Improve Customer Focus with Whole Company Support

Jeff Toister January 23, 2020

Imagine contacting customer service and getting connected with the CEO.

That's a real possibility if you reach out to customer service software provider, Help Scout. CEO Nick Francis is one of many employees outside the customer support department who regularly answer customer emails and chats.

It's a program called whole company support, and it promotes an incredible level of customer intimacy.

I recently interviewed Kristi Thompson, a Culture Specialist at Help Scout, to learn more about how whole company support helps create a more customer-focused company.

Kristi Thompson, Culture Specialist at Help Scout.

The Interview

We touched on a number of topics in our <20 minute interview.

What is whole company support?
What are the benefits?
How do you make it easy for people when support is not their regular job?

You can watch the full interview or scroll below to read a synopsis.

What is whole company support?

Whole company support, also known as all-hands support, occurs when employees outside the support team spend time serving customers via various channels such as phone, email, and chat.

At Help Scout, whole company support primarily involves responding to customer emails. The advantage of focusing on email is it allows people to take extra time to research and compose their response and then check what they wrote with a support team member before sending it to a customer.

Other companies include live support such as phone or in-person in their whole company support programs. For example, hotels often have members of the executive team stationed in the lobby to assist guests during busy times.

What are the benefits of whole company support?

Thompson outlined four key benefits that Help Scout gains from offering whole company support. She pointed out that the program is not intended to supplement the support team's staff. Rather, the program is purely about maintaining customer focus.

It keeps the customer at the center of everything they do.
Employees develop a deeper understanding of Help Scout products.
It shortens the feedback loop when employees have a direct customer connection.
Work is more rewarding because you're connected to your customers.

I can personally vouch for that last benefit.

One of my volunteer activities is performing trail maintenance at Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego. It's incredibly rewarding when a group of hikers passes by and they pause to thank us for the work we're doing.

Take Action

Flexibility is key if you want to run an effective whole company support program. Employees will be more likely to participate if they find it rewarding and helpful, rather than a mandatory task that has to be crossed-off their to-do list.

Thompson shared a few tips on how Help Scout makes its program work:

Incorporate it into new hire training for all employees.
Encourage people to schedule regular shifts so it becomes a habit.
Provide resources and assistance to make it less intimidating.

You can read more details about Help Scout's whole company support program from this helpful article.

Interview with Annette Franz: Why Journey Mapping is the Backbone of Customer Experience Management

Jeff Toister September 19, 2019

Annette Franz, Author of Customer Understanding — Annette Franz, Author of *Customer Understanding*

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Many things impact your customers, but are outside of your control.

Let's say you run a coffee shop in a strip mall. You do your best to offer great coffee, friendly service, and a welcoming environment. Yet you don't control:

Traffic
Parking
Weather

All of these things can impact your customers' experience. Your customers will be far happier on a sunny day with no traffic and ample parking than they will on a rainy day with traffic congestion and a snarled parking lot.

Annette Franz has some great advice for handling this challenge. She's a customer experience expert who writes the popular CX Journey blog. Her new book, Customer Understanding, provides a great overview of ways companies can put customers at the heart of their business.

Franz recently joined me to discuss how journey mapping is essential to elevating the customer experience. Here are some of our conversation topics:

What is the difference between customer experience and customer service?
What exactly is customer journey mapping?
How can journey mapping break down silos?
What can you do to mitigate problems outside of your control?
How do you get started with journey mapping?

You can watch the full interview here.

How to Improve Customer Service with Process Mapping

Jeff Toister September 12, 2019

Elisabeth Swan, Managing Partner of GoLeanSixSigma.com

Process is more important than training.

That's tough for me to admit as a trainer, but it's true. You can give someone the best training and then give them a lousy process, and the results will be poor. Give that same person minimal training but a fantastic process, and they'll likely do just fine.

So if you want to improve customer service, look at the process you're using to serve customers before you send anyone to training. The root cause of many service failures is a process that isn't working, or people aren't following it.

Elisabeth Swan thinks about process a lot.

