Learn from the past, focus on the present, and plan for the future
It is said that many people look forward to the new year for a new start, disregarding the past. Here at nGenera CIM, we are looking forward to applying our experience in 2009 to the new year. I reflect on 2009 as a tough economic year where we as an organization came together to consolidate the strength of our offerings, continue our profitable growth and to help customers create exceptional customer experiences with strong ROI.
In 2009, we grew our business with over 70 great new customers. We’re very excited to start 2010 with a big win from Skype who chose nGen Chat and Email to power their International customer support strategy.
Last year has also brought our customers a new release of the nGen CIM Suite (version 8.3) as well as many new product enhancements. Our partnership with LiveLOOK, a leading provider of visual customer communication tools, promises to provide nGen CoBrowse customers with greater functionality through features such as browser-based software and connection to standard Internet ports.
We’re excited to have been awarded the following recognitions in the customer service technology industry:
-
- Recognized Innovator (Innovation in Revenue Generation for nGen Proactive Chat) by Association for Services Management International, the Services and Support Professionals Association, and the Technology Professional Services Association
- Product of the Year awarded by Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine
- Named to the list of 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management by KMWorld
- Assigned to the “Visionary” quadrant of the 2009 Gartner Magic Quadrant for eService Suites
While we see 2009 disappear in our rear-view mirror, we’re looking ahead to the opportunities 2010 will bring us. You can be sure that we’ll be providing you with more customer service best practices to help make your contact center the best it can be and more valuable events with industry thought leaders. (Keep your eye on our Twitter feed for more information.) nGenera CIM will also be launching the groundbreaking nGen CIM Suite 9.0 early this year, packed with more features including social media listening technologies as well as expanding our wiki and forum capabilities.
Here’s to a new year of building upon our best of 2009 to make 2010 our greatest year ever!
Category: Multi-channel, Social CIM, Web 2.0
Exceptional knowledge management, social customer service are keys to customers’ hearts
Last Thursday, Social CRM expert Paul Greenberg and our VP of Products Nikhil Govindaraj presented an informative webinar on a timely topic—Service in the Time of the Social Customer. Thanks to Paul’s authoritative and trusted insight, the webinar was a hit with over 500 registrants, many of them from Fortune500 companies! If you attended, you gained insight on how to use your contact center to monitor social media channels, leverage social technologies to interact with your customers, and how to measure results.
Among the statistics shared by Paul, this was one that I feel every contact center shouldn’t ignore:
According to Forrester, 62% of customers dislike talking with companies because the knowledge management experience is “average to worse.”
Wow! Just think of how many customers can be satisfied—and even be converted into promoters—by improving knowledge management. Like Paul touched on, not only is it important to provide your customer with an answer, but it’s EXPECTED that you will provide a great experience at every touch point.
So what does it mean to provide an ‘exceptional knowledge management experience’?
- 1) First and foremost, customers should have easy access to comprehensive solutions to their pressing questions at any time of the day or night—and by their customer service channel of choice.
2) Whether customer- or agent-facing, the knowledge base and wikis provide accurate answers quickly, reducing time-to-resolution, improving consistency and thereby improving customer action.
3) Often, customers are provided solutions before they even ask as the company is listening, refining, and co-creating answers—enabling the company to anticipate customers’ needs.
4) First contact resolution rates are significantly improved.
5) Customers are able to easily turn to other customers for support. As Paul said, 90% of consumers trust their peers.
When implemented, these concepts can put you on the road to a blissful customer experience. nGenera CIM is making it easier by offering not only the technology you need today, but the best practices and expertise needed to effectively deliver the experience you envision for your customers. I’m excited to remind you that we are releasing CIM 9.0 in Q1 2010, further expanding our suite of products and allowing your contact center to listen to your customers and provide community interactions. Listening to social conversations helps you get acquainted with online consumers by monitoring and responding to their perceptions about your brand and competitors. Community spaces such as forums and wikis are provided so your customers can become agents and consult one another.
