Category: Podcasts

Ep. 18 How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again

Posted on by Bernie Borges

Six Steps to Get Customers to Keep Coming Back

On this episode, you’ll meet Shep Hyken, a renowned customer service expert and author of eight books, as well as a Hall of Fame speaker. Shep’s latest book is titled I’ll Be Back – How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again and is the focus of this episode.

Shep learned the importance of taking care of customers when he started his first business at the age of twelve performing magic shows at kids’ birthday parties. His parents encouraged him to send thank you notes to his customers asking them which tricks they liked the most. He learned that by asking a specific question he could discover what his customers liked the most and he could plan to serve his customers best. He also learned that listening to his customers is a way to deliver good customer service.

His parents taught him valuable life lessons that transcend to how any business can create customer experiences that compel them to come back again and again. The principles his parents taught him boil down to three pillars:

Show appreciation

Get feedback

Take action on the feedback

Shep learned these customer service lessons at a young age which convinced him that delivering a great customer experience is anchored in good-mannered common sense. Yet, he is quick to say that such common sense is not always common. If only companies harnessed what we learned from our parents at a young age, more brands would succeed at delivering good customer service, resulting in customers returning again and again.

When asked what is new in his eighth book on customer service, I’ll Be Back, Shep admits the title has a connection to The Terminator movie through sections of the book that discuss reasons a customer might terminate their relationship with a brand as well as when it makes sense for a brand to terminate a relationship with a customer. A whole chapter is devoted to “The Arnie” which is a reference to getting customers to say, “I’ll be back.”

Shep also points out that customer service has never changed when you consider that a customer starts with a need and desires to be happy with the outcome. That will never change.

What has changed is what happens in the middle. Now, the customer can buy a product online, and get help through omnichannel support options and have a wonderful experience without ever talking to a human.

Shep challenges the conventional way of measuring effective customer service which is commonly measured by the Net Promoter Score – how likely are you to recommend us to a friend? He refers to the NPS data as history lessons with valuable insights. While this metric is useful, he encourages CX professionals to also measure customer behavior. How often do customers come back? Do they become loyal customers or are they just a once in a while repeat customer?

Where the Rubber Hits the Road

In the final chapter, he lists six steps to creating an “I’ll be back” experience. The following six questions should be studied and discussed among the CX team members.

  1. Ask, why you? Why does the customer do business with you? Your goal should be to identify true differentiation, not generic reasons such as our staff, or our product.
  2. Ask, why them? Why would the customer do business with your competitors? Your goal is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competition.
  3. Keep pace. What did you learn about the competition exercise in step two that warrants you doing something like them? He is clear to explain not to copy a competitor’s customer service tactic. Instead, make it your own. He mentions the newspaper example in the hotel industry. One chain offers guests a newspaper upon arrival, another chain delivers a newspaper to each hotel room.
  4. Look outside your industry. Ask your team which companies they enjoy doing business with whether it’s B2B or B2C. Collect stories about different businesses explaining what they do that is special, whether it’s a restaurant, a movie theater, a bowling alley or a grocery store. No matter the business type, collect stories of best-in-class customer service. Write down their customer service practices and explore how your business could do some of them tailored to your business.
  5. Implement some of the ideas you learned in step four.
  6. Ask, why you? again. After implementing new ideas following these steps, your goal is to get a different answer than the first time you asked “why you?” in step one.

These six steps summarize the methods in his latest book to get customers to become loyal, so they return to a business again and again.

Shep and his team publish an annual report called Achieving Customer Amazement which is available for download at his website hyken.com.

Shep Has Fun on the Ice

As you see in the video, Shep’s office is filled with guitars, which is one of his passions. Another of his passions is playing hockey. He tells the story of the time he made a guest appearance with the NHL’s St. Louis Blues at a charity event where he was introduced to the home crowd. He re-purposed the picture taken of him dressed in the St. Louis Blues’ uniform into a “rookie card” which he shares as a bookmark. He still plays hockey three or four days per week with friends. 

