Bill Price: Best Practices for Becoming a Frictionless Organization
Creating Personalized Service Using Predictive Analytics
Let me start by telling three intersecting stories. First, back in the 1990s I was leading MCI Call Center Services and beginning to interpret what MCI was doing to attract and retain customers vs. AT&T and Sprint, and among...
Applying Speech and Data Analytics to Improve Customer Experience
In my earlier columns I have addressed several ways that you can improve customer experience using Big Data analytics, and one of the most successful approaches is applying speech and data analytics to your ...
Is the Customer Always Right? Should You Fire Some of Your Customers? 3 Ways...
Recent customer rage reminded me of a TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) panel 10 years ago when the three of us were asked “Is the customer always right?” After the other two panelists said “No,...
How Will Analytics, AI, Big Data, and Machine Learning Replace Human Interactions?
Calls for the death of human intelligence and human interactions are premature. Or are they? In my first book my co-author and I laid out in a simple 2x2 grid that we...
Why Don’t Retailers Make it Easy to Cancel Their Catalogs? Navigating the Maze to...
I have a confession to make. My wife and I do a lot of online shopping, and occasionally agree to receive retailer catalogs (the old-fashioned paper copies), so the piles keep getting higher. But...
Applying Big Data, Skyline, and Snowballs for Contact Optimization
Amazon.com’s early Contact Optimization program slashed contacts per order shipped by 70% over a 3-year period, and continued to decline as ...
Using Big Data to Build an Integrated Voice of the Customer Program: A 6-Step...
In my last column I introduced the need for “Measuring and Mastering Omni-Channel FCR (web, IVR, centers)”, noting that today customers have 15 or more channels by which they can communicate their wants and needs, their problems...
Measuring and Mastering Omni-Channel First Contact Resolution
It used to be fine if we could handle contacts quickly in the phone channel but over the years we have seen an explosion of possible customer contact channels, and speed has become less...
Using Analytics to Improve Agent Performance: Anchors, Sleepers, and Weak Links
In my last column “Using Big Data Analytics to Find Your Best Agents and Supervisors” I introduced a new way to find more agents (and supervisors) who are like your best performing agents (and supervisors) using Big...
Using Big Data Analytics to Find Your Best Agents and Supervisors
In my last two columns “Starter Kit for Customer Experience Data Analytics” and “3 Tips for Customer Experience Analytics”, I introduced these four issues: “Where do I start?” “Do I need “Big Data” and, if so, what the heck is it?” “We have...
3 Tips for Customer Experience Analytics
In my last column “Starter Kit for Customer Experience Data Analytics” I posed four issues that you ought to consider when undertaking “Big Data” or any other sort of analytics, and covered the first two: “Where do I...
Starter Kit for Customer Experience Data Analytics
Applying data analytics to understand better what drives Customer Experience (CX) is a hot topic, but one that might appear to be a daunting undertaking across these four issues: “Where do I start?” “Do I need “Big Data” and,...
Using Me2B and Analytics to Avoid Cross-Selling Disasters
The hue and outcry about Wells Fargo Bank’s egregious internal scam cross-selling unwanted and unneeded products and services to its customers has brought back into discussion a thorny topic for customer experience professionals, and those in marketing,...
Will Chat Bots Be Boon or Bust for Customer Experience?
One of the hottest topics today revolves around chat bots, “computer programs that mimic conversations with people using artificial intelligence ” … to “transform the way you interact with the internet from a series of self-initiated tasks...
Treat Me Like a New Customer ALL the Time
Has this ever happened to you? You have subscribed to a cable or satellite or mobile service, and you spot an ad offering what you’re watching or using for 40% off … for new subscribers, ...
Reefer Madness: Customer Experience Perils Using Third Parties
Almost every company relies on third parties to complete their product or service offerings, usually using their brand name but sometimes the third party is strong enough to retain its own identity. You see companies like Amazon, BestBuy, Costco, DIRECTV, Federal Express, and Microsoft ...
Using Big Data to Retain Your Best Agents and Create an Energized Workforce
In an earlier column I introduced the “4 Foundations” that companies need to put into place in order to become Me2B Leaders and deliver outstanding customer experience. The 4th Foundation revolves around an “Energized workforce”, meaning that...
ZCR (Zero Contact Resolution): Getting it Right the First Time
In my last column decrying “Average Thinking” I touched on the importance of measuring first contact resolution (FCR) across the entire customer population, not just on the average FCR metric. Customers keep telling us that FCR is...
Get Rid of Average Thinking, Make Every Experience Count
Customer service and customer experience love to use averages to explain performance and to plan capacity. How many of these averages do you use?1 How many others do you use? ABA (abandonment rate)...
Don’t Ask, Know! What Are Your Customers Not Saying? Not Doing?
Over the past 5 years we have seen an explosion of customer surveys including ones administered to us in IVR or email post-call, forms passed out onboard aircraft, online during web sessions, emailed to our Inboxes, outbound...