She's the managing partner of GoLeanSixSigma.com, a company that provides Lean Six Sigma training and certification. The company's mission is: Revolutionize the way people learn process improvement–making it easy for everyone everywhere to build their problem-solving muscles.

Swan is also the co-author of The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit, which is a wonderful reference guide full of immediately useful process improvement tools.

We recently had a conversation to talk about how process mapping can be used to improve customer service. (You can find more information about swimlane mapping, one of the concepts we discussed, on page 64 of Swan’s book.)

Here are some of our discussion topics:

Creating an interactive process map with post-it notes.
Using swimlane maps to prevent issues from "falling through the cracks."
Maintaining customer-focus throughout the process.
Verifying processes are working as expected.
Identifying pain points in a process.

You can watch the full interview here.

How to Improve Performance by Focusing on What is Working

Jeff Toister September 5, 2019

Some solutions are counterintuitive.

When employees aren't doing their best, the instinctive approach is to try to identify what's wrong and fix it. Max Yoder's counterintuitive advice is to focus on what the team is doing really well, and help them do that more often.

Yoder is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lessonly, a company that makes easy-to-use training software. He's also the author of Do Better Work, a book full of practical tips that can help yourself and others find "clarity, camaraderie, and progress in work and life."

It's an action-oriented book and I highly recommend it.

Yoder and I recently had a conversation about improving team performance. Here are just some of the topics we discussed:

Taking personal accountability for your own performance
Finding clarity at work
Overcoming your natural instinct to focus on what's wrong
Helping employees recognize their peers
Asking two questions that can help identify best practices

Do Better Work is available on Amazon.

Here's our interview.

How to Gain Executive Buy-In for CX Initiatives

Jeff Toister August 1, 2019

Shaun Belding, author of The Journey to WOW

"Our executives aren't committed."

That's the biggest gripe I hear about customer experience, or CX. Companies are launching new initiatives, but executives aren't making CX a true priority.

Here are some statements I've heard from frustrated leaders:

"We just report our Net Promoter Score results, but don't do anything."
"All we've done is have endless committee meetings."
"My VP doesn't want to hear customer feedback."
"I don't think our CEO actually knows what CX means."
"We were in the process of implementing the CX vision, when marketing surprised us with a new one."

One factor is the confusion between customer experience and customer service.

Customer service teams are re-naming themselves the "customer experience" team, but customer experience is much broader than just service. (If you aren't sure about the difference, you can check out this handy explainer.)

There are other barriers to gaining executive buy-in.

CX expert Shaun Belding highlights a number of them in his book, The Journey to WOW: The Path to Outstanding Customer Experience and Loyalty. It's a story about a company embarking on a CX initiative and the difficulty the CEO faces when trying to get everyone on board.

The book is available on Amazon and I highly recommend it.

Belding and I recently had a conversation about getting the c-suite to buy-in to CX initiatives. He provided insightful responses to a wide range of questions:

Why is it difficult to get buy-in for CX initiatives?
Should there be someone in the c-suite with CX in the title?
What does the CEO need to do to get the rest of the team to buy-in?
How do you prevent CX from becoming just a "flavor of the month" program?
Why is it challenging for leaders to embrace a CX vision?

You'll gain a ton of practical ideas by watching the 21 minute interview.

You can learn more about Belding by visiting his website or following him on Twitter.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of Belding's book, The Journey to WOW, and learn how to get your own CX journey back on track!

Insider Perspectives: UL's Nate Brown on Implementing a Vision

Jeff Toister February 14, 2017

Nate Brown, Director of Customer Experience

A customer service vision is essential to customer focus.

If you've not heard this term before, a customer service vision is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that points everyone in the same direction. You can read this backgrounder for more information.

Implementing a customer service vision can be tricky.

Employees may struggle to relate to it, remember it, or incorporate it into their daily activities. Leaders don't always realize the thoughtfulness that goes into creating a great vision or the effort and commitment required to make it stick.

Nate Brown is facing this challenge head-on, and is making great progress.