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 17 The Impact of Omnichannel Support on Contact Center Agents

Posted on by Blake Graves

Contact Center Agents Enjoy Omnichannel Support Delivery

This episode features Tone Holmen, General Manager, and Senior Vice President Operations of Retail & Residential Services. Tone has been with iQor for 21 years, starting as a contact center supervisor. Her career has advanced admirably, and today she oversees global operations for several lines of business, including Retail and Residential Service lines across our centers in Canada, Panama, the Philippines, India and the U.S. We discussed the impact on contact center agents when delivering support via the omnichannel method.

Omnichannel support is support that is delivered through various channels for customers who contact a company. Examples can include chat, email, SMS, interactive-voice, and voice (live phone conversations). Omnichannel allows the end customer to choose how they interact with a brand which helps to improve customer satisfaction.

The variety of mediums to choose from offers consumers flexibility when it comes to doing business with a company, and consumers appreciate that. In fact, consumers have come to expect omnichannel options when interacting with a brand, with seventy-two percent preferring options in how they engage for support. In the omnichannel approach, a consumer could initiate a question through chat, followed by email, culminating in a phone conversation, all of which is integrated within a customer management solution (CMS), resulting in a positive customer experience.

The Impact of Omnichannel on Contact Center Agents

The variety associated with delivering omnichannel support can be very appealing to an agent. Voice-centric call center work can be repetitive. When agents handle customer engagement across different channels, the variety can be fulfilling. In many instances, non-voice channels allow agents to send links to helpful articles, making it easier to provide support, which is not always an option in voice call support. Agents who deliver omnichannel support enhance their oral and written skillsets, which can positively impact their careers.

Training Agents for Omnichannel Support

The skills needed for omnichannel support include being tech-savvy and interacting with customers on different digital channels comfortably. Additionally, writing skills are needed for effective communication with customers. For nearshore and offshore agents, omnichannel requires a higher-level mastery of English.

Training omnichannel agents can be the same, shorter, or longer than a voice-only support program. Since delivering omnichannel support can be more entertaining because agents are eager to use cool tools, the training can be more enjoyable.

Omnichannel can be fun for agents because it can lend itself to different types of customer problem solving, making it more attractive for the contact center agent.

Omnichannel Support is Growing

Omnichannel support is growing rapidly. Ten years ago, all support was voice-centric. In those days, agents were known as call center agents.

Currently, simple transactions such as obtaining the shipping status of an order is a self-service activity that customers prefer to do using a company’s digital channels. The consumer doesn’t have to wait on hold to speak to an agent for such simple transactions.

The omnichannel support job is more complex. When consumers have attempted to solve their issue through non-voice channels before making a phone call, they expect the agent to be empowered with the history of the conversation at her fingertips.

When the tools are intelligent, providing the agent visibility into the customer’s previous interactions, the agent can pick it up from there and give the customer a satisfactory resolution. However, if the tools don’t cross-communicate to the agent, the customer gets frustrated. In those instances where the tools don’t talk to each other, omnichannel support does not actually exist. Instead, this is known as multi-channel support.

These multiple channels can be a convenience for the consumer and a source of pain when siloed, especially when the brand cannot integrate the consumer’s touchpoints to enable a smooth phone conversation with an agent.  

Tone shared one of many omnichannel support success stories. An iQor agent in Trinidad and Tobago went out of her way to resolve an issue with a customer who engaged her through chat. The customer had purchased a gift for a child’s birthday. The shipping link indicated that the gift was delivered, but it had not arrived. The agent worked quickly with the seller, arranged to get the gift re-ordered at no cost to the customer, and even arranged for the gift to ship overnight. The customer received it the next day in time for the child’s birthday.

It’s common for omnichannel conversations to deal with emotional activity in a consumer’s life, such as gifts, reservations, or flights. In those cases, the consumer is looking to the agent to help solve a problem with personal consequences.

