Assessing & Improving Caller Experience

Assessing & Improving Caller Experience Greg Simsar, VP Speech Services Eduardo Olvera, VUI Architect

Why We Are Here • To empower you with the knowledge, confidence & inspiration to improve your company’s caller experience

How We’re Going to Empower You • Sharing what we know • Learning by doing • Getting you fired up!

Agenda • Caller experience & why it matters • Benchmarking, best practices & standards • Methods & tools for assessing & improving caller experience • “Hands-on” exercises • “Selling” caller experience • Takeaways

Caller Experience Defined • Caller experience – everything the caller experiences ‘over the phone’ when contacting a company for any reason • Focus for this seminar will be (but not limited to) the caller experience with call center automation – call routing (ACD), self-service (IVR), and computer telephony integration (CTI)

Why Caller Experience Matters

Why Caller Experience Matters • What caller’s think about caller experience • What caller’s think about speech recognition • Why it matters • Good caller experience is good business (have your cake and eat it too)

What Caller’s Think

Which method for doing business with a company is described by the phrase? Speech systems are perceived to deliver a higher level of benefits than keypad entry systems. = statistically significant difference What Caller’s Think

If speech were to replace keypad entry, how would that affect your overall experience? 70% feel their overall experience would be improved if speech technology were used instead of touch-tone menus. What Caller’s Think

Why it Matters How influential is customer service on your perception of the company? Not veryinfluential1% Somewhat influential10% 88%reported that the quality of customer service is“very influential”or“influential”on their perception of a company. Very influential62% Influential26%

Why it Matters 76%of customers say theyhave because of poor customer service stoppeddoing business with a company

Why it Matters In general, how satisfied are you with your interactions with customer service? Satisfaction is split Satisfied – 49% Dissatisfied – 39% Completelysatisfied Somewhatsatisfied Neither satisfied nor unsatisfied Somewhatunsatisfied Completelyunsatisfied

Why it Matters Methods used for contacting customer service most often 86%choose the phone for contacting companies. The phone remains the dominant method of contacting customer service.

Have some cake and eat it too! • Caller ‘choice’ and automation usage are not mutually exclusive. • Customers prefer automated interactions if their hold time for agents exceeds 2 minutes. • “60 percent of customers favor an automated option for many types of simple interactions; the rest said they didn’t mind being presented with an automated option as long as they could connect with a live agent if they wanted one.” [McKinsey]

Benchmarking, Best Practices & Standards • Available caller experience benchmarking • Caller experience best practices • Caller experience standards • The gethuman™ standard • None of these substitute for assessing and improving your company’s caller experience

Caller Experience Benchmarking • No ‘industry’ benchmark • Commercial benchmarks exist and are useful: • Sterling Audits, • BenchmarkPortal, • EIG • Customer experience vs. Voice User Interface (VUI) design benchmarking

Caller Experience Best Practices • Agreed upon customer experience ‘best practices’ • Widely accepted by customer interaction design community • Basic, common sense • Best practices vs. ‘conventional wisdom’ • Customer experience (interaction) best practices vs. VUI design best practices

Caller Experience Standards • Best practices vs. standards • No true customer experience ‘standards’ exist • No true VUI design standards exist • The gethuman™ standard

What is gethuman™? • “The gethuman project is a consumer movement to improve the quality of phone support in the US.”[gethuman.com] • Originally “The IVR Cheat Sheet” started by Paul English • Hosts a website gethuman.com • “One million consumers”[gethuman.com] • The gethuman 500 database - lists companies, grades them, and tells you how to reach a human

What is gethuman?

What is the gethuman standard? • “A specification for how customer service phone systems and support should work.”[gethuman.com] • Version 1.0 published 18 October 2006 • Not really a “standard” – not approved by any formal standards body or industry organization • “Contributing” organizations: Microsoft, IBM, Avaya, Genesys, Nortel, Syntellect… • 84.4% of the 500 received an F, and fewer than 2% of the 500 received an A score [and they don’t have any automation]

Should you care? • After all… • “Its not really a standard” • “Just how big is this movement anyway” • “I’ve got plenty of company” • The real answer is yes - if you care about customer experience • The “standard” is just “common sense” when it comes to customer experience • Agrees with “everyone’s” best practices for customer interaction design • And don’t forget good caller experience is good business (eating cake)

The gethuman standard • The caller must always be able to dial 0 or to say "operator" to queue for a human. • An accurate estimated wait-time, based on call traffic statistics at the time of the call, should always be given when the caller arrives in the queue. A revised update should be provided periodically during hold time. • Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call. • When a human is not available, callers should be offered the option to be called back. If 24 hour service is not available, the caller should be able to leave a message, including a request for a call back the following business day. • Speech applications should provide touch-tone (DTMF) fall-back • Callers should not be forced to listen to long/verbose prompts.

The gethuman standard • Callers should be able to interrupt prompts (via dial-through for DTMF applications and/or via barge-in for speech applications) whenever doing so will enable the user to complete his task more efficiently. • Do not disconnect for user errors, including when there are no perceived key presses (as the caller might be on a rotary phone); instead queue for a human operator and/or offer the choice for call-back. • Default language should be based on consumer demographics for each organization. Primary language should be assumed with the option for the caller to change language. (i.e. English should generally be assumed for the US, with a specified key for Spanish.) • All operators/representatives of the organization should be able to communicate clearly with the caller (i.e. accents should not hinder communication; representatives should have excellent diction and enunciation.)

