Tricia’s Customer Service Success Blog

Providing Customer Service on Twitter Builds Brand Character

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    While the Twittersphere is filled with questions and complaints directed at big brands, one of the hardest things for organizations to do is effectively respond in 140 characters or less. While many have offered the opinion that corporate customer service simply doesn’t belong on Twitter, don’t tell the likes of Zappos, Ask.com, Travelodge, Microsoft and Warby Parker that, because they’re actually experiencing tweet success when it comes to customer service. Here are five character-thrifty tips to get your organization’s customer service message across on Twitter:

    1. Think Inside the Box (specifically, a YouTube screen). When Warby Parker launched in 2010 with a policy that it would respond to every customer question and comment no matter what channel it came from, they made it work, even with Twitter’s limited word count.
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    NEW SURVEY: First Customer Service Interaction is Pivotal to Brand Loyalty

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      According to a new ClickFox brand loyalty survey, the old saying that “you never get a second chance to make a good first impression” has never been truer. Fifty-six percent (56%) of consumers in the April 2013 survey say that their first purchase or first customer service interaction with a brand is the deciding factor in long-term brand loyalty.

      Although the research does indicate that messaging and advertising are factors in influencing brand loyalty, it’s the service experience and brand quality that matter most. Forty-eight percent (48%) say that poor customer service is the biggest deterrent to brand loyalty, while a problem with quality is the brand loyalty deterrent for 35%. In addition, the ClickFox survey revealed that consumers are increasingly more selective in where their loyalties lie, with the majority saying they are only loyal to about three brands despite engaging with many on a regular basis. Read More

      Practice Random Acts of Customer Service Kindness

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        Have you ever received a handwritten note; had an old friend reach out just to say hello or that they’re thinking about you; had a co-worker leave a post-it note on your desk with a hand-drawn smile when you’re having a bad day?

        Even though these acts cost next-to-nothing, there’s a priceless quality to them. According to the firm TrendWatching.com, practicing random acts of customer kindness represents an emerging consumer trend that runs in parallel with customers becoming more frugal in their spending over the past few years. Read More

        FCR: Hitting a Home Run for Your Customer Service Team

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          It may be the best customer service metric your organization isn’t yet measuring: first contact resolution. And stats show FCR is a game changer:

          • 12% of customers leave if it takes two or more calls to resolve their issue. (International Customer Management Institute)
          • For every 1% improvement in FCR, you get a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction. (Service Quality Management Group)
          • If a customer’s inquiry or problem is resolved in the first call, only 3% of those customers are at risk of going to a competitor, while 34% of customers who don’t get their inquiry or problem resolved say they’re likely to switch to a competing brand. (Service Quality Management Group)
          • Almost two-thirds of consumers say they would be willing to spend more with a company following an excellent customer service experience.  One in four (26%) cite being shuffled from representative to representative with no resolution of their issue as the top reason for switching brands. (2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer)

          Benchmarking Against the Pros

          A recent Aberdeen multichannel customer service trends report sponsored by Parature shows the spread between best-in-class service providers and the rest when it comes to FCR, and the numbers are pretty significant: Read More

          How to Wow Customers in 30 Minutes or Less

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            Brands and organizations that can respond quickly on social media may have more going for them than they realize. A March 2013 Simply Measured study of the Interbrand Top 100 Brands on Twitter shows that if an organization is able to consistently respond to customer questions and issues on Twitter in under an hour, they have a true customer service differentiator on their hands.

            The new study looks at the Interbrand Top 100 Brands in the world and how they’ve interacted with social customers over the last three months. It found that the 30 brands in the top 100 with customer-support-dedicated Twitter handles (including Nike, Ford, Microsoft, American Express, Dell and others) have received more than 198,000 inbound tweets in the last quarter and delivered more than 82,000 support responses.

            Eight of the top 10 brands have improved their response rates over the past three months, but only three – Nike, American Express and Microsoft – have also reduced their average response times. Yet just one brand, Microsoft, has been able to consistently deliver customer support responses in less than one hour – improving their average response time by 73% over the last quarter. Read More

            Gaming Support is Like Hosting the World’s Biggest Party

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              Game developer and publisher iWin likens its player service and support to being the host of a 24/7 party, where you need to make sure all the guests have good directions, are impressed with the venue and the service, and that there are no gate crashers or annoying folks ruining everyone’s good time. Markus Taylor and Ryan James, iWin’s Director of Customer Support and Community Engagement expert respectively, and Parature’s Chairman and Co-founder Duke Chung share seven tips for serving even the most demanding community of players. Meet Parature at GDC 2013, March 27 – 29 in San Francisco, to learn more about gaming support.