Tone Enjoys the Outdoors for Fun

Tone is a fan of college football, though, in pandemic times, she is not attending games. Now, outdoor activities have become a significant source of fun. She spends time doing outdoor yoga, notably in a women’s yoga club, and is active in a local running club.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 16 How to Create Remarkable Experiences Customers Want to Share

Posted on by Bernie Borges

At the Intersection of Customer Experience and Marketing

Dan Gingiss is an accomplished marketer. His career marketing experience includes roles at Discover Card, McDonald’s, and Humana. The common thread among those experiences for Dan is learning that when an experience is remarkable, a customer tells others about the experience with enthusiasm, which is the holy grail of marketing. Dan’s book, The Experience Maker – How to Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait to Share explains how to achieve this through his WISE method, which is what this episode is all about.

A Lesson in Customer Experience from Delivering Pizza to Michael Jordan

Dan tells the story that, when he was in high school, he delivered pizza for Dominos in the Chicago area. One day, he was sent to deliver pizza to one of America’s most well-known professional basketball players, Michael Jordan. Dan was super excited and contemplated how he’d ask for an autograph. But Dan was warned – his fellow delivery drivers told him that he’d have to choose. Dan could ask Michael Jordan for an autograph, which he would receive, but not a tip. On the other hand, Dan could forgo asking for an autograph, and in that case, the basketball star would reward this choice with a generous tip.

When Michael Jordan answered the door himself, he was busy looking around, seemingly concerned about the paparazzi. Dan decided in the moment that he would respect Jordan’s privacy and NOT ask for an autograph. That was a good decision. Dan received a good tip, but more importantly, he learned a lesson in understanding a customer’s need in the moment to deliver a great customer experience.

Marketing and Customer Experience Go Together

Dan draws on his corporate marketing experience. He views himself as being at the intersection of customer experience and marketing. He says that good marketing is the promise made to the customer about the experience they can expect when they do business with us. It communicates how the customer will feel when they buy our products or services. Marketing campaigns are often the first experience a consumer has with a brand. He says that the customer experience has already begun even before the customer has become a customer. 

The WISE Method

Chapter four is titled “Becoming WISE.” This acronym stands for: Witty, Immersive, Shareable, and Extraordinary. Dan points out that a remarkable customer experience doesn’t require each of these elements. His book describes each one with many examples. Let’s dive into each.

Witty. It simply means being clever or using language in a clever way. It doesn’t require a brand to be funny. It means, don’t be boring. Each communication channel is an opportunity to create an experience by showing the brand’s personality. One example from the book is a magazine issued by the State of Nebraska. In one issue, the cover image showed a family rowing down a river in a metal tub. That itself is eye-catching. The tagline is what hooked Dan. It read: It’s not for everyone. This tagline is witty and attention-grabbing because it inspires the reader to want to know more.

Immersive. An immersive experience gets customers to have an emotional reaction to an experience. An example from the book is a bar in Louisville, KY, that serves a drink called the Old Fashion Experience. It’s a glass with an ice cube containing the ingredients of the Old Fashion, but the key difference here is that the ingredients are frozen into an ice cube. The drink is served with a side of whiskey. The idea is that you pour the whiskey over the ice ball, and as the ice melts, the drink formulates in front of you, creating an immersive experience.

Shareable. Customers generally don’t share an experience if you ask them to. But, when a brand creates an experience with a remarkable moment worth sharing, that’s when it happens. The example from the book Dan shares is a liquor tasting event with a pop-up tent and an elaborate garnish bar with many toppings. After the customer creates their drink with the toppings of their choice, the company provides a card and a clip so customers can name their concoction. Without asking, people often take a selfie picture of that moment with their specially-named cocktail.

Extraordinary. This just means being a little bit better than ordinary, or as Dan says, being more than “meh.” The example from the book he shares is a hotel experience. Pre COVID, he was on a business trip, and he awoke in the middle