Nobody wants to contact customer service, ever! It’s kind of like sitting in traffic, an undesirable necessity sometimes to get where you want to go. It has never been so important to focus on the experience your customers have when needing to contact your customer service department, hence the evolution of the name CX or Customer Experience.

 

Contact Centres and call centres are changing to match this movement. Previously your call centre was a furiously noisy environment where you could hear hundreds of people alongside each other dealing with the same matters over and over again. This noise problem became so challenging that it enabled headset manufacturers to develop new hardware to cancel out “background noise”. This was the first step in the movement to Customer Experience, nobody wanted their customers having to shout to be heard by the customer service rep. Fast forward to now and the best call centres are now contact centres. A much quieter and more efficient operation where CX agents are fielding questions and queries from customers though a number of channels. 

  • Phone
  • Email
  • Chat
  • Social Media
  • Text
  • WhatsApp

Just because you don’t have the time or the environment to make a call to a customer service department doesn’t mean that your issue shouldn’t get resolved. Therefore it is critical that you offer your customers the most connection channels as possible. More often than not the first tier queries (usually the largest volume of contacts also) needs just some basic triage or troubleshooting. 80% of calls to customer service centres usually cover 5 repeating issues that can have a first call resolution. Having text lead channels to field these repeating queries will massively allow you to achieve two major advancements.

Shorter wait times for customers – A chat agent taking customer service questions via webchat, social or SMS for example can handle anywhere up to 5 conversations simultaneously. Plainly put this divides the wait time for your customer by 5X. 

Happier Customers – Shorter wait time for customers, means faster resolution times which means happier customers. Remember the bulk of queries are first call resolution matters, if you can make this triage quick and easy customers will love it.

People multitask, so make sure your CX is Multichannel. Though the CX support may start on the web chat that you offer on your website, however people still need to move around and not all matters are solved in first contact. The big fear for people starting their customer service engagement on webchat is that they will not be able to get it resolved and that they will ultimately have to continue or worse restart the case on the phone. This is not how it has to be. Technology now allows us to offer the customer so much more continuity across multiple platforms.

For example, a customer may reach out with a query via Twitter DM, but the issue may take a few hours to fix and need further engagement from the customer. Imagine the ability to offer the customer the option, “Where would you like to pick this conversation up?, will we WhatsApp you with the next steps? Giving the customer the on-demand channel nearly to get this matter fixed as quick as possible. Shorten the speed to resolution in the most convenient channel for the customer and you will skyrocket your CX.

While all these approaches and cross platform technologies sound like a lot of getting used to and education required, it is so important to choose a CX partner that not only understands the meaning of great CX but is also abreast of all the new and exciting technology that is out there to make Customer Service an enjoyable experience for your customers.

What does it look like to get started with Zevas:

If you’re exploring the option of outsourcing one of your key departments or a part of the department such as pre-sales, sales, customer service or CX, choosing the right partner is critical. 

Our work flow to partnering up with a customer is simple as we follow a very structured work-flow 

  1. Understand Session – this is where we bring our solution architect team to the table to meet your key stakeholders. In this session we looking understand a number of things
  • Client Profile
  • Buying Persona
  • Seller Persona
  • Seller Experience Requirement
  • Product Market Fit
  • Current Conversion Rate
  • Lead Flow
  • Marketing Activities
  • Time to Sale
  • Competitive Landscape
  • Industry Landscape
  • Customer Success Support
  • Onboarding Support
  • Total Addressable Market
  • Goals
  • ROI expectations
  • Current Customer Buying Journey

It is extremely important that our team can best understand the current state and velocity of your sales journey and what heights you wish to achieve from the advantages of bringing in an outsourced partner.

 

  1. Conceptualize – Our architects are then tasked with designing an outreach BDR/SDR program that will deliver the best results for your sales efforts. In this Go To Market design, a blend of human and technology process will be chosen from the deliver a bespoke process and wireframe to be executed by the outsourced team. This proposed program will then be present back to you and your stakeholders.

 

  1. Lock In – On joint agreement of the designed solution both teams will set about locking in measurable KPIs which will give constant indication that the program is a right fit for the product and the lead base. This will include basic activity metrics to more macro behaviours such as operations lead meetings such as MBRs and QBRs. Included in this step will also include a gap analysis on training materials to be able to educate the BDR/SDR teams. A full road map for knowledge transfer for sales and product training will be formed, presented and signed off at this point.

 

  1. Go Live – Post a recruitment and training, we push the campaign live in a beta zone. This period of time will involve constant A/B testing to ensure the GTM assumptions made at the conceptualization stage have been correct. Close monitoring and high communication rhythms between all teams will ensure that the program is grown in the right direct and at the right pace. The goal of the beta/trial zone (usually 90-120 days) is to be able to nail a repeatable/scalable process

 

  1. Tweak and Scale – Sales environments are ever evolving and the need to be agile in process change is constant. However our data from the trial zone will allow us to build a high percentage effective sales process. Once we have made these tweaks and access the run rate data on conversion rates, lead burn rates etc, your campaign will be in a position for scaling, allowing you to reap the rewards of having scaled sales force in various regions within a matter of 1 quarter working with Zevas.