The Customer Service “Leap of Faith”

Customer service departments share a great many common practices. They hire new agents as needed and put them through the company’s standard on-boarding program. This usually includes a number of training courses and simulation exercises designed to make sure the new agent has the basic skills to do their job. The new agent, comfortable in their new cubicle, then begins the process of improvement.

Every phone call is recorded and many are evaluated looking for areas of improvement. Performance metrics are captured reflecting how quickly and skillfully the agent can respond to customer requests. Statistics such as average call duration, percentage of calls needing to be transferred, percentage of calls needing to be escalated and other metrics are monitored in an effort to identify where improvements can be made. There is also the need to attend ongoing training courses to continually broaden the agent’s base of knowledge. All goes along well during the “grace period” for the new agent.

And then comes the big leap. A Supervisor or Manager will review the statistics and upon seeing a statistic that is not meeting the standards, make a judgment call about the best course of action to improve the performance level. That course of action is frequently the assignment of additional training in a specific problem area. I use the term “judgment” as too often this is exactly what is done. The Manager has assumed that training is the answer and thus has made the dreaded “Leap of Faith.” If the problem calls are about Product X, then the needed training must be the Product X training course. There is no fault here as the “judgment call” is necessary given the lack of tools to bring facts to the decision process.

The “Leap of Faith” comes from the fact that without a tool to correlate the results from training classes to the performance measures that are being captured, there is no way to know if additional training is part of the solution or part of the problem. It might well be that the Product X course has not been updated in a number of months and that its content is now woefully out of date. Customers are asking questions about Product X for which the training course has not provided the answers.

A tool that correlates the results from course completion tests with the results from performance measurement systems will quickly identify which educational efforts are highly correlated to which levels of performance results. Such a tool guides Supervisors and Managers to intelligent decisions about the course of action that will produce improvement in the shortest amount of time. Straight statistical connections. No guessing. No wasted time or money. “High test results from Course A consistently result in high performance measures for statistic 5.”

Want to know how to improve a measure’s statistic? Locate the training or coaching process that has the highest correlation value to the failing statistic and schedule the agent accordingly.

Without knowing where there is a statistical cause & effect relationship between training and performance, contact centers have no choice but to make the “Leap of Faith” and hope they are making the right decisions that will produce performance improvements. Sadly, many companies I have visited have found that correlations they thought existed don’t. Even the more senior agents can subjected to useless trainings without a performance management tool that can clearly identify what correlates with what.

Silver Lining’s SkillsAssess software product includes such a tool; SkillsAnalysis. SkillsAnalysis is a module that can take in any number of performance metrics from any number of systems along with any number of assessment results from any number of training and coaching systems and analyze every possible combination for correlation. The results can be and have been eye opening.

The training organization benefits from knowing exactly how much they are contributing to the overall success of the contact center. The statistics can prove which courses have a direct, positive effect on the performance measures and which ones do not. Imagine being the VP of Learning and Development and being able to prove to the budget committee that not only is L&D having a positive impact but that additional funding is warranted to revise courses that are underperforming.

Using SkillsAnalysis, the Supervisors and Managers have certainty that the course of action they schedule to address a performance problem will produce the desired outcome as there are statistics that historically back the decision. Minimum interruption within the agent’s schedule. No wasted time on actions that don’t produce improvement.

So is your contact center regularly making the “Leap of Faith?” Does it operate according to the “Once trained, knowledge gained” concept? Is it time to connect your investment in performance measurement tools with your investment in agent training tools and create some synergy? It is time for Silver Lining Solutions’ SkillsAnalysis.

Is Apple Immune to the Osborne Effect?

The iPad3. The iPhone5. Both products are expected to be released this year. Both products are expected to offer vast improvements over current versions. Both products are both the best kept secrets and the worst kept secrets at the same time.

So how is it that Apple avoids becoming subject to the “Osborne Effect?” I know, sounds like a rhetorical question but it isn’t. I really do not know how Apple continues to sell monstrous numbers of products when a new model is known to be right around the corner.

Traditionally, car companies highlight new models and various technology enhancements prior to a model being available for purchase yet they go to great lengths to keep the shape of a new fender or front grill from prying eyes. If you knew that the model of car you were thinking of buying was expected to undergo a significant change, would you wait? Would you use the upcoming arrival as a way to get a better price on the existing model?

Apple’s forthcoming iPad3 is pretty much known to have a better screen and a better processor and yet Apple continues to stock the store shelves with iPad2s and is offering no discounts. The iPhone5 is coming and will likely be 4G and have a bigger screen. iPhone 4S is still selling very well. Certainly there is more time between now and the release date for the next iPhone but in the past, sales remained steady up to the release date. Strong enough anyway to deplete the channel of inventory.

Automobile companies have a similar sales strategy but they heavily discount older models in order to get them sold and the price tag makes them less of an impulse buy.

So here’s the big question of the day. What is it about Apple that allows them to continue selling existing models up to the day the new model goes on sale or is this just a myth? Let me know what you think.

Innovation Applied to Existing Technologies

It rains a lot in Oregon so wipers are pretty much a necessity. Watching them go back and forth one afternoon got me to thinking, “I wonder how many cars are made today that do not have intermittent wipers?” I suspect that the answer is very few if any. Were Low – Medium – High not sufficient? Certainly better than On/Off as an option. How many of you would trade in your intermittent wipers for a “standard version with 3 speed settings? Yeah, me too. I like my variable speed option.

I am certain that there are a great many other examples of “industry standards” that were vastly improved and became the new “standard” in an industry. I bring this up as this is the situation with text messaging.

Text messaging continues to experience explosive growth in spite of the rhetoric of industry pundits that suggest it is “old fashioned” and “out of date” technology. Tell that to the growing base of consumers who are increasingly dependent upon text messaging as a primary communication means. The automobile industry shot down the idea of intermittent wipers for a variety of reasons including claims of consumers being “very happy” with their Low/Medium/High wipers. Surprisingly, the carriers and handset vendors today are saying the same thing about text messaging with a Reply-All option – “the consumers are very happy with the current technology and we do not see any need to improve things.”

To be fair, I have had some conversations with technologists who claim that the plethora of web-based group text services are the way of the future. I point out that such claims were made of the instant messaging world and look where that industry is now.

