One thing I’m coming to realize about customer service technology is that
the cool new tools your customer service team MUST HAVE NOW are limitless.
The latest and greatest could be yours for a reasonable monthly fee per
user.
That’s all well and good, but those fees really start to add up. It’s
one thing to get excited about a shiny new tool after a sales demo and it’s
quite another to convince the boss to invest the money.
A failed technology pitch
One particular situation where I wanted a new piece of technology looms
large in my mind — a new ticketing system for our support
team. The old system was a holdover from a time when we thought hosting
everything on-premise was better. The problem was that we were several
versions behind and didn’t want to renew our support agreement or allocate
precious IT time to maintaining support tools.
A newer, cloud-based system
would allow for better reporting, integrated post-interaction surveys,
regular automatic software updates, and easy integration of knowledge base,
chat support, phone system, and social media. Systems that were currently
quite disjointed.
The benefits of switching to a new ticketing system far outweighed the
costs — or so I thought. I compiled these all into a one-page document and
confidently presented it to our CEO and COO. It didn’t take them long to
flatly deny my request.
Why? As it turned out, I wasn’t able to convince
them that this new technology was better than the status quo. While the
status quo was outdated, it fit within the budget, whereas the new one was an entirely
new expense. I might have made another run at getting it
approved but ended up leaving that job not long after this.
Rethinking my approach
I’ve had some time to think about that failed proposal and am ready to
share some of the things I should have done differently. Here are three
recommended actions for anyone looking to convince their boss to spend
money on new customer service technology.
1. Tell a better story.
Effective storytelling is an art form that’s
been used throughout the history of humanity to persuade others to
take action. Simply handing my boss a paper listing the benefits of
the new platform showed that I didn’t spend the time necessary to
put together a compelling case. Using the simple
A.I.M. model of storytelling, determine who your Audience is, be clear on the Intent, or what
you want to achieve, and then craft a Message for your audience.
The message should pair together stories and verbatim feedback that
illustrates the impact on the customer and agent journey with the
right metrics that prove the value to the organization.
2. Spend more time kicking the tires.
Sure I took the new ticket
system out for a spin and tested out the features to understand how
it worked and where everything was. I could have gained more value
from that trial by temporarily moving one of our smaller queues
over to the system and having a group of agents work in it. That
would have given the ability to get agent and customer feedback on
the quality of the new platform.
3. Translate to metrics and dollars.
Ultimately, approval hinges on
our ability to show the real impact of the new platform to
performance. A solid demo of the product gives you the opportunity
to A/B test and compare the effectiveness of the old versus the
new. In support, here are some metrics I’d want to see positive
movement on.
- Contact deflection: A well-integrated knowledge base can help
customers self-solve their own issues. Many systems allow customers
to mark when an article solves their issue thus preventing a
contact to customer service. If you track cost per contact, it’s
fairly simple to quantify the savings when self-help reduces your
overall contact volume. At a large enough scale reducing contacts
reduces the need to hire more people. - Survey response rate: We had a customer satisfaction survey that
wasn’t integrated with the ticketing system and got a response rate
around 5%. With a survey more tightly integrated, whether an email
is triggered when a case is close or an SMS message is sent after a
phone conversation, response rates can be upwards of 30%. More
customer feedback can be of significant value to the entire
organization. - Agent productivity: Any time I asked for more staff on the customer
service team, the question was almost always, “Is there anything we
can do to make our existing staff more productive?” In a contact
center where agents are required to have many browser windows open
to support customers, simplifying the agent experience with a
system that’s better integrated should enable them to do their work
more efficiently. - IT Resources: We had deferred maintenance on our existing systems
so I had been using very little IT resources. Prior to meeting with
executives, it would have been wise to spend time with IT
understanding the time and expense it would take to properly manage
the system versus having it in the cloud. There are potential
security issues associated with outdated software, and costs
associated with IT time. Knowing these will enrich the proposal.
Ending on a successful note
I’m reminded of another instance at the same job where there was a nagging
support issue. We were instructing customers to use a workaround many times
each day. If that workaround didn’t work, we might lose a customer. If it
did work, we might still lose customers over the hassle. The ultimate fix
was a seven-figure improvement to our network. That didn’t stop my team
from continuing to inform our executives of the incredible frustration this
caused customers.
Finally, the time came where the executive team was ready to seriously
consider a fix. We were able to share verbatim feedback from customers,
talk about large customers affected and their lifetime value, and quantify
the annual support and churn costs related to the issue. In the end the new
technology was approved, and while it wasn’t implemented instantaneously,
the hope of a better future sure was great.
When you land on a piece of technology that you think can really make a
difference in your organization, take the time up front to understand the
true impact, craft a story that highlights this for your boss, and then
apply the right amount of patience and persistence to see it through to
completion.