Coffee Chat on June 15 at 11:00 AM EST: Using customer service for growth

Coffee Chat on June 15 at 11:00 AM EST: Using customer service for growth
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Our next Coffee Chat is here. We have @Jeannie_Walters  hosting it for us ☕️ 🎉

It’s happening on Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 11 AM EST.

The topic of discussion is: Using customer service for growth

Please block your calendars for about 45 minutes to answer five questions and have an interactive session with @Jeannie_Walters

Here’s an introduction about, Jeannie! 

Jeannie Walters, CCXP is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker, and Founder of Experience Investigators, a firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences.

Trailblazing the movement from "Reactive Customer Service" to "Proactive Customer Experience," Jeannie is considered the leading authority for improving both employee and customer relationships.

Jeannie is a charter member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association, having worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies including OrangeTheory Fitness, SAP, Comcast, and JPMorgan Chase; an educator whose Linkedin Learning courses have been watched by more than 300,000 learners; and a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association, speaking to tens of thousands of people across three continents.


While you’re eager for the event, say hello to Jeannie and give her a warm welcome to the community  ☕️ 🎉

Here are the questions that will be prompted: 

  1. How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support? 

  2. What are the essential customer service skills that agents should possess in order to drive business growth? 

  3. How can support conversations be used to deliver business outcomes? Can you give us examples?

  4. How can customer service teams play a role in reducing customer churn?

  5. What are some of the challenges in leveraging customer service for growth? How do we solve for them?

 

As always, here’s reminder about a few things to keep in mind.

Six important things to know before we get started on our coffee chat :coffee:

  1. To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

  2. If you cannot make it at 11:00 am EST or even if you’re past time, you can still post your answer to a particular question.

  3. You can reply to each others threads/posts to keep the conversation going.

  4. Be polite and respectful of other people’s opinions.

  5. Most importantly, have a great time here!

  6. Lastly, I will make sure to engage with all of you to make this interesting.


 


89 replies

Userlevel 1

A1.  Effective inter- communication , sharing of information/customer feedback 

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Our next question for the day,

Q2: What are the essential customer service skills that agents should possess in order to drive business growth?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question, start your answer with A2 and use the Quote option 

 

A2. It’s easy to say “empathy” as a critical skill. But we must remember that empathy is not an unlimited resource. This is why it’s SO important to respect customer service agents and their self-care. 
 

I like to train agents as ambassadors - that’s what they really are. Leveraging the mission and values of the organization is important when hiring and training. Empathy should be shown and not just expected.

A study by Google in 2017 showed the company’s most important new ideas came from teams created of employees exhibiting a wide range of skills including: curiosity toward others’ ideas, empathy and emotional intelligence…In the simplest terms, empathy is defined as the ability to share feelings of another. Empathy is most effective when it’s sincere, authentic and compassionate. Empathy is not: Problem-solving, Sympathy, Misery comparison, Waiting to speak. When we talk about building a ‘culture of empathy,’ we mean one focused on understanding the experience of others.

Userlevel 1

Let’ss goo!! :)

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

A1. There’s nothing wrong with a casual conversation. It’s wonderful to invite Sales leaders and teams to participate in the Contact Center for a day. Listen to calls, talk to Customer Support team members.

 

Sales needs to understand what the customer experience is and how to set expectations.

 

According to Forrester Research, 77% of executive buyers claim salespeople don’t understand their issues and where they can help, and 78% claim salespeople do not have relevant examples or case studies to share with them. If sales teams don’t truly understand their customer’s experience, how can they help their customers?

It’s important to understand each team’s goals and how they’re all connected in the customer’s journey.

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Tagging our usual coffee chat mates here, @foxcubmama, @mrsamydavies @rashmi.nag @Isaac Thomas @WHeine @jwicker @keefe.andrews @Josh.Slocum@manns@finn@Alice@JulieR , @Bex , @zachary.king and @gfecteau  

 

Would love to hear from you lot!

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

A1 - more thoughts! 

