empathy Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Verbal Transactions

Feb 28

Using Bots Accelerates the Need for Up-Skilling

By nmunro | bots, call center, empathy, simulations

Why Bots Have a Long Way to Go to Take Over the World

Like Chicken Little’s cries that the sky is falling, everyone keeps shouting bots are replacing people. Well I am here to tell you they have a long way to go.

There is some truth that bots are beginning to manage simple transactions like help with resetting a password or authenticating your credentials. But in a recent article published int Silicon Republic, Forrester’s Srividya Sridharan states that bots will only be handling 20% of these basic activities by the end of 2020.

The interactions that bots are not able to handle will require higher-skilled agents. Even though many of us are accustomed to interacting with an intelligent agent, we won’t have the patience for this when we need immediate answers. Agents who can handle the tier two situations, will need to be trained skills such as:

Expressing the right level of empathy for the situation
Navigating their systems to quickly troubleshoot the issues
Learn how to ask good open-ended questions
Practice active listening and have the confidence to restate their understanding of the situation
Recognize early on when they need to escalate the situation to a higher power

Historically it takes months to get an agent up to this level of proficiency. This is why many of our customers are seeing the value in using or call center simulator ACES™. With the clock ticking on speed to proficiency, companies are looking for ways to get these employees up to speed faster to manage the more complex transactions.

So rather than using AI and bot technology to replace employees, we are using it to help upskill them. By giving employees a realistic immersive experience, we can put them in the hot seat. The built-in bot gives them real-time coaching to help guide them through each scenario. By giving them repeated “deliberate practice” we can get them up to speed in days vs. weeks.

So have no fear, the sky is not falling. We see that AI can be used for good – not evil. good bot

If you want to see an example of ACES in action just click this link.

Feb 10

How to Accelerate Contact Center KPI Performance

By nmunro | bots, call center, contact Center, empathy

Reducing agent’s learning curve.

In a recent conversation, I had with a client we discussed why they are using our simulator in their contact center. As a large BPO, their revenue is directly tied to documenting agents are following very detailed KPIs. They asked for me to provide a full list of how our simulator can impact each of these so I thought it would be helpful to share this list with others.

Reduction of AHT, this client wanted to reduce new hire AHT of 12 minutes down to an average of 7
Increase agent confidence which impacts CSAT scores
Improved soft-skills such as expressing empathy, active listening and asking open-ended questions
Improved accuracy of keystrokes and data entry
Reduces the number of times call will be escalated to a manager
Automates measurement of English proficiency

In number six, this was not an intended KPI but as a result of working with a very large technology company, they now use our simulator as a way to ensure outsourced agents are English Proficient. This came up when they enrolled agents at a call center in Vietnam. They were struggling to complete a simulation successfully. Our client thought that the simulator wasn’t working correctly. I assessed that their accents were too strong. The client was somewhat skeptical that this was the case so they placed them into production as voice agents. Shortly after they were in production, customers complained they were not able to understand them. They are now all chat agents. Moving forward all of their simulations now account for and measure their English proficiency with our simulator.

As we have proven many times, if you pro-actively use a tool like our simulator, you can address a lot of the “back office” metrics on the front end and improve the customer experience.

Feb 01

More Metrics vs. More Completions

By nmunro | Adaptive Learning, bots, empathy, simulations

Better Training Metrics to Measure Business Impact

I was one of the first people to evangelize the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) twenty years ago. Now I’m singing a new tune — find a way to measure skill readiness vs. “completions”.

Initially, the LMS systems served a great purpose. But as time went on, companies began adding more and more features to it to help manage various learning activities. I worked with a client who had very robust features for managing classrooms, assessments, catalogs etc. But the bi-product of this was arming trainers with data on the consumption of activities. I could tell you how many people passed an assessment but couldn’t tell you if these same people knew how to really conduct a proper “lock-out tag-out” procedure.

In a recent survey conducted by Donald H Taylor Learning Analytics made the top spot in what the learning

Web analytics concept

the community has a priority interest in 2020. In previous years personalization and adaptive learning held these top spots.

This is great news for Verbal Transactions — as I have been preaching the benefits of more data for the last four years. In our simulator ACES™ (accelerated contact engagement system) we can pinpoint key behaviors that will truly prepare employees for how to do their job well. We are supplying the “system” to measure these behaviors because the standard LMS can’t do this.

For example: In a standard online training program to teach customer service skills, the manager only knows the following:

When the student started and completed the course
What their score on the final assessment or knowledge checks were

In most instances, this course wouldn’t allow the student to complete the course without successfully reaching the passing score.

If you were to build a similar course in ACES™, you would know the following:

When the student started and completed the course
Did they great the customer properly – and how many times it took them to do this according to best practice
Did they properly express the right level of empathy if the customer expressed dissatisfaction?
How well they demonstrated accuracy when keying in information on a screen or recommend proper items to the customer
Did they ask an open-ended question to properly help the customer uncover their needs
Did they paraphrase their understanding of the customer’s requests or needs properly
Were they able to handle the transaction within a reasonable amount of time
Did the offer any cross-selling items at the appropriate time

Anyway, you get the point. With the new digital transformation taking place, organizations can bring this power of more information to them to help trouble-shoot employee performance problems before they impact the customer experience.