Pop quiz • Name that gethuman standard • How’s this…

The gethuman “gold” standard • While holding, allow callers to disable hold music; remember their selection for future calls. • If ads or promotions are played, allow users to disable them. • Allow callers, where appropriate, to identify themselves via caller ID and a securely defined PIN, instead of being required to enter long account numbers each call. • Default to preferred language based on caller ID. • Support and publicize individual toll-free numbers for individual languages. • Allow callers to access audio transcriptions of their calls via the organization's website. • Call back the caller at the time that he/she specified.

Exercise: How do you measure up? • You: rate your company • Group: compare ratings and see how you measure up

Methods & Tools for Assessing & Improving Caller Experience • Assessment & Improvement lifecycle • “Be the caller” • Call Monitoring & Recordings • Evaluative Usability Studies • Surveys • Statistics & Reports • Speech vs. Touchtone

Assess, Improve & Do It Some More Production Assess Improve Implement Assessment & Improvement Lifecycle

“Be The Caller” • Critical shift from focusing on ‘business’ requirements to ‘caller’ requirements • The simplest way to do this is just pick up the phone and call your company – “be the caller” • Good first step: • Its “free” • Shifts your perspective • Some immediate improvements may surface • Can get you fired up!

“Be The Caller” • Self-Survey • What do you think of the experience? • Did you accomplish your task? • Was it easy to do? • If not, why not? • What did you like? • What didn’t you like? • What would you to improve the experience? • What impression of your company was created by the experience?

Call Monitoring & Recordings • Easy to do if… • IVR ports are configured on your call recording platform • IVR ports are configured on your ACD • And if not…its critical to enable one or both capabilities • Allows you to hear ‘both sides’ of the conversation • If you monitor quality of your CSRs why wouldn’t you want to monitor the quality of your IVRs?

Call Monitoring & Recordings • Excellent next step: • In the Pareto (80/20) sweet spot – low cost with very high reward • Completes your perspective shift • Will definitely surface areas for improvement • Will definitely get you fired-up! • As with CSRs consider monitoring on a periodic basis

Call Monitoring & Recordings • How to go about it • Typically one day of monitoring will do • 100 calls is a good “rule of thumb” sample size – adjust for application complexity and number of user profiles • If you can monitor you can record too – tools of the trade revealed • Take notes - highlighting trouble spots and observations (organize and tabulate later) • Organize and tabulate calls based on notes & recordings - goal is a prioritized list of issues and opportunities for improvement

Evaluative Usability Studies • Getting inside the caller’s head • Interview callers on their usage patterns and characteristics • Observe callers using the system • Interview callers on their experience with attempted tasks • Survey callers on their overall experience using the system

Evaluative Usability Studies • Goes beyond observation to investigation and understanding the caller and what they are thinking • Excellent next step to call monitoring: • There is an engagement cost • Generally good value – especially if caller experience issues were identified by call monitoring • Will not only identify areas for improvement but yield insight into the best way to fix them

Evaluative Usability Studies • What’s involved • Define key user profiles, demographics & tasks • Develop participant ‘screening script’ • Recruit and schedule usability test participants – 10 to 12 per user profile • Develop usability interview scripts • Conduct usability sessions • Compile findings and recommendations • Options: • Remote ‘over the phone’ or • Lab with video for ‘non-verbal’ feedback

Evaluative Usability Studies • In addition to usability sessions: • Management & staff interviews • Review of available statistics & reports • IVR call monitoring (or recordings) • CSR service observation & interviews (optional) • How to go about it – involve an experienced professional

Caller Surveys • Captures direct caller feedback • Complement to other assessment methods & tools • Cost, value & benefit based on type of caller survey • Best way to measure customer satisfaction • Broader but shallower feedback vs. usability study • Caller Survey Types • Brief post-call survey • Broad outbound surveys

Brief Post-Call Surveys • Brief caller survey performed by CSRs about IVR/automation experience • Complement to other assessment methods & tools: • Low engagement cost if any – indirect costs need consideration • Good value • Measures general caller satisfaction with experience • Identifies trouble spots and areas for improvement

Brief Post-Call Surveys • <sample survey>

Broad Out-bound Surveys • More in-depth caller survey conducted by independent party • Broadly conducted - random customer sample • Complement to other assessment methods & tools: • Engagement cost can be significant • If you can afford it – do it • Best measure of general satisfaction with caller experience • Limited trouble spot & improvement insight

Broad Out-bound Surveys • <sample survey>

Costs & Benefits • Usability Studies • Broad Outbound Survey Benefit • Call Monitoring • Brief Post-call Survey • Make a call Cost

Statistics & Reports • Useful report types • Task completion • Hot spots • Use reports to identify potential trouble spots and areas for improvement…but not to assess caller experience and define improvements • Won’t shift perspective or fire you up • Complement but not a substitute for the other methods we’ve covered here

Statistics & Reports • “High-end” caller behavior mapping tools • Clearly map aggregate caller behavior • Map caller behavior across multiple interactions and multiple channels (i.e. phone, web, etc.) • Focus on caller behavior vs. caller experience • Useful – but relatively high cost • Complement but not a substitute for the other methods we’ve covered here

Recognition Analysis & Tuning • Required step in optimizing speech recognition performance • Focus on tuning grammars and recognition parameters vs. caller experience and usability • Can identify caller experience trouble spots and potential areas for improvement • Complement but not a substitute for the other methods we’ve covered here

Assessing & Improving Caller Experience