What is really encouraging is that of all the consumers to whom I have introduced the concept of Reply-All text messaging, not a one has told me they did not want it on their phone. Most said that were it available to them, they would seriously consider changing phones. Seems maybe the idea is too obvious to be valuable to the vendor community?

Smashtalk is the patent-pending technology that has the capability of providing every mobile phone user with the capability of enjoying text messaging with a Reply-All option while maintaining full backward compatibility with existing text messaging technology and infrastructure. Smashtalk is running today on PCs and Macs and is suitable for inclusion in any mobile handset.

I’d like your ideas about how to awaken the handset vendors and carriers alike to the modern day version of intermittent wipers; Smashtalk. How much more useful would text messaging be to you were you able to hold actual multi-party conversations via text messaging. The technology exists. Those who can put this technology in your hands don’t think it’s an innovation that is wanted by the consumer. I think they are wrong. I am hoping you agree.

If you would like to have the Reply-All option on your phone, I ask that you do something each time you send a text message and think, “I wish I had a Reply-All option right now.” I ask that you tweet the following:

I want Smashtalk so I can have the Reply-All option for my text msgs . #ATT #Verizon #WindowsPhone #Android #Motorola #Smashtalk

Thanks for your help in awakening the mobile industry.

The Role of Social Media in Simple Terms

Wind the clock way, way back. Look at retailing before telephones and radios. Customer service was a personal experience that happened at the place of business. Want to visit with other customers, visit with your neighbors as the smaller towns all supported the local merchants and the merchants generally listened or went out of business. Wind the clock forward and retailers are on a steady path to greater and greater levels of isolation with their customers. Most retailers today have no real "forum" for customers to share ideas or unique experiences with each other much less share these ideas with the vendors/retailers.

That's the basis for social media in the business world. Creation and fostering of a community of customers and company representatives that allow for a free flowing dialog of ideas, feedback and sadly, problems. The problems need to be quickly addressed so as not to sour the balance of the conversations. The best thing is to create a sidebar conversation of some sort to resolve the issue and then publish to all that the issue was successfully resolved. Never leave a posted complaint without a notice of resolution.

This model puts the responsibility for social media in the hands of Marketing/Sales with problem resolution the responsibility of Customer Service. Don't mix these 2 together. Marketing needs to focus on growing the loyalty of the customer base. Customer Service needs to address the problems.

In fact, in a well run Customer Service model, customers are advised to use designated support channels when they have a problem and not rely on Twitter or Facebook for answers. On-line support forums are not the same as "social media" per se but are a great place to allow customers to help each other provided they are properly moderated. Do not mix these forums with other social media channels.

Those companies that have complaints and problems being reported on their social media sites on a regular basis have a failed Customer Service system. It's no more complicated than that.

Remember the old adage, "Praise in public, reprimand in private." This applies to social media as well.

If you would like help defining and deploying an effective Social Media strategy alongside your Customer Service system, CEP, Inc. can help. Please contact us for a free evaluation of your existing systems.

Social Media: Where’s the integration?

Like many of you, I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. I cannot say I am an active user of either system but I do occasionally take a look at what is being posted. What amazes me is that I have friends who are only reachable via their Twitter handle or a private FB message. This situation has really stumped me lately; how do you reach someone on Twitter or FB if you are an e-mail user?

It strikes me as totally arrogant that Twitter does not have the sense to create a simple gateway that would allow me to send an e-mail to someone’s Twitter address without having to invoke a 3rd party service. Having been involved in the development of e-mail systems for a number of years, I know how simple it is to create gateways. For Twitter, I ought to be able to send an email to @email.twitter.com or some sub-domain of the twitter domain and have a gateway process the message into a posting to the intended recipient….adhering to the various Twitter posting rules and privileges of course. Sadly, the simplest of integrations is not “sexy” enough to warrant the effort to integrate the new generation with the old generation.

Facebook, sadly, is not much better. Oh yes, FB is willing to give every FB user an email address with a Facebook domain name but what if I want to post a message to someone’s wall via an e-mail message. Again, a gateway ought to be able to do this with ease. I send a message to @wall.facebook.com and it ought to be posted without much trouble or fuss.

As much as the social media sphere has gained attention as the new, shiny object that everyone wants to play with, it seems to me that the thoughtful design types at both firms would realize that building a path to “legacy” technology would expand their influence and help them to be embraced by a much larger audience. I also know that as a traveler,” store & forward” is much more useful to me as a messaging system than” always connected”. My e-mail works that way as does antique SMS (heard about Smashtalk?) FB and Twitter just are not that convenient…..but they could be.

Need more examples? How many e-mail client applications today include a field for a Twitter or Facebook name? Not even Google has these fields available in their contacts list yet Android has multiple clients for both systems. Go figure.

Maybe it’s just me thinking in full circles while others are only thinking in straight lines. I have to admit, I am baffled by the blinders these companies exhibit.

I am interested in what you think. Is e-mail considered such a legacy technology that these new interpersonal connection systems need not support the overwhelming standard of electronic communication?

An Idea Steve Jobs Would Have Appreciated

Steve Jobs, along with Jonathan Ive, embraced the love consumers have for technology “that just works.” The iPod, iPhone and iPad are great examples of existing ideas re-defined by an unyielding desire to make the products simple to use. The design of SmashTalk follows that same principle.

None of the myriad of group text messaging solutions that are garnering millions of VC investment dollars follow the basic rule that has helped Apple catapult itself ahead of all other vendors in its target markets. None are so simple that they just work. They don’t.

SmashTalk transforms the existing SMS experience without the necessity to change a single current consumer behavior. With SmashTalk, there are no web sites where lists need to be built, there are no services to which all your contacts must register and there are no issues with access speed. SmashTalk is the elegant solution to bring group text messaging to the consumers who continue to be hungry for a way to hold conversations with a group of individuals via SMS messaging.

The real questions in all of this is why are the carriers so silent and where are the handset manufacturers.

SmashTalk will triple the volume of SMS messages currently being sent through the carrier networks. These are revenue producing messages that do not highlight issues of dead zones or poor connections. SMS does not suffer from intermittent dead spots like phone calls or internet access. There are not multiple standards for SMS around the world as there are for voice calls and internet access. SMS just works and SmashTalk just works better.