He's the Director of Customer Experience at UL EHS Sustainability, a company that provides software to help organizations manage environmental health and safety in the workplace. Brown also writes the excellent Customer Centric Support blog and is one of ICMI's Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter.

Brown shared some of his insights and lessons-learned with me.

Q: Why did you decide to create a customer service vision for your team?

"I attended your workshop on getting agents obsessed with service at ICMI's Contact Center Expo conference in Long Beach last May (2016). You talked about the importance of creating a customer service vision, and it sounded like exactly what we needed.

"I had thought a lot about making my team's day-to-day work in the contact center relevant to the company's mission. UL EHS Sustainability is a division of the safety science company UL. The mission statement is Working for a safer world, which makes sense because we're a global safety science company that provides a wide range of services such as consumer product testing and helping manufacturers build safer products.

"UL EHS Sustainability provides software to help employers create healthier, safer and more sustainable workplaces and my team provides technical support, so my team was initially focused on the technical aspect of their jobs. We needed a way to connect our work to the mission."

Q: What did you come up with?

"Our customer service vision is Supporting our customers and each other in a manner that is effortless, accurate, and friendly.

"The thinking is if we can do these things, our customers will be able to use our software better which ultimately contributes to UL's mission.”

Q: How did you develop the customer service vision statement?

"I initially thought about what I'm trying to drive through our quality management program. Those three words, effortless, accurate, and friendly described what we were already doing. So I took those concepts and put them together in one clear and concise statement.

"For example, I'm a big fan of The Effortless Experience and we've been trying to implement concepts from the book in our contact center.

"Once I developed an initial draft, I shared it with the managers on my leadership team to get their input. It really resonated with them, so we then rolled it out to the entire team on a conference call.

"We talked through the vision and I asked everyone to tell me what they thought. I didn't get any pushback or suggested changes, which I think is because the customer service vision is grounded in what we were already doing."

Q: What are you doing to integrate the vision into your employees' daily activities?

"This is definitely a work in progress, because I'm still working on getting it out in front of employees on a regular basis. We've only had this vision for eight months and it needs to be more widely adopted, but here's what we've done so far:

"We now introduce it to all new hires and then include it in one-on-one coaching. We're trying to get people to see how they can put each part of the vision into practice.

"For example, one part of the vision is effortless. In the past, an employee might answer a customer question by sending a knowledge base article. Now, that same employee might include the article in the email along with some commentary that customizes the solution to the customer's needs. We also are striving for ‘next issue avoidance’ which takes the resolution beyond the surface level issue and resolves that question the customer may not have known to ask.

"Another word in our vision is accurate. We have a big initiative right now to upgrade our knowledge base so that it's fully up to date and easier for our employees to use. If we support the team with the right tools, we can make it easier for them to support their customers with accurate information. I’m starting to see more and more that a great indicator for the health of a support organization is their ability to collect, share and curate knowledge.

"Our marketing department has just gone through a huge re-branding process and one of their guiding factors was trying to create an even more approachable brand, so this naturally ties into the friendly aspect of our vision. We're encouraging agents to develop rapport with their customers to help create a better experience."

Q: What advice would you give to other leaders who are trying to implement a customer service vision?

"The toughest lesson for me is to be more patient. Awhile ago, my boss challenged me to be more of a marathon view versus a sprint mentality. What he meant was that we all want to achieve immediate results, but it takes time for these initiatives to take hold. I've only been in this role for a year now and we've accomplished a lot during that time, but there's still a lot more left to do.

"I've really been influenced by John Kotter's book, Leading Change. It explains that change is a process and you have to have checkpoints along the way to keep things moving. You also have to clarify the benefits of what we're trying to accomplish so everyone will get on board.

"One of the things I'm doing now is creating our 2017 strategy. The customer service vision is the glue that provides consistency from one year to the next. It's wonderful for our contact center to have that ever-present north star."

Q: You mentioned strategy. How has having a customer service vision helped you become more strategic?

"Organizations generally don't look to the contact center to be strategic, but it's so important for customer service leaders to control their own destiny.