              Hosting a party in multiple rooms with thousands of guests every single day is no light undertaking. You have to be prepared – like Martha Stewart prepared, only way more tech savvy and always on. For most game developers, your community starts out like an impromptu neighborhood potluck. But you quickly learn a lot from your guests on what they value in terms of service and you use the best tips to keep them coming back.  Here’s what iWin and Parature have learned from their collective experience in both gaming and online customer service.

              1. Put organizers at the door to keep things moving. When iWin first started out with its service offering, it was using what amounted to a glorified email system to answer all of its player support requests – but that was before the rapid rise of social and mobile which changed everything.  The company quickly had to adapt, given the massive player numbers it hosted on its key franchise titles including Jewel Quest Mysteries, Mah Jong Quest and JoJo’s Fashion Show, as well as its major social platform games such as Family Feud and Deal or No Deal.  Read More

              Facebook’s New Threaded Conversations make it Easier to Engage Social Customers

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                Facebook just made it easier to engage with social customers, announcing new threaded conversations and direct replies this week.  The new feature, which has been tested over the last few months with select Facebook pages, allows both Facebook users and page administrators to reply directly to specific comments within a post, and begin separate conversation threads to keep relevant topics and conversations connected under the original.

                Facebook brand page administrations will be able to opt into this new feature through the Page admin panel in the Manage Permissions section. Administrators will see a Replies prompt on the screen with a checkbox to allow replies to comments. Once opted in, you will be able to opt out until July 10, 2013, when all pages will have this new feature enabled. A note to larger brands: the new replies feature will be automatically turned on for profiles with more than 10,000 followers.
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                Customer Service is No Longer a Script; It’s a Conversation

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                  According to a recent Ovum study of more than 8,000 consumers, 74% now use at least three channels when interacting with an enterprise for customer related issues – and this stepping stone approach to resolution is forever changing the way service and support agents communicate with customers.

                  For many brands, customer support scripts have been a long-time staple for standardizing the service process and ensuring predictable outcomes in customer interactions. But no more, as customer movement across multiple channels requires brands to literally carry on a conversation from one channel to the next. Read More

                  Parature Named a 2013 CRM Magazine Service Leader

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                    Parature is pleased to announce that the company has been named a 2013 CRM Magazine Service Leader Award winner. Parature joins Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle and Salesforce.com as 2013 Service Leaders in CRM Magazine’s Customer Case Management category.

                    The 2013 Service Leaders were chosen by a group of approximately 20 top analysts and industry experts, with ratings based on a mix of weighted criteria including depth of functionality and services, customer satisfaction, company direction, deployment costs and overall revenue. Favorable consideration was also given to those vendors that offer not only integrated social media, but mobile, cloud, analytics and multi-channel capabilities.

                    Says CRM Magazine about the evolution of this key category, “Customer case management has continued to evolve as more companies want – and need – comprehensive ways to manage their customer support life cycles… vendors that seamlessly integrate social support capabilities, along with mobile, will offer the most productivity gains.”

                    In its review of the 2013 Service Leader Award winners, Parature was recognized for its complete multi-channel platform, its mobile customer support capabilities, and the introduction of its Parature Social Monitor, the first social monitoring and response product designed specifically for customer service teams. Read More

                    Nexus of Forces Shifts Government IT Spending: Mobile Tops Priorities

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                      A convergence of several powerful disruptive technologies is revolutionizing the way consumers communicate with the government, and the way government agencies communicate and collaborate internally. According to a recent Gartner report, mobile tops the IT spending priorities as government agencies of all sizes strive to address and master the nexus of forces which includes mobile, social, cloud computing and big data.

                      The government’s collective priority is right on track as the IDC’s Worldwide New Media Market Model (NMMM) Forecast predicts that the number of U.S. mobile web users will grow annually by a compound rate of 16.6% between 2010 and 2015. More people in the United States will access the web via mobile devices than via wireline computers by 2015, according to the forecast. Read More

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