The best organizations create a cycle of feedback internally and externally. That product team and sales team constantly at odds need productive and empowering ways to communicate to one another about what’s realistic and what’s not. It’s also important to consider how to weave in the customer feedback beyond just the sales team or tech support. What are we hearing from customers, and what can we all do about it? Getting your sales leaders on board with seeing themselves as customer experience leaders will help empower your organization to make the right promises to your customers.

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Our next question for the day,

Q2: What are the essential customer service skills that agents should possess in order to drive business growth?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question, start your answer with A2 and use the Quote option 

 

A2: The most important and biggest skill would be to bounce back after a setback. 

What do you do after a difficult and draining experience with a customer? Can you take a deep breath, consciously decide not to take the attack personally, and carry on with the next customer who has no clue about your previous interactions but anxiously awaits your assistance?

Resilience - an admirable quality that can significantly influence your approach to customer service. Being highly self-motivated and resilient despite the negativity you’re bound to face frequently while handling angry customers or frustrated users, equips you to build an outstanding career in customer support.

On average, it takes 40 long minutes for a customer support agent to rebound after a rough call, and customer service expert - Shep Hyken notes how the best agents are the ones who move on quickly.

@Jeannie_Walters also has an amazing podcast about CX , inclusivity, resilience and adaptability: https://womenincx.community/episodes/clare-muscutt-jeannie-walters-women-in-cx-podcast-resilience 

 

 

Userlevel 5
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A2. Skills like time management and knowledge management are also important. Now there are such great tools for that (like Freshworks!) that employees can really use their time to practice empathy and active listening. Customers want to be recognized for who they are and where they are on their journey. The tools + great skills make that possible!

Userlevel 7
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Up next, Q3: How can support conversations be used to deliver business outcomes? Can you give us examples?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the this start your answer with A3 and use the Quote option 

 

The most direct impact would be customers recommending the product/ service to their network after consistently delightful experience with support teams! It’s literally a game changer :)  

It would be interesting to know how many, or few, customer support staff see themselves as corporate sales people.

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A3. Support leaders need to make a case for how they can support the goals of the other leaders in the organization. Lots of expense around when these connections aren’t made.

As Deloitte Digital reported in 2019: “Reality shows that management often has no transparency about the ongoing operations or the outcome of CX initiatives, which can turn these projects into silos. This results in misaligned activities, a waste of already scarce resources and false prioritization.”

CX leaders need to connect with Customer Service to hear directly from customers, understand the trends agents are seeing, and provide proactive solutions for customer complaints. This is more than just the right hand knowing what the left hand is doing. This is about a cycle of communication and ideas.

CX leaders who are designing new processes or parts of the journey need to communicate proactively to the customer service leaders.

Customer service leaders who are hearing specific feedback need to communicate directly with CX leaders.

By collaborating to focus on the customer, these teams can create more efficient and effective processes.

Userlevel 5
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This was a lot of fun! I love hanging out with smart people. 🙂 Feel free to reach out and leverage the free tools and resources at www.experienceinvestigators.com

And...KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! Customers depend on you in moments that are very important in their lives. Never forget the importance of simply “being there” when another person needs you.

👏🏼

Thanks for having me!

 

Userlevel 5
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Can’t wait! 

Userlevel 6
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Looking forward to this one! :) 

Userlevel 7
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Hey everyone! we have about 10 minutes to go and I’m super excited to hosting @Jeannie_Walters for today’s coffee chat. 

Say hello and let’s give her a warm welcome <3 ☕️

#RollCallTime

Userlevel 5
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Hey everyone! we have about 10 minutes to go and I’m super excited to hosting @Jeannie_Walters for today’s coffee chat. 