The handset vendors claim to want new and innovative ideas that will set them apart and yet they sign up for Android and/or Windows Phone and thereby thrust themselves into highly limiting design worlds.

Microsoft is trying to maintain the control over Windows Phone to the degree Apple controls the iPhone yet allow its partners to vary the trivial qualities of their products. Android developers, while having more freedom to innovate, are also very limited in what they can develop if they desire to have the Android application developers as allies.

SmashTalk is the kind of innovation that will be quickly embraced by the consumers because its design allows it to just work. It is designed to work with Android, Windows Phone and the iPhone without any form of learning curve.

It is time for carriers and handset vendors to look at the handsets being built and sold and question every function; “Is there a better way to deliver this service?” Smashtalk is the better way to deliver SMS. SmashTalk is the equivalent of the touchscreen replacing the keypad. The accelerometer allowing screens to shift between portrait and landscape modes. Each of these changes which we take for granted today started with a single vendor realizing that the status quo represented an opportunity to innovate. SMS is about as status quo as it can get. It is time to bring innovation to SMS; innovation that consumers can embrace without changing a single usage pattern or habit; it just works. That’s SmashTalk. www.smashtalk.net

The Role of Social Media - The Cold, Hard Truth

Social media must be about letting the customer meet the "company" and other customers in order to develop a sense of community. People like to share and like knowing there are others who also acquired the product. Encouraging others to "spread the word" is what the purpose of Social Media ought to be and that supports a larger branding mission if done well.

The idea that FB, YouTube & Twitter ought to be a primary means of customer support is just plain wrong. No one needs to create the next Dave Carroll through poor service.

If there is a fire in a bedroom of your house, don't build another bedroom as a solution. Put out the fire! Same rule applies to customer service.

Social Media: Is a Dangerous Pattern Emerging?

A friend of mine recently had a problem with her American Express card. She had an issue with a late fee, called the 800 number, was told that the charge was valid and though there were many years of great purchase and payment history, the late fee would not be waived. My friend cancelled her AMEX card and posted a short version of the incident on Twitter.

Not surprisingly, American Express reached out to her as they are an avid user of Twitter search technology. The Social Media representative waived the late fee and recovered the credit card account.

So what has American Express, like hundreds of other companies, now accomplished? Sure they saved an account and made a customer happy. That’s the obvious answer. Look a little more closely and the answer is not so pretty.

AMEX had an opportunity to resolve the issue on the first phone call but the agent either did not feel the situation warranted a waiver, was not authorized to issue a waiver or was otherwise motivated to deny the issuance of the late fee waiver. As soon as the situation hits Twitter, the game changes and now it is acceptable to waive the late fee as the issue has gone public.

What AMEX has done is reinforce a behavior within its customer base that complaining on Twitter is the way to get a desired outcome – forget a private phone conversation. It is as if AMEX has decided that in order to keep their revenues high, they will not waive various penalty fees unless the problem goes public.

This is a moronic application of social media. Social media ought to be an avenue of building a community of users who share stories of the great things a company did for them and how the company is responsive; you know, the nice news about a company. What AMEX is creating is a “gripe board” where customers will learn to seek resolution rather than picking up a phone.

What company, in their right mind, wants to be training customers to gripe in public whenever they have a problem rather than call someone for a private conversation? The Twitter gripe is widely public. The black eye is done. The resolution may never be published and the readers of the gripe may never see the positive outcome but I bet they will remember that a loyal customer griped that loyalty was not rewarded.

I cannot offer statistics other than anecdotes such as this but the more I read about social media and the efforts to sell companies on social media as a front-line customer service tool, I cannot help but wonder how many companies are racing to be “with it” when it comes to being “social” and forgetting what it is they really need to be doing. Encouraging customers to gripe to the world in order to secure an acceptable resolution to a problem is just a bad idea. In fact, it’s worse than bad. It may well be terminal for a fledgling company.

AMEX is probably not worried. In fact, AMEX paid customers to go away during the mortgage meltdown. Clearly, thinning the ranks of card holders is part of their overall business strategy. For the rest of the business world, I suggest an examination of the social media strategy is in order.

Social media should be used as a marketing tool. That’s it. Build a community. Let customers share stories. Encourage interaction through coupons, contests and games. That’s what social media is intended to be.

Contact centers are where customer support happens. The interactions are private and the rules of engagement should be the same regardless of whether someone calls, writes (yes, some of us still write letters), e-mail or posts on a social site. The objective is to resolve the issue quickly and fairly such that publishing an account of the situation and the resolution does no damage to the reputation of either party and does not encourage customers to seek a public forum as a first point of contact.

Mistakes will happen and customers will post gripes on social sites. The point is to not encourage the posting of gripes on social sites as a primary means of obtaining customer satisfaction.

Back to my friend’s situation. Had the initial AMEX rep applied the same rules regarding fee waivers, the Twitter gripe would never have been posted. AMEX would not have had to spend additional time and money to “negate” the gripe posting and an untold number of people would not have read about AMEX’s failure to forgive a late fee for a long time customer.

Social media cost AMEX money in this situation. Is social media costing your company money?

I’d like to hear your stories about how companies are “encouraging” you to utilize social media. Feel free to post your stories and I will publish them all.

Here We Go Again!

Many years ago, instant messaging was all the rage. More than a dozen companies sprang to life all promoting their method and their “standard” as the next big thing. Even the really big players decided to try their luck in this new game that was going to take a large bite out of the e-mail market and make ICQ a dinosaur.

Anyone old enough to remember what happened knows that instant messaging is still in its infancy and has no hope of ever becoming the ubiquitous communication utility so many preached it would become. Seems that when everyone has a “standard” to push, no one can possibly win.

Imagine what would have happened were it not for an agreement on the formatting of SMTP messages. Today, e-mail systems can interact seamlessly for the same reasons that phone systems can interact; there was an agreement, (OK, several agreements), that set the stage for interconnecting all the various phone system standard each country decided to adopt. The result is a seamless ability to dial anyone from anywhere. E-mail can go to anyone regardless of the e-mail client of the sender and the receiver because of similar agreements.

And what of instant messaging. Well, it seems that no one was willing to give in order to get. Even the biggest players like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft tried to force the market to go their way and failed. Too many products fighting to become the standard and too many people wanting to be the controlling party.

