy, business is scarce, and costs have to be tightly managed, which means only having workers on the clock when they need them.

Here's why: turnover and quality. It costs money to hire and train staff and productivity is lost--and customer retention and revenues can drop--until the newcomers are brought up to speed, when they can deliver the same if not better performance compared with those who have left.

More seriously, employers could be risking long and annoying queues and rushed service that really drives scarce customers--and their spending--elsewhere.

Why because what is happening on the employees' side is that the workers are taking on multiple jobs to make ends meet. If their 'principal' boss calls them in because a colleague is 'out sick' (like applying for another job) and they're not home, and no one else can come in, the roster falls short. The employees' reactions when they see the voicemails or texts is "tough tomatoes, pal."

Here's another consequence: any actual or perceived violation of laws and regulations--be fudging on payroll, blocked exits or loose wires, mouse droppings in the cafeteria, racial and/or sexual harassment--and your outfit will have a series of unwelcome visitors. When someone feels their back is against the wall and they may be going down, what is to stop them from taking they believe is responsible with them?

Employees aren't worried anymore about references. HR departments don't require them because they know their absence or presence on applications means nothing because people b.s. and of what goes on good and bad in workplaces. More seriously someone/some outfit can get sued for negative comments, and who needs to justify spending for lawyers for such HR matters? All employers are allowed to say therefore are the equivalents of 'name, rank, and serial number'.

And when the economy truly bounces back with new jobs well, it doesn't take a seasoned observer to predict what is going to happen next. Especially in contact centers where staff churn is rampant even slowdowns because of the job stress and the confining lab-rat-like/monitored-up-the tailfeathers environment.

Is there a solution? Yes. And that is for employers to pay for the hours promised. Suck it up. No on-call. No cutbacks. No 'we've decided to make this job temporary'. No games with benefits.

You hire someone for 20 hours a week at $10/hour you allocate for that. Period. Can't afford to do that? Then you don't know how to forecast and budget and therefore you shouldn't be in business.

Employees are like any other expense. If you don't pay the bills you won't get the service. No money? No voice/data, power, roof, or the people under them.

Having said that, and on the positive said there are a good many companies, including contact centers that do treat their people well. They get the message that in the service business your employees are your principal investment because it is they that interfaces with the end-customers i.e. the one who give you money. And, not surprisingly, these outfits have strong balance sheets, enabled by productivity-and-revenue enhancing loyalty.

The choice is clear: emulate these outfits and succeed. Toy with the people who work for you and fail.