"Our customer service vision tells us we need to fight for both a better customer and agent experience. We're going to advance that vision in 2017 in a variety of ways, including a customer experience program that includes all functions of the business.

"I can also show our executive leaders how we're aligning with our brand. The new corporate brand identity focuses on being a friendly brand that feels young, energized, and engaging. That's exactly the way we're supporting the customers who use our software. It’s going to be an awesome year!"

Insider Perspectives: Public Sector Service Expert Wendi Brick

Jeff Toister January 31, 2017

Wendi Brick, Customer Service Consultant

Think about the service you get from government agencies.

What comes to mind? Perhaps you think about your last trip to the DMV, an interaction with the city planning department, or a municipal utility.

Outstanding customer service may not be the first thought that crosses your mind when you think about the public sector, but several million dedicated professionals go to work each day in service of the public.

I sat down with Wendi Brick, President and CEO of Customer Service Advantage, Inc. to get her perspective. Brick's company helps public sector organizations deliver world class customer service.

She's also the author of The Science of Service: Six Essential Elements for Creating a Culture of Service in the Public Sector. I highly recommend her book for any public sector employee.

Q: What are some challenges unique to serving customers in the public sector?

"There are two primary differences between customer service in the public and private sectors.

"The first is in the public sector, the customer is not always right. A police officer making an arrest for a crime is first concerned with protecting public. If you think of the person being arrested as the customer, they might not walk away 'satisfied' with the process in a traditional sense. Someone working in a city planning office can't approve an eight foot tall wall when the zoning regulations say the maximum height is six, no matter how much that customer wants the wall to be eight.

"The second difference is the service provided by government agencies is often regulatory or enforcement oriented. In the big picture, government exists to protect people in some way, whether it's food quality, public safety, or something else.

"It's not the Disney Way or Nordstrom, but you're still there to help, even if in the end, the customer doesn’t walk away with exactly what they want. Satisfaction with the outcome isn’t always the goal for the interaction."

Q: If public sector agencies aren't always targeting traditional customer satisfaction, what should they be targeting?

"The focus should be service delivery. In my book, The Science of Service, I outline three criteria for excellent public sector service delivery.

"First is professionalism. This means doing your job and doing it well. You want to treat customers with courtesy and respect.

"The second is knowledge. Public sector employees often need to keep track of extensive rules, regulations, laws, and procedures. It's important that you have accurate information to share with your customers.

"The third is timeliness. We're all familiar with bureaucratic red tape. Public sector employees must navigate through that too to provide the fastest possible service.

"At the end of the day, a customer may not get exactly what they wanted, but they should walk away believing they were respected, they received accurate information, and they didn't waste their time. And maybe they feel they were offered some options that would work, even if they weren’t exactly the same as the original request."

Q: Public sector employees don't always have the best reputation for outstanding service. Why do you think that is?

"I can tell you that 99 percent of the government employees I meet are really dedicated. They make less money and often put in more hours than their private sector counterparts because they really believe in what they do.

"So it's heartbreaking to these employees when one of their colleagues does something wrong, especially when it makes the news or is held up as an example of what's wrong with public sector service.

"Keep in mind that a lot of customer service is driven by systems and process. There are so many instances when a public sector employee would like to do more, but they're constrained by an antiquated system or cumbersome process.

"Working in the public sector really is a noble mission. It takes a certain type of person to do it. The vast majority of people who work in government do so because they really want to help."

Q: It sounds like public sector service can be frustrating for employees too.

"It can be. Employees give a lot of themselves, so the biggest risk is burnout. People can get jaded.

"I always try to remind people that it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's important for public sector leaders to help their staff prevent burnout. This includes giving people time to recharge and letting employees talk through their frustrations.

(Side note: download this exclusive report on the causes of contact center agent burnout.)

Q: What are some of the similarities you see between the public and private sector when it comes to customer service?

"In any industry, an organization's reputation is built on everyday impressions. Employees need to understand that everyone has a sphere of influence. You might make an impression on a customer or even a coworker.

"That makes it important to model the right behavior so you can have a positive impact on others."