A new wave of “ubiquitous communication tool” is now in the throes of the market model that killed instant messaging. This new wave is group text messaging.
Group text messaging; the ability to send text messages (SMS) to many people and their ability to reply to every original recipient. Today, every mobile telephony device available provides a simple form of SMS. Today’s SMS allows the recipient to only see the sender – no other recipients are available.

To solve this problem, at least 2 dozen companies have taken to the web to offer a solution. Yes, even the big boys like Google, Microsoft and Facebook are trying to take command of the market. Like the instant message of old, every offering from all these companies is incompatible with all the other offerings. That is, except 1.

Smashtalk® is the only form of group text messaging that is a plug-in replacement for the SMS engine in every telephony device available today. Smashtalk is the only group text messaging technology that does not require a change of consumer behavior to utilize. Smashtalk is the only solution to the group text chat problem that does not require participants to register lists of friends via special web sites.

History has a way of repeating itself. Sadly, too often the lessons of the past are considered too ancient to apply to today’s “high tech” innovations. “The world is different now.” “It’s not the same now as it was then.” Yes, heard that a lot. Heard it from myself when I was young and now I hear me telling young kids that history has lessons they ought to learn.
The world is run on economic decisions. Instant messaging could not advance partly because there was no base of established users on which to build and thus, there was no historical basis for cooperation. The economics did not make sense for businesses or consumers to adopt any 1 system because no system had sufficient reach.

The group text messaging market is at this critical inflection point today! Those of us who have been around can probably name another dozen technologies that went through the same inflection point. 802.11n made it but not before it had to be changed in order to level the playing field. Anyone remember G-Net or Omninet?

Success is more likely to occur from evolution than from innovation. Even Facebook has as its roots the broad audience that once surfed CompuServe forums sharing ideas and software with friends all over the globe.

The opportunity to create success in the group text messaging market is now. The solution is evolution that retains the broadest possible support to those standards that have come before. That solution is Smashtalk.

The New Traveler’s Gathering Spot

As a regular business traveler for the past 30 years, there have been a number of changes in the traveling environment; some good and some not so good. Obviously, the TSA experience fluctuates between grand nuisance and mild annoyance depending upon the location and calendar. Choices of eateries is also much broader today than it was years ago.

The most stark difference I have noticed in the past couple of years is actually an update of a very old model; the phone bank. Remember those walls of pay phones that used to be the first or second stop for every business traveler coming off a flight? Remember the waiting lines and the long list of calling card digits that started the calling process.

Well, the 21st century version of the phone bank has arrived in most airports in North America; the Power Station. While cell phones have brought about the demise of the pay phone, the bundle of electronics in all our briefcases need recharging after a long flight. Thus, the urgent need for a “fill-up” between flight connections.

The good news is that with more and more airports offering free WiFi for all travelers, the need to power cell phones, notebook computers, iPods, tablets and DVD players has grown to significant numbers. What’s good about this is that a critical mass of sorts has been reached. Ease of recharging has become another competitive advantage as airlines and airports compete for the traveler’s dollars.

The banks of pay phones generated revenues for the calling card companies. Sometimes that was the same company as the owner of the pay phones and sometimes is wasn’t. Economically, there was sufficient revenue to warrant the installation and maintenance.

So how about the companies who today are offering free power and a place to sit. What’s their incentive? Goodwill? That’s the only benefit I can see for Samsung, Verizon and others investing millions of dollars in airport power stations. For that, I am grateful.

The real question is are enough people grateful such that companies like Samsung will expand their current investment and install Power Stations in all the airports big and small. If you happen to enjoy the convenience of a free recharge service, let the vendor know. Unless someone can figure out a way to monetize all the outlets in the airport, positive PR is the only incentive any company or airport has for deploying this modernized gathering spot.

The next time you plug in your favorite electronic gizmo at an airport, connect to the airport’s web site and let them know you appreciate the “electron fill-up.” Acknowledging the free service is the best way to insure the service continues to be offered.

Happy traveling!

The Case for Tablets

Having just returned from CTIA and having had an opportunity to try out all the latest tablets, I can firmly state that while the idea of a tablet computer is very enticing, there are just too many shortcomings to get me to buy one.

Typing

First and foremost is the act of typing. Tablets are not made for typing and every vendor concedes this fact. For this reason, there are plenty of third party companies that can fill the void but that simple addition makes the tablet into a laptop/netpad. I concede there are some tasks better that are better suited to a quick tap on a screen rather than navigating through menus but the productivity apps need to be designed for touch screens to push the pendulum over to the touch screen as the primary means of interaction. It all comes down to the type (pun intended) of work needing to be performed as to whether a keyboard is integral to getting things done.

Screen size

I have looked at screen size and the 10” seems to be the optimal size for real work while the smaller 7” versions are great for media and calendar checking but even writing something as simple as this posting would be painful. I know you can zoom in to see larger text but writing on what appears to be a thin column of paper is not like seeing the full width of the page.

Software

iOS or Android are really the 2 choices today with WebOS in the near future. I like having my native tools within easy reach and sadly, I am an Office user from way back. I really like having all the formatting remain intact as I move from laptop to desktop and back. There really is something to be said for having docs appear exactly the way you left them. Today, that poses a bit of a challenge for the tablets. Viewing is not the same as constructing. Today, I do a lot of constructing.

So are there any positives? Absolutely.

Battery Life

Tablets have great battery life. They ought to. They generally have cell phone processors rather than low-power versions of desktop CPUs. CPUs eat power. Not surprisingly, the ARM world of cell phone CPUs has been focused on battery life for quite some time. Intel? Not so much. Tablets have so much more room to hold large batteries that long life is not too surprising. Let’s be real here, most tablets are really big versions of cell phones. The extra space can pretty much be all battery.

Weight

Tablets weigh next to nothing. That is one of the most attractive aspects of the devices. When you schlep a lot of gear through airports or even around town, a 6 pound laptop gets old very quickly. A tablet with a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard looks very attractive after a few visits to my local Chiro.

Coolness

Tablets are the new cool device to carry around and show off. Apple has once again established what it means to own cool gadgets. It is pretty hard to argue with devices that have the sell rate of the iPad. It is clearly a hit.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line for me is the balancing of the positives and negatives. Today, the state of the tablet market has me awaiting a different set of features. When I look at the cost of adding the wireless keyboard and case to the cost of just a WiFi tablet, I can buy a decent, lightweight notebook for the same price. Start adding in 3G and the number make even less sense.

