AxelSchultze said:

And this latest "Fairy Tail" may just add to the thought. A social media war story! You probably never considered the word WAR in conjunction with SOCIAL MEDIA. Read it on " Social Media Today"  http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/83226

www.talkstory.com said:

Axel understands that the social media growth is leading us to a new destination of connected minds working towards a common goal.  We all need to understand his efforts and support them.

AxelSchultze said:

Mikael - you are the best :-)

The interesting thing from those comments is that none of my CEO friends joined the conversation - even so most of you are like I am - already "converted".

MikaelBlaisdell said:

Axel,

Ask your CEO to make the obvious explicit by carving in stone over the doorway: 

"Remember, O Employee, that we are but A Software Company, vendors of Holy Code.  What the lowly purchasers may do with it, or want to do with it, is Not Our Concern.  Our role is only to write and to sell that which was written.  Verily, remember the Words of Wisdom -- Take The Money And Run -- that thy performance stats may be pleasing and thy employment continued."

Make sure that the doorway is well-built and the carving above is deep, so that even the ruins may stand the test of time.

But to keep the fun going:

1.  Remove all phone numbers from your website.

2.  Set the "busy-out" switch on your ACD to prevent 75% of all attempts from getting through.

3.  Measure your CSRs' performance only on Cases Closed, and never permit any analysis of the case records.  Set the target average handle time to 20 seconds -- if it takes longer than that, don't waste time on it.

4.  When the customer asks to be escalated to a supervisor or to a 2nd line engineer, lateral them across instead to another 1st line rep.  Extra points if you can cause a broken connection in the process and force them to go through it all again.  Honorable Mention if you can give them to someone whose command of English is noticeably worse than yours.

5.  Set the definition of an Abandon in the phone switch so that in order to be counted as such, the caller must wait on hold for over 72 hours.   Then add the claim that "we answer all calls directly" to your advertising materials.  Make sure that all advertising materials and website contents loudly proclaim that your company has a World Class support center.

And when you're ready to be serious, require every member of the Senior Managment team to spend at least 1 hour every day in the customer contact center listening in on calls with only the authority given to a first line rep.  When they stop complaining about the wasted time and start looking forward to it, permit yourself to have the beginnings of hope.

MikeDubrall said:

Lots of interesting comments here.  I totally agree that vendors have set up too many barriers to communicating and collaborating with customers and resellers.  Every customer group has their own preference for how to interact with vendors.  All too many vendors have only one way - the least expensive.  Yet vendors hesitate in taking communications online  and providing all the information customers want in the most effective environment available (social media).  All their talk about protecting intellectual property, saving the brand, maintaining the integrity of the discussion, ensuring the accuracy of the message, and other euphemisms  for vendor control are slowing isolating them (and their channel partners) from real customer interaction - and sales. 

AxelSchultze said:

As long as leading research firms educate corporate leaders to measure loyalty by purchase behavior - no wonder it is even harder to progress see: http://xeeurl.com/A0530

LaureenEarnest said:

Sometimes when things are so obvious you miss them; even though they are starring you in the face!  Only in a rare case does a live person answer the phone and I am so grateful to chat with a real receptionist; as it's likely I'll get to have the conversation I initiated.  When I call for tech support and am in the thick of an issue the last thing I want to do is stretch to understand someone's supposed English.  Isn't this how we all feel?  When it comes to a sales role, here in the south I always got the furthest with a customer when we chatted over the latest SEC football game or I listened to their latest fishing story.  Product Managers should inherently know they learn the most when they are out "where the rubber hits the road"!  Why did business get so far away from their customer and thought that was prudent and fiscally responsible?  I say if any CEO would simply try even half your suggestions, Axel, there would be a lightbulb over their head; "Wow - it was right there in front of me all along --  if I had just thought about how I like to be treated."  

KevinMannion said:

The 'best' consulting firms who told the CEOs to outsource and offshore everything (including the customers) will be called in again.  Their advice this time might be (should be): differentiate your company by getting back in touch with your customers.

But Mr CEO, you knew that anyway.  Because you're a customer too.  You buy things.  You know how you like to engage with sellers, the kind of service you like.

With fewer buyers around, companies have to find ways to take business from their competitors.  Is there a better way than engaging directly with the customers?

 

 

TomSwift said:

Wow this conversation is fired up for change. It would be nice to see some of this happen. 

TimMoore said:

Talk is cheap, you must "walk the walk".

AxelSchultze said:

@Mike - Wow - "social Media Goes Channel" you are the first "indirect guy I see on this blog - that is reason for hope. Even so you are very hard with the channel guys - and yiu need to - YES, they suck. I just got word from the Cisco Event - Lots of GREAT and WONDERFUL and VISIONARY - but once you talk to the guys on the channel side you hear "As long as they try to OWN us and don't act the way they talk - forget it." Or the other guy I heard said - "... and we probably have to follow yet another corporate initivative that takes us further away from our customers..."

Oh well

TimMoore said:

Sure a great post, as usual Axel, but what a plan for companies!  These are the "nuts and bolts" to energizing their companies and re-engaging their customers (if they have any left).  I hope CEO's are reading this and are open minded enough to print this out, give it to their VP and give them the authority and resources to implement this immediately.  Not only would this earn the respect of current and prospective/new customers, motivate the employees with a fresh business model that will actually reach people, but it may also help really "stimulate" our economy.

..........listen.........is that the sound of printers starting up???? 

 Tim Moore

MikeRuff said:

And even worse in the channel!  Vendors keep sending out channel managers with the same old partner programs that haven't worked in decades! Pre-approved programs for co-marketing dollars are the worst!  Why would a partner spend $5000 to match vendor spending for a program that won't produce a meaningful market interaction?

Vendors are so afraid they can't control the brand. But the very people who will now or in the future be the market for their brand are already talking about them in forums or social media.  Either learn to sell with them or accept the necessity of selling against them.

@MikeRuff

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rmruff

blog.ljjones.com said:

Great suggestions.  I am all for making a business more human and less robotic.

MaritaRoebkes said:

Wondering if there is really someone who will print it out and bring it to the table at the next team meeting?

 

kboasso said:

@kboasso

 Axel:  You rock!  Effing brilliant!  Here are a few adds:

1) On the front-end of your "800"-number Customer Service VRU, require inbound callers to input their phone numbers (even though your "800" service has an ANI capture) before they can talk to a human being.  Then have your CSRs ask for a phone number before they can answer any questions.

2) Make sure your CSRs have a script for trouble-shooting problems to simplify the process.  Questions like, "Is your computer on?" and "Did you plug into the printer port?"  Require your CSRs to ask each-and-every-one of your inbound callers all of these questions, even if the customer has a working knowledge of your technology or service.  I.e., Don't let them skip down to a place in the script that makes sense.

3) No matter how many people your customer needs to talk to, no matter how many notes into your CRM system your people make, no matter what kind of problem resolution records you keep, make sure everyone in your service department asks the same questions in exactly the same order.

4) When a customer asks to talk to a supervisor -- for whatever reason at all -- make sure your CSR put the customer on hold for at least 20 minutes and then returns to say, "My supervisor's not available right now.  Can I have them call you back within 72 hours?"

5) Have an automated survey system follow-up customer service calls with a series of questions that have nothing to do with the customer contact or (even) with what your company's core business is.  Make sure to ask whether your customer wants a conversation with a live human being, and then don't call them ever again.

...I could go on all day, Axel.  Bottom line:  If your technology business is tanking, it's probably because your customer support efforts suck worse than Axel's grammar & spelling!!!

@kboasso

www.KeychainLogic.net

www.BoassoBusiness.blogspot.com