Insider Perspectives: ICMI's Erica Marois on Contact Centers

Jeff Toister January 24, 2017

In any industry, there are a few people you absolutely need to know.

Erica Marois is one of those people for contact center professionals. She's the Community Strategist for the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and a terrific source of information on Twitter. Her role involves connecting people in the contact center community to give them the tools and resources they need to advance their careers.

Marois is uniquely plugged in to contact center trends and the people who are driving them. She's also one of the industry's most passionate advocates.

She recently took some time to share insights on how contact center professionals can grow in their careers and what leading contact centers are doing to succeed.

Q: Tell me about some of the ways you help contact center professionals connect with each other to learn and grow?

"Customers like to connect with their favorite brands in many ways, and our members like to connect with ICMI and each other in many ways too.

"One of my favorites is the weekly ICMI Chat on Twitter [Tuesday's at 10am Pacific, #icmichat]. The discussion revolves around a new topic each week and participants provide a lot of fun and insightful commentary. It's even led to a sort of mastermind community where people connect outside of the weekly chat to discuss challenges and share ideas. A lot of regular participants have had a chance to meet in person at ICMI conferences and have become good friends, which is fun too.

"We've just launched our ICMI book club on Goodreads. A couple of people mentioned they were thinking of starting a book club in their contact centers, so I thought it might be a good idea for ICMI. Our industry has such a thirst for knowledge, and books are a great way for directors, managers, supervisors, and agents to learn new ideas. Each month, we'll feature a new book and have a live discussion with the author at the end of the month. The first book is The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds.

"We also publish original case studies and articles, a weekly newsletter, and host the annual Contact Center Expo and Contact Center Demo conferences."

Note: You can save $200 on the upcoming Contact Center Expo conference when you use the code SPKR at checkout.

Q: You seem to be everywhere at those conferences! What's your primary goal while you're there?

"My top priority is to meet as many people as possible. I enjoy hearing from them and what their struggles are because it helps me do a better job. I’m passionate about helping people overcome those struggles.

"I also try to maintain our social presence at the conferences. There are a lot of great discussions happening on the conference's Twitter backchannel [note: the backchannel refers to the conference's Twitter hashtag, such as #ccexpo]. I've learned there are even more people who aren't necessarily active participants in those online discussions, but they're still actively listening."

Q: What do you see top contact centers doing that others don't necessarily do?

"The most successful contact centers treat their employees like adults. They empower them by giving them the tools and resources they need to serve their customers, and they don't chain them down with rigid scripts or cumbersome policies.

"If you hire people you trust, you need to trust them.

"Employee engagement is a top priority for leading contact centers. They don't get too bogged down in tactics or employee satisfaction. These contact centers understand that engaged employees are self-motivated and invested in the mission of the company.

"To do that, employees need to know the mission. In The Culture Engine, this month's book club book, the author talks about having a 'cultural constitution' that spells out the company culture and what behaviors are expected.

"It's so easy to get stuck focused on metrics, that contact center leaders often forget to focus on people. The best contact centers have an employee engagement champion who is constantly making sure this is a priority."

Q: What do you think are some unique aspects about serving customers in a contact center?

"I didn't have any contact center experience before I joined ICMI, but I quickly learned to appreciate what these professionals do every day. It's such a relatable industry because we've all been on the receiving end of a contact center's customer service.

"What really stands out for me is the passion. People are hungry to learn, improve, and share their experiences. You've got to have a servant leader's heart to be successful in this industry."

Q: Is there something about contact centers you wish other people knew?

"People need to realize the great value that contact centers provide.

"In many cases the contact center is the company's first and primary point of communication with customers. Agents have a big opportunity to create a positive impression of the company in their customers' minds. The contact center also collects an awful lot of customer data that the marketing department, R&D team, and even the CEO should be paying attention to.

"Too many organizations think of the contact center as a cost center where expenses need to be minimized, but the contact center is really one of the most customer-focused aspects of any company."

How DMV.org's Jenny Dempsey Serves Through Song

Jeff Toister October 20, 2016

Customer service can be amazing when you connect with someone on a personal level.