Is a lightweight notebook cool? No. Never will be. But it is more functional and expandable than today’s tablets.

Today, I sync my laptop and desktop via Microsoft’s Live Mesh software. Plenty of storage and FREE. Sync’ing e-mail is another matter as I am not running Exchange in my home office. If you have a solution for this, I am all ears. I also rely on USB ports for a variety of devices. I have yet to see a tablet with a USB port. Can you say “power drain?”

The bottom line is that I know what the ideal device looks like and how it works. As the patent for this idea is issued by the PTO, I will be happy to share it with any and all interested parties. Until then, I guess I am destined to not be cool yet still highly productive.

PS. I still use my 10 year old iPAQ phone and its desktop sync, Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, Voice, Data, expansion slot, unlocked GSM, apps a plenty, all under my control features every day. Why the technology advancements in handsets have been so slow to materialize is a topic for another day.

Solving the Mobile Payment Problem

I don’t know about you but the idea of transmitting my credit card data from my smartphone to a receiver in order to avoid using my credit cards does not sound like a good idea. I know about the encryption and all the steps to secure the transmission but I still have a big concern about someone snagging the information.

That said, I like the idea of being able to use my smartphone to pay for purchases at any checkout counter. Seems to me the technology to do this already exists to a very large degree and is quite secure.

Let me see if I have the requirements correct. Each credit card needs to be able to be uniquely presented in an electronic form. Some proof of ownership needs to be provided such that no one else but the phone’s owner can access the credit card info. The merchant needs assurances that the electronic card being presented is valid. Impact on the existing infrastructure needs to be minimized as many merchants cannot afford to replace existing cash registers. I think that about sums it up.

My idea to solve this problem involves barcodes. To be specific, 2-dimensional barcodes. Imagine approaching the checkout counter of your local supermarket or department store. The clerk scans all your items reading the UPC barcodes affixed to each item. Once all items have been scanned, the clerk tells you the total and asks what form of payment you would like to use. Out comes the smartphone and a credit card locker application is opened. The desired credit card is selected, the appropriate password is entered and a barcode is displayed on the screen of the smartphone. This barcode is then scanned by the merchant’s scanner and all the necessary credit card information is identified. The merchant then looks at the small photo accompanying the barcode to verify that the person presenting the barcode is the same as the person in the picture. The transaction is then continued as normal.

The beauty of this model is that there is no transmission of data to worry about. The barcode is password protected on the smartphone and the photo, programmatically connected to the barcode, provides verification of the validity of the customer. Most smartphones have screens of sufficient size that both the barcode and the photo can fit on the screen at the same time. The customer can create as many different credit cards for their “locker” as they desire so there is no limitation nor waiting for the bank to issue any sort of special codes. The scanners that most merchants use today are able to read barcodes other than UPC codes once they have been updated through software.

So what would it take for this idea to come to life? IBM and NCR agreeing to an encoding standard for the barcode along with the necessary software updates to their current equipment. Once this defacto barcode standard is published for all to adopt, the only thing left is for the smartphone app vendors to build “lockers” in which to create and store the barcode info. I would guess the entire process would take less than 12 months to develop and deploy.

Keep in mind that some airlines already accept electronic, barcode-based boarding passes that have been sent to the customer’s smartphone prior to being scanned by a gate agent at the airport. All I want to see is the same type of technology to be applied to my credit cards.

So what do you think? What functionality have I missed? What security issues are not addressed that would cause you concern? If you were a merchant, would you want more assurances before accepting a smartphone-based barcode? Post a comment NOW and let’s see where this can go.

Making Every Contact Center Resource a High Performer

Today, contact centers around the world are spending hundreds of millions every year in an effort to measure the performance of their employees. Quality Monitoring (QM), Infomarts, Datamarts, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tracking and Speech Analytics are just some of the forms and names representing these products. Without these types of reports, managing the contact center staff would be quite a challenge.

Sadly, most companies have no idea that all of the investments they have made to produce performance reports only tell half the story. Companies all over the world are making decisions today based on having only 50% of the available information. Why is that?

We have just seen the Super Bowl between the Jets and the Packers. Imagine you are the coach of the Packers. You keep detailed stats about each and every play in every game and practice session. At the end of any game, you compile all the play statistics and look at how each player performed. Businesses collect much of the same type of “performance” data each and every day about their “players”.

Major sports teams know, however, that the performance reports are just the beginning of the analysis process. The successful sports teams take the performance reports at the end of each game and develop training plans for each player in order that they correct their “errors” before the next game. A continuous performance feedback process is a vital part of every successful team. Every contact center needs to adopt this strategy; convert the performance results into an actionable training program.

The Skills Assessor product from Silver Lining Solutions is a unique product designed to take the performance measurement results and combine them with the results of knowledge measurement or assessment tests to create a complete picture of each contact center resource. That’s the missing 50% -- connecting the performance measurement tools to a set of knowledge measurement tools and then locate all the correlations that exist between the 2.

Just as each position on the football field requires specific skills, so too do the various tasks in the contact center. Want to know the skill requirements needed to make the ideal quarterback, wide receiver or nose tackle? The coaching staff know and they drill and drill their players in order that every player is the best they can be at their position. Contact centers need to do the same.

Silver Lining refers to this skills requirement as “Skills DNA”. Using the Skills Analysis tool included with Skills Assessor, the ideal skill set, or Skills DNA, for each task can be formulated, compared to the measured skills of all the current staff and validated by the performance results. Contact center agents coming up short in the measurement of their performance can quickly be identified and scheduled for additional training so that they too can be the best at their position.

Skills Assessor is the tool to tell you why the high performers are high performers and what to do to bring the rest of the staff up to that performance level. Skills Assessor is the tool for the Enterprise to build a world class customer service delivery model with high performers in every position.

So how many high performers do you have in your company? Isn’t it time to add knowledge measurement to your existing performance measurement systems? Without both measurement systems, high performers are more accidental than predictable. Do you want to operate your business by accident?