You can read more about this comprehensive offering on our site, and keep your eyes open for more information in the coming months!
If you missed the live webcast please check out the recording available here.
Category: Events, Knowledge management, Social CIM, Web 2.0
Five Keys to Social Customer Service
Many customer service software companies are jumping on the “customer experience solutions” bandwagon these days with the hopes of being the Swiss Army Knife of social network monitoring and customer community engagement. Purchasing a customer experience solution is a great start to participating in Social Media Customer service, but it requires legwork on the organization’s part to connect to a community.
Here are some of my thoughts on what is required for an organization to deliver on the promise:
- People. You can’t deliver an exceptional experience without the right people behind the wheel. Online chat has a very different skill set required to deliver an experience as opposed to phone or email. Communities and Social Media are even more challenging. It takes a different generation to deliver the appropriate tone and tenor.
Corporate Policy. This is probably the most challenging one. How do you balance the weight of customer expectations against the limitations of corporate policy played out in the glare of the public eye? Social Media is forcing transparency on all of us these days and we need to realign our corporate culture to this new world. Collaboration, internally as well as externally, is the only way companies can survive.
Content. Content is still King. How can you ensure that you have the adequate systems in place to ensure consistency, reliability, and predictability in your service delivery? Thanks to Bob, our Director of Product Management, for that one.
Technology. Think long term, think multi-channel. Phone, Email, Chat, Click to Call, Self Service, Community, Social Media. Customers are finding out about your products and services like they never had in the past. Do you know what is out there? Can you respond fast enough to events that can easily spin out of control either in your own community, in your backyard, or in the Social Media world?
Integration. So your CRM solution is on a different platform from your knowledge-base system and your agents are using different email and chat applications. Of course, your vendors would like you to throw everything out the window so that you can have a single standard solution. Integration is key! As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, having the ability to integrate with applications that are in the cloud as well as in the house is imperative in order to enable your people to deliver an exceptional experience. Make sure you budget enough for getting this piece done.
If your organization is considering a Social Media customer experience strategy, I will be co-hosting a free webinar with Social CRM Expert Paul Greenberg on December 10th about how to integrate social channels into traditional customer service channels. Sign up here to attend.
Category: Multi-channel, Social CIM, Web 2.0
Delivering a great customer experience is priceless
I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to interact with our customers for many reasons, including building case studies. During case study interviews we gather information about how customers are using our products and services, what their support and service experience has been, when and how much ROI they’ve achieved. The lengths that companies go to to provide a positive customer experience to their customers never ceases to surprise and impress me. We all know a quality customer experience is a required differentiator in a tough economy where choices are abundant. Although resources are limited these days, I am pleased to hear that many companies are still finding ways to go the extra mile on service.
Take NewEgg.com for example. You may have seen their recent IPO announcement based, in part, on the investment they have made in delivering a fabulous customer experience. They believe the best marketing dollar is spent in making their existing customers happy, so that’s exactly what they do. They’ve gone to great lengths—including delivering items at a customer’s door step—to ensure a quality experience. I, too, share their belief that an unfortunate error or a mishap on the company’s part is the greatest opportunity to build loyalty. We as consumers understand things go wrong, but there is no excuse for a bad situation to be handled poorly.
Nintendo is another great example. They get literally millions of communications from brand fans and loyalists that do not require the same level of response that a distributor or partner may require since the interactions might be questions about game character facts or other trivia-themed questions. Nintendo has a choice about how they handle these queries, and they choose to respond to all of them. Yes, they have software that helps them understand the intent of email so that they don’t have to use valuable labor to categorize inbound inquiries, but, again, I am impressed that they elect to respond – and not with an auto-response – to their customers.
Companies are coming up with inexpensive ways to offer amazing customer service—even when money is tight. What are you doing in your customer service organization to make a positive difference with your customers and not a negative difference in your budgets?
Category: Customer success stories
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
RSS