If you’d like to see the simulator in action, just click this link.

Jan 20

How Active Listening Benefits Your Company

By nmunro | Adaptive Learning, call center, contact Center, empathy, simulations

Responding Authentically Drives Customer Retention

There is a lot of talk around replacing contact center agents with bots or some form of self-service options. But according to research conducted by NewVoiceMedia, 75% of customers still prefer a live agent (voice or chat) to help them solve their issues.

Successful companies know how to create a culture that allows agents to not only express empathy but express the Right level of empathy for the customer’s situation. Here is an example.

A customer who is calling to get roadside assistance because they have a flat tire.

Agent#1 “I apologize for your situation.”

Agent#2 “I’m sure that’s really frustrating for you.”

Agent #2 does a better job of expressing empathy that expresses what the customer must be feeling. They recognize what is going on in the customer’s world. This would be perceived as “more authentic” vs. canned and routine.

You can teach agents how to use the skill of active listening, here are 8 steps created by David Grosman that are right on target with how we teach this skill in our simulator

Approach each dialogue with the goal to learn something. …
Stop talking and focus closely on the speaker. …
Open and guide the conversation. …
Drill down to the details. …
Summarize what you hear and ask questions to check your understanding. …
Encourage with positive feedback.
Listen for total meaning
Pay attention to your responses

I’ve highlighted number 5 as this step is really critical step. It demonstrates to the customer that you truly understand their situation and can accurately paraphrase what is going on.

When the customer senses you are truly trying to get to the heart of their issue or how to help them out. This builds a level of trust. This connection is priceless and should not be taken lightly. When customers feel you are trustworthy they are more likely to continue doing business with you.

Mar 28

How to Stop Contact Center Mistakes

By nmunro | bots, call center, contact Center, empathy, simulations

If you had a crystal ball to see into the future, who do you think would be your top-performing contact center agents? Now take that and scale it to all of your call centers both internal and external.

Predict Contact Center Performance

How would this impact your business?

Here is a list of just a few examples:

We would know where the gaps are in hiring and the costs needed to fund recruitment and onboarding
Your quality control managers could pro-actively manage your KPIs
Our scheduling would be much easier
Managers could predict what the AHT would be before any calls were made
Workforce managers would know how many support people to place into each channel with a good estimate of FCR
Turn-over and costs associated with this could be managed better

Taking a look at just this small list you can tell that having the ability to predict who your top contact center employees perform is pretty powerful.

Now I will let you in on a secret – ACES (accelerated contact engagement system) gives you this ability.

How?

ACES gives you a scalable way to catch the contact center agent errors before they happen! Using it’s a powerful simulator, ACES allows you to build realistic immersive simulations that feel like your taking on a real call or chat session.

To see some examples of ACES in action, just click this Videos

Jul 19

Why Demonstrating Empathy Matters to the Bottom Line

By nmunro | call center, contact Center, empathy

Empathy vs Sympathy

Every company wants employees to express empathy but why?

I work with a lot of call centers and many of them are building in performance metrics which include the agent’s ability to show empathy. But why?

Yes, I get that it demonstrates that you want the customer to feel you can relate to their dilemma or that you at least “fake” concern. But creating a culture that proactively promotes empathy matters to the bottom line too.

For example, I was speaking to a call center that provides technical support. I asked the manager which do you place more value on – soft-skills or technical knowledge. Their answer was soft skills. He stated “we hired a young college graduate who was not as skilled at troubleshooting but all of her CSAT scores were always very high. She was able to use empathy and her ability to communicate trust to ensure the customer to make them feel better. Therefore, even though she isn’t able to resolve their issue on the first call that she left the customer still feeling good about their experience and their company. I value that skill over the most technically skilled agent.”

In a YouTube video by Brene’ Brown, she states the four elements of Empathy

Can see things from the perspective of the other person
Staying out of judgment
Recognizing emotion in other people
Communicating that you recognize their position and emotions.

Companies invest a lot of resources into building their brand, building customer loyalty. So why risk losing this because you would rather build a culture of agents who solve problems fast but don’t really connect with your customers.

In a LinkedIn post from Troy Mills, President of Carrell and former VP of Customer Care Operations at Walgreens, stated “I can’t tell you how many discussions about doing something exceptional for a customer is met with shock from the ops team” meaning wow someone went out of the way and off-script to really help a customer out and the culture was such that this was a negative vs. a positive.

A good place to track how empathy has made a difference to the bottom line is to collect stories from situations where using empathy and caring made a difference. Sometimes the difference isn’t always tangible initially but trust me it will have a lasting impact on the bottom line for the long-term.

empathy