For more information about Skills Assessor from Silver Lining Solutions, visit their web site: SIlver Lining Solutions

20 Years of Electronic Calendars and Time Zone Shifts are Still a Problem

Maybe it’s the wave of new technology that has me bothered or maybe it’s the real lack of innovation that seems to be largely ignored or maybe it’s something else. All I know is that I still cannot put appointments into my Outlook calendar, travel across the country, change my time zone and have the appointments stay where I put them.

Now I know many of you will tell me that there are ways to tag an appt with the time zone so that when I shift the Windows setting, the appointment ends up in the right spot. I know all about that. The problem is that when I am in Oregon and planning meetings in various cities during a week long trip around the US, I do not want to think about which time zone is involved. I know I will be in New York on a specific day and my meeting is at 10:00am. Why can’t I put the meeting in my calendar for 10:00am and have it stay there? For 20+ years, no one has solved this really simple problem.

It is so simple, if I had the money to build and market an Outlook replacement, I would patent my idea. The solution takes a single bit. That’s right. A single bit that is either a 1 or a 0. The bit is the TZTrack bit. If an appointment when entered into my calendar needs to hold its position regardless of time zone changes, I set the bit to 0. If I want the appt to track the time zone, I set the bit to 1. In the user options page, the user is given an option to set the default for this bit so that only exceptions involve changing this bit.

The beauty of this idea occurs when I arrive in NYC from Oregon. I change the time zone for my laptop and smartphone (what an ironic name considering how stupid they are but I digress). When Outpost, my name for the really useful e-mail/calendaring program, recognizes the time change, only those appointments with the TZTrack bit set to 1 shift. Conference calls for example need to shift automatically. Meetings I have set are left alone as the TZTrack bit is not set. All I have been able to do with both my phone and computer is change the time leaving the time zone alone. Yes, I know that means manually changing the conference calls but there are fewer of them than the meetings so less work wins.

So how hard would it be for someone to add a single bit of data to each calendar item along with some simple logic to examine the TZTrack bit before shifting appointments en mass? Yeah, I know. “Pretty simple but there are bigger issues that need addressing.”

I do not know how to reach the iCal standards board but I would happily switch to Thunderbird from Mozilla if they were to adopt the TZTrack bit idea. Hell, I’ll forgo seeking a patent on the idea if someone will build an MS Outlook add-in that provides this feature. I’d ask Steve Ballmer to do it but he is too busy trying to figure out why Windows Phone 7 doesn’t do half of what Windows Mobile 5 does including Cut & Paste.

In the meantime, if you know how to configure stand-alone Outlook 2007 to not move appointments when I change time zones, I am all ears.

Multi-player board games via Smashtalk text messaging. Good or bad idea?

Imagine playing Monopoly or Bridge or Yahtzee via text messaging. Smashtalk is designed to support applications sending and receiving Smashtalk text messages. Player A starts the game on their smartphone and invited 3 friends to play. The invitations are sent from the board game. Players B, C & D receive the Smashtalk message and activate their copy of the game on their smartphones. Now the games communicate with each other using Smashtalk messages.

The "Reply All" feature allows for each player to communicate with the other players just by replying.

When Player A takes a turn, the update to the game board is sent to the other players' instance of the game via Smashtalk message. The result of Player B's turn is sent via a reply all text message to the other players.

OK. Obvious questions.

Why not real-time instead of text message? Connectivity requirement. Text messaging does not mandate continuous real-time connections. Commuters on trains or passing through tunnels are unaffected. Connection speed is not an issue either. There is also the issue of playing a game as time permits. Each player takes their turn when they get a free moment whether that be at work, school, traveling or at home. Near-real time has some distinct advantages.

Can't this be done with old-style SMS? Yes but with a lot more human intervention. Smashtalk uses the CC: list to know who the players are and who needs to receive the game's update messages. Old-style SMS would require the players to build the player list as a part of starting the game and then make sure the SMS interface in the game built each SMS with the text address of each player. Smashtalk automates this function. Starting the game is simply a matter of accepting the invitation.

Wouldn't the games eat up a lot of text messages? Games would likely need quite a few text messages but an unlimited plan makes the problem go away. As more carriers adopt data plans with limits, unlimited text becomes the most cost-effective model.

So what do you think? Would you be interested in playing popular board games with your friends via your smartphones? Would the use of text messaging as the update mechanism be an advantage or a nuisance?

I want to hear your thoughts.

History in Spirals

History is a wonderful subject of study if the study includes the “cause and effect” behind the events. Some would say that history repeats itself. I would suggest that history does not repeat but rather history occurs in a spiraling pattern. What seems like repeating events are actually events that are similar in many ways but significantly different in others. Some would equate this to pendular motion rather than a spiral motion. To my way of thinking, the spiral is more accurate as the pendulum returns to nearly the same spots on each swing. The spiral moves within the same relative range but continually changes altitude thus events in the past, when well understood, will share some common threads with the events of the present.

Thus the beauty of knowing history is the opportunity to recognize those common threads when they appear which leads to an understanding of what is likely to follow. The history of customer service technology is a clear example of this.

In the very early days, customer service was provided by the owner of the local store. The proprietor knew customers personally and willing to go the extra mile to keep customers happy. The successful merchants grew as did the cities in which they were located.

The introduction of the telephone dramatically changed the service delivery model. No longer was service a face-to-face experience. The telephone allowed customers and agents to be far from one another. In the same way that merchant size offered a potential pricing advantage, so too did the telephone allow the large merchants to reduce their cost of service by locating the service personnel in places with much lower operating costs. “Let your fingers do the walking” became more than a catchy jingle for the Yellow Pages. It became a wonderful description of how customer service was delivered. Efficiency was the order of the day. Consumers bought into the idea that 24 x 7 services via a toll-free call was as close to nirvana as anyone could imagine.

Like all innovative ideas, after a number of years, the innovation became commonplace. In the early 80’s, the idea of personalizing service delivered via the phone began to gain steam as customers starting growing tired of being “just another number” in the eyes of the merchants. It was time for technology to fix what had become a problem. The fix came in the form of specialized software.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software was and is intended to help the agent on the phone provide service that is as personalized as the clerk in the store. Years of transaction information and preferences were combined into a single system intended to allow the agent to appear to be someone who has a personal relationship with each customer. Lots of money was invested in training the agents in the use of the CRM software in order that the CRM software be as useful as possible.