Jenny Dempsey is a master at doing that. Her day job is the Customer Care Manager at DMV.org, where she helps people navigate the complexities of dealing with their local department of motor vehicles. She's also the co-author of the excellent Customer Service Life blog.

Jenny recently posted a story on her blog about a customer named Ben from the UK who wrote her a "song of gratitude" to say thanks for helping him. I was impressed but not surprised. If you know Jenny, these kind of things happen.

Still, I wanted to see what lessons other customer service professionals could gain from Jenny's experience, so I reached out and asked her a few questions.

Me: How did you originally help Ben from the UK?

Jenny: Ben sent an email to DMV.org customer care asking for advice on taking a road trip in the US. He needed to know how to purchase and register a car, as well as how to obtain insurance as a non-citizen. I replied with advice on the steps to take.

Me: Do you know what prompted Ben to write a song and put it on video?

Jenny: In my reply, I also told him to enjoy the road trip and send me a postcard. He mentioned that he may not remember the postcard, but his housemate was impressed with the advice given [so they] wrote/recorded the song. (You can watch the video here.)

Me: Was there any hesitation to reply with a song of your own?

Jenny: Initially, I wasn't 100% sure. But, we're given lots of freedom here to showcase our brand personality, which is friendly, personable, and creative. I took the risk to write a song and send back to him. (You can listen to Jenny's reply here.)

Me: Have you gotten any more videos since then?

Jenny: Actually, YES! While unrelated, a visitor to our website wrote in sharing her song of sadness about an experience with the Florida DMV. (You can see her video here.) With the trending DMV musical, I replied with a song to encourage her to have some faith. (You can see Jenny's song reply here.)

Me: I have no musical talent whatsoever. What advice would you give to people like me who want to connect with customers in interesting, unique, and impactful ways?

Jenny: Think about what creative avenues you enjoy and make something happen. Is it a thank you card drawn with crayons? A custom photograph that you took, relevant to the situation you are working on with the customer? A Snapchat? A personalized meme? A poem? Even if it seems silly, if your company allows you the freedom to communicate creatively with the customer, do it! Your customer will never forget you or your company.

Inside Perspective: Interview With FCR's Jeremy Watkin

Jeff Toister December 8, 2015

A few weeks ago, I published this post highlighting ways that the size of a company or individual team could impact service quality. The surprising conclusion was that small and large companies generally fared equally well, while mid-sized companies struggled the most.

Jeremy Watkin, Head of Quality at FCR, was kind enough to give me some insight into how his company tries to maintain a boutique feel even as it continues to grow. FCR is a leading contact center outsourcer with 1,400 employees spread over six contact centers in Oregon. One of the more interesting things that FCR does is limit the size of its contact centers to approximately 300 employees.

Last Thursday, Watkin joined me for a Google Hangout interview so we could go a little more in-depth into some of FCR's best practices.

Highlights

Here are a few highlights from the interview.

Team Within a Team

FCR creates teams of employees (called colleagues) to serve individual clients. This helps maintain a small-team feel even as the organization itself continues to grow. The biggest challenge here is keeping a low supervisor to colleague ratio. FCR generally strives for 1 supervisor to 15 colleagues, but their rapid growth can sometimes inflate that ratio to 1 to 20 or higher.

Growing Pains

Data from customer service software provider Zendesk shows that mid-sized companies generally provide poorer service than small or larger organizations. There isn't clear data to explain why, but Watkin offered a good theory. He suggested that mid-sized organizations are generally small companies that have grown past the point where they can manage things informally, but they don't yet have the standardized systems and processes that large companies have in place.

Employee Motivation

Watkin mentioned that 62 percent of FCR's workforce is comprised of Millenials. This makes it important for FCR to respond to the unique challenges of motivating their colleagues. Watkin said they frequently draw from the principles outlined in Daniel Pink's book, Drive. (He also wrote a great post on this topic for FCR's blog.)

The interview lasts just under 30 minutes. It's interesting to gain Watkin's first-hand perspective on keeping things small, even as an organization grows.