Say hello and let’s give her a warm welcome <3 ☕️

#RollCallTime

Excited to get things started! I love talking about customer experience! :) 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

A1: I’m going to quote some insights from the Freshdesk blog: 

10 Tips for Aligning Functions

When people align, it means they have a common purpose they are all passionate about and a reason to work together and achieve goals in line with that purpose. In the case of a growing company, alignment can help you not only accelerate growth but improve profitability and long-term success. Here are 10 tips for aligning your sales, marketing and customer support functions

  1. Focus on the customer – provide a unified experience for identifying, understanding and fulfilling customer needs
  2. Take a One Team approach – the customer should see your company as a single coordinated entity
  3. Understand end-to-end processes – look for points of friction and processes getting backed-up
  4. Encourage collaboration – your team can better address customer needs if they work together and share ideas
  5. Align performance metrics and rewards to common objectives – don’t let your rewards program undermine success
  6. Encourage excellence in individual roles – give team members the training, tools and support they need to excel.
  7. Soften boundaries between functions – don’t let org structures create barriers
  8. Share data across functions (avoiding siloes) – cross-functional data leads to better quality insights
  9. Think long-term – focus on lifetime value and customer retention
  10. Keep growth balanced – ensure that growth in one area doesn’t cause problems in another.

Through building alignment amongst your business functions and providing the right set of tools to enable and sustain that alignment, your company will be better positioned to turn this exciting time of rapid growth into sustainable and profitable customer engagements that will delight your customers, your employees and your shareholders.

Userlevel 2
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Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

A1 - more thoughts! 

The best organizations create a cycle of feedback internally and externally. That product team and sales team constantly at odds need productive and empowering ways to communicate to one another about what’s realistic and what’s not. It’s also important to consider how to weave in the customer feedback beyond just the sales team or tech support. What are we hearing from customers, and what can we all do about it? Getting your sales leaders on board with seeing themselves as customer experience leaders will help empower your organization to make the right promises to your customers.

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

A1. There’s nothing wrong with a casual conversation. It’s wonderful to invite Sales leaders and teams to participate in the Contact Center for a day. Listen to calls, talk to Customer Support team members.

 

Sales needs to understand what the customer experience is and how to set expectations.

 

According to Forrester Research, 77% of executive buyers claim salespeople don’t understand their issues and where they can help, and 78% claim salespeople do not have relevant examples or case studies to share with them. If sales teams don’t truly understand their customer’s experience, how can they help their customers?

It’s important to understand each team’s goals and how they’re all connected in the customer’s journey.

100%

Would you have any suggestions on how companies can facilitate the conversation between sales leaders and customer service?

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

A1 - more thoughts! 

The best organizations create a cycle of feedback internally and externally. That product team and sales team constantly at odds need productive and empowering ways to communicate to one another about what’s realistic and what’s not. It’s also important to consider how to weave in the customer feedback beyond just the sales team or tech support. What are we hearing from customers, and what can we all do about it? Getting your sales leaders on board with seeing themselves as customer experience leaders will help empower your organization to make the right promises to your customers.

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

A1. There’s nothing wrong with a casual conversation. It’s wonderful to invite Sales leaders and teams to participate in the Contact Center for a day. Listen to calls, talk to Customer Support team members.

 

Sales needs to understand what the customer experience is and how to set expectations.

 

According to Forrester Research, 77% of executive buyers claim salespeople don’t understand their issues and where they can help, and 78% claim salespeople do not have relevant examples or case studies to share with them. If sales teams don’t truly understand their customer’s experience, how can they help their customers?

It’s important to understand each team’s goals and how they’re all connected in the customer’s journey.

100%

Would you have any suggestions on how companies can facilitate the conversation between sales leaders and customer service?

To align sales and customer service (or any function) it’s great to get the conversation going about two things:
1. A Customer Experience Mission Statement - who are we and how can we show up for our customers in consistent ways no matter what?
2. The holistic customer journey - this is why journey mapping as a tool for conversation often leads to better overall CX results. The map isn’t the best part of the experience - it’s the process of mapping. (I like to say it’s a verb, not a noun.) 

We have free resources and blogs if you’d like to check them out: www.yearofcx.com 

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

A1.  Effective inter- communication , sharing of information/customer feedback 

Our first question for the day:

Q1: How can growing businesses with lean teams foster an alignment between Sales and customer support?  

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

Communication is so important. I worked with an organization that shared a “customer says what?” newsletter each week. They collected the funny conversations, big complaints, and other things that stood out to the customer service group that week, then shared it with several different departments, including product and sales. By keeping it light-hearted, they built relationships.

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

A1: For me it starts with everyone understanding the corporate “reason for being” and what the entire customer lifecycle entails. Common goals help too. As does the appreciation of the value chain(s) and the roles different teams and people play in it. I could keep going but will finish this post on appreciating the many hindrances that colleagues face, especially those that are avoidable by your actions.

Really comes down to that empathy you’re referring to, at the end of the day :)

Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Our next question for the day,

Q2: What are the essential customer service skills that agents should possess in order to drive business growth?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question, start your answer with A2 and use the Quote option 

 

A2. It’s a long list for me, but as per my previous post, there are some must haves such as understanding how the business ticks through to appreciating that it’s the customer not your boss who ultimately pays your salary :)

In between these are things like appreciating the importance of good customer service to customer retention (and new sales), empathizing with the customer not simply spouting scripts, and taking ownership of issues.

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Our next question for the day,

Q2: What are the essential customer service skills that agents should possess in order to drive business growth?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question, start your answer with A2 and use the Quote option 

 

A2. It’s easy to say “empathy” as a critical skill. But we must remember that empathy is not an unlimited resource. This is why it’s SO important to respect customer service agents and their self-care. 
 

I like to train agents as ambassadors - that’s what they really are. Leveraging the mission and values of the organization is important when hiring and training. Empathy should be shown and not just expected.

A study by Google in 2017 showed the company’s most important new ideas came from teams created of employees exhibiting a wide range of skills including: curiosity toward others’ ideas, empathy and emotional intelligence…In the simplest terms, empathy is defined as the ability to share feelings of another. Empathy is most effective when it’s sincere, authentic and compassionate. Empathy is not: Problem-solving, Sympathy, Misery comparison, Waiting to speak. When we talk about building a ‘culture of empathy,’ we mean one focused on understanding the experience of others.

“Empathy should be shown and not just expected”

Absolutely- what better way to inspire the ambassadors of a brand(agents)  than by displaying the very qualities you expect from them. And this is a cultural, org wide requirement. This will certainly reflect in everything the Company does, and eventually, in the Customer’s experience too!

Userlevel 5
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Q4 is here: How can customer service teams play a role in reducing customer churn?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the this start your answer with A4 and use the Quote option 

Would it also make sense to make it a part of the KRA?

A4: I guess a well-trained, well-informed support team will go a long way. Another aspect would be to equip the support teams with enough content. Having a well documented content will bring down the SLAs and also improve CSAT scores.

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

A4. Customer service teams and leaders need to stop seeing themselves or accepting leaders who see them as “cost centers.” When service is given a seat at the table, they are often the closest to the customer. They should be invited to share feedback and ideas on a regular basis - then the role becomes more proactive and less reactive, and the company wins!

It’s interesting how support teams are often seen as a “cost of quality” but hopefully, as I’m seeing it internally at least, people are realizing that reducing support costs to save money isn’t likely the best strategy.

I really hope you’re right. I’ve seen it all - including just turning off the phones completely. I’m a customer right now of a service where I CANNOT find a way to reach out for help. Ironically it’s because I want credit on a loyalty program - but nobody is there to help me. 😒

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

A4. Customer service teams and leaders need to stop seeing themselves or accepting leaders who see them as “cost centers.” When service is given a seat at the table, they are often the closest to the customer. They should be invited to share feedback and ideas on a regular basis - then the role becomes more proactive and less reactive, and the company wins!

It’s interesting how support teams are often seen as a “cost of quality” but hopefully, as I’m seeing it internally at least, people are realizing that reducing support costs to save money isn’t likely the best strategy.

I really hope you’re right. I’ve seen it all - including just turning off the phones completely. I’m a customer right now of a service where I CANNOT find a way to reach out for help. Ironically it’s because I want credit on a loyalty program - but nobody is there to help me. 😒

Yikes!
Also a huge red flag is when Companies make it incredibly difficult for someone to cancel their subscription. 

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