This CRM model became the new innovation which every business looked to adopt. It was the customer service history spiral coming back around to its beginnings; personalized service but this time, without having to meet face-to-face.

The CRM excitement lasted throughout the ‘90s. Then came the Internet.

The Internet changed a lot of aspects of business as we know it. It certainly has had a big effect on the delivery of customer service. The Internet brought about a highly connected consumer population that took CRM for granted and placed a higher value on 24 x 7 self-service. Self-service came in the form of web sites and intelligent IVR systems; systems that allowed the customer to service themselves whenever and wherever they happened to be. In the same way that call centers and their toll-free numbers provided a way to greatly reduce the cost of service delivery, the Internet brought about a similar reduction in transaction costs through a pure technology play.

It should come as no surprise that the next turn of the spiral is coming into view. The very technology that has been deployed to help avoid the need for customers to speak with agents has left only the most difficult questions for the agents to tackle. Sadly, few companies have any idea what their customer service staff actually know. We are not talking the simple stuff like how to check an account balance or pay a bill. We are talking difficult technical questions and complex transactional problems that cannot be addressed by any self-service system.

The coming turn of the spiral will require an investment in the agents as well as their tools. The breadth of media forms currently offered to customers along with the increased complexity of the questions customers are raising means businesses need to be looking at investing in both people and technology in order to stay competitive. No agent can possibly know all the answers to all the questions that are starting to come at them. Specialization of agent resources will require targeted training efforts as well as new software tools not yet developed. The bottom line is that this round of the spiral, like the CRM period, will require investments in both people and technology.

The question is are you ready? Are you ready to identify agents by specialization? Are you prepared with programs that foster the growth of agents into specialized topics? Are you ready to properly deliver customers to the agents that can handle this new level of media and subject complexity? If not, it is time to start.

If you would like help preparing your company for the coming change in world of Customer Service Delivery Systems, please call me regarding available consulting services: 602-492-1088

Customer Service Staff: The Last Investments

I listen to a lot of webinars focused on how to improve the delivery of customer service. I read lots of analyst reports about the state of customer service and where investments are being made and expected to be made in the future. As I am sure you can imagine, a lot of focus is on adding new and better technology to improve the service delivery model.

What I rarely hear is how investments in improving the level of knowledge within the service staff is a priority. I’ve given this question a bit of thought and have come up with a couple of answers.

First and foremost, vendors have a well-known agenda; sell more products. Vendors sponsor many of the webinars being conducted on a daily basis. Obviously, the purpose of these webinars is to highlight a customer service problem followed by solving that problem using the vendor’s products. Sadly, the vast majority of the technologies offered to solve the problems are based on the assumption that agents are most effective when they learn to use tools. “Buy more tools and have less problems” is a common theme but a misleading solution. New tools do little to address the customer service problem without appropriate training. Training. Rarely is this term heard amongst the discussion of customer service solutions. Perhaps that is why the conversation continues on without abating.

Training customer service staff is a necessary evil in too many companies. Why is this? Simple. Humans are messy! Humans bring problems with them when they come to work. Humans want fulfillment from work, want acknowledgement and want the opportunity to succeed. Humans are expensive.

The standard metric in North America and Europe is that personnel costs are 60-70% of the cost of running a contact center. Want that number to skyrocket? Chase off your best talent on a regular basis. When an agent leaves, all the investment in training goes right out the door. Ever see an IVR walk out the door? Web server?

The sad fact is that many companies seek to use technology as a way of shifting the knowledge burden away from the agent and put it on the back of technology; technology designed to allow the agent to move closer to an interchangeable part than ever before.

Self-service systems like the web and IVRs have, in fact, turned the equation back 180°. Agents are once again getting a continuous stream of challenging questions as the easy stuff is being captured in the self-service options. As you would expect, agent training is moving back up the priority list. Training for the sake of training is as wasteful as no training at all. So what’s the solution. Yes, it’s a bit of technology.

What every contact center needs today is technology to help identify what each customer service knows as compared to what they need to know. The technology needs to also help program a career path for each and every employee so that the training investment does not walk out the door. Most employees like staying with a company as long as they know they have a future, know what steps they need to take to better their future and can track how they are progressing towards that future. To do anything less is to invite your most expensive company assets to seek fulfillment elsewhere.

If you are unsure where to look to find technology that can address the problem of managing the training needs of your customer service staff, I invite you to take a look at Silver Lining Solutions. They have a complete set of tools designed to help every business address each agent’s unique training needs. If you are concerned with optimizing the value each customer service resource brings to your transactions, you need a complete skills management system

If you would like help designing a skills management system into your Customer Service Delivery System, please call me regarding available consulting services: 602-492-1088

The Next Big Thing in Mobile Technology

I was recently asked what I thought was going to be the next big thing to drive the mobile telephony industry. I imagine many of you chat amongst your colleagues about this same question. To really understand what is it that is coming, it is useful to realize from whence we have come…..and how few times the mobile telephony market has really changed.

One of the earliest market revolutions in the mobile space was the Motorola flip phone. Protected by patents, Motorola enjoyed a tremendous market advantage as consumers quickly adopted the fold-out design over the bricks and “candy bar” phone models offers by competitors. As the phones shrunk in size, so did the flip phone. It was amazing to watch how many companies released flip phone models immediately after the patents expired. Clearly, there was a large market that liked the clamshell design.

Palm/Handspring brought out the next milestone in the mobile world when the PDA and mobile phone were merged. Yes, Handspring was first but Palm eventually mimicked Handspring and then outright bought the company. The Smartphone became a genre of mobile device that has grown into a very large and competitive market.

Research in Motion (RIM) took the smartphone market to a new level when it introduced e-mail servers that could continually synchronize the e-mail on your corporate server with the e-mail application running on your RIM Blackberry smartphone. Suddenly, the business community had a reason to take a serious look at smartphones. RIM has enjoyed tremendous success by continuing to enhance this simple concept; staying connected with the office without being in the office.

The iPhone was the next major milestone. Apple’s first introduction to the mobile device world came as a natural extension of their highly successful iPod music players. In the same way the market-leading PDA, the Palm Pilot, morphed into a smartphone, Apple’s iPhone took the easy-to-use design concepts of the iPod and morphed then into a new style of smartphone. While the initial versions of the iPhone were 2-3 generations behind in functionality compared to competing smartphones, the usability and sleek design made it an instant hit with consumers.

It is time for the next milestone to appear. The question is what will it be and who will bring it to market?

Sadly, the mobile telephony market is maturing as the past leaders with pockets bulging are not interested in taking risks. Their revenue streams are to be nursed along with evolutionary enhancements rather than internally-created obsolescence.

In the mobile operating system market, there is Google’s Android and Apple’s IOS battling for market leadership. Android is available on a variety of devices while IOS is found only on Apple devices. RIM’s OS has a following of developers whose products are primarily geared to the Enterprise user while Microsoft has killed off their earlier mobile OS in favor of something completely new. If that were not enough, Intel and Nokia and looking to push Moblin as the mobile OS of choice for the new versions of the Atom processor while HP/Palm are looking to mimic Apple with their WebOS offering on proprietary hardware.

So out of this hodgepodge of operating systems and vendors, each having its own unique distribution model, where is the next “big thing” to originate? Will a carrier be involved in the design? OK…you can stop laughing now. Will the idea come from a small company without an installed base to worry about or will one of the established players merge more technologies together to create a new genre of devices?

I have an idea of what the next new genre is all about and would like to hear what you think the next “big thing” will be. Post a comment describing your idea and target market. Who knows what ideas may be sparked from an open dialogue about the future of mobile telephony.

Why the outrage about AT&T and iPhone4?

AT&T is the displaying the financial calculations of a company that has a monopoly.  Why invest in systems capable of handling the known volumes when it is a temporary condition?  Why really work to build out the network when a VZ-version of the iPhone will drop AT&T's traffic numbers by 50%?  Why do anything but the minimum when the goal is profit?  Is it really that hard to come to terms with the fact that AT&T knows where it stands and has chosen to act the way it is based solely on profit?  Have you forgotten where AT&T came from?

Wake up people.  Until Apple signs a deal with VZ, the addiction to the iPhone means the local "drug dealer" can treat you like dog food because you can't go anywhere else to satisfy your addiction. 

AT&T is a bottom-line company.  Network expansion and large web server farms cost money.  Why spend it if there is no need?  Simple, short-sited business decision.  Until Apple sees an impact on sales, expect AT&T to do nothing that takes away from its bottom line.  Apple is the tail wagging all of AT&T.

If you don't like it, find a local 12-step iPhone program.

Why All the Fuss About Social Media?

Social Media is quite the rage these days. I must be seeing at least 2-3 webinars per week on the subject from various companies and vendors talking about how Social Media is impacting our lives, our customers’ lives and the world around us. In many cases, borderline panic is the underlying message.


What is Social Media really and is it deserving of this much attention? Is there really a need to panic? What is it about Social Media that really needs to be understood? All good questions and each deserving an answer.


Let’s start with the basics. Social Media refers to a large and growing number of web sites offering a means of electronically sharing ideas, photos, videos and just about anything else imaginable. Some sites allow users to control who can view posted content and others have unrestricted access to all content. Some sites are focused on specific purposes such as restaurant reviews or communicating with friends while other sites are simply a location to upload photos and videos to be shared with the world. Underlying all of these sites is the near-universal connectivity of the Internet.


So how do these sites have an impact on the world of business? Opinions. Millions of opinions. Opinions on just about every topic imaginable. Some opinions are sound and others are not. Some ideas are well researched and others are not. All the ideas constitute something that at one time was considered important enough for someone to take the time to post to a site. If that opinion involves your company, the potential for impact, negative and positive, is present. Therein lies the quandary surrounding Social Media; are the opinions worthy of concern or worthy of encouragement or maybe not worthy of anything?


In the distant past, customers had a limited reach for influencing the opinions of others. Friends, families and colleagues were possible audiences for the opinions but the impact of any 1 person was rarely a concern. The sharing of a single personal experience rarely made a significant impact on the overall business. After all, how many people could one person reach with their story?


Social Media has changed that equation. The pervasiveness of the Internet, upon which Social Media is built, allows customers to potentially reach million of “friends” in a matter of minutes. A single opinion posted on a Social Media site can have an immediate impact on a company and its existing and potential customers. Social Media has effectively put the world’s largest megaphone in the hands of virtually every customer. How this megaphone is used is what deserves the attention of every business.


The foremost concern of every business is the negative review. While the now-famous “United Breaks Guitars” video series is an extreme example of a customer-voiced opinion, the reason these videos came into existence is the same as the millions of negative reviews being posted on a regular basis; the customer sought service through normal channels and was left unsatisfied.


Yes, it is that simple. Reading a sampling of the negative posts, it is pretty clear that service was sought through normal channels and when not received, the customer vented their frustration on their favorite social media site.


Thus we arrive at a business decision involving 3 choices:

1. Invest in a social media tracking system in order to capture the negative postings and work to resolve the problems.


2. Invest more resources in the existing customer service systems so that no customer fails to receive service in a timely and effective way.


3. Balance the investment in both improving the existing customer service systems and initiating an effort to capture the relevant social media traffic.


The right choice has as much to do with the customer demographics as it does with budgets and personnel resources. The right choice also has to do with how the Marketing department is using Social Media as a tool for generating sales traffic.


Therein lies the 2-edged sword of Social Media. Social media sites can be a great way to help build a loyal following of customers and advocates. Creating a virtual community of customers provides a great opportunity to promote new products, solicit feedback on existing products and desired products as well as encourage customers to become advocates for the products. If the effort to promote also serves as a magnet to attract negative feedback, then this ought to be considered an opportunity.


In fact, I suggest that any company looking to embrace social media solely for the purpose of capturing negative feedback is wasting both time and money. Without the marketing effort working to build a loyal community of customers through various social media channels, the endeavor is certain to fail. Selective participation by vendors on social sites is generally rebuked by the regular participants.


The bottom line to any business regarding social media is to recognize the opportunity to use social media as a marketing channel first and foremost. If your existing customer service delivery channels are not doing the job, fix them. The social media channels may be used as a means for routing unhappy customers to a service resource that can help but should not be considered a primary pillar upon which a customer service delivery systems is built. Adding more moving parts to a broken system does not result in an improved system.


If you would like help developing and deploying an effective Social Media strategy, I am happy to help. Please call me and I will be happy to provide assistance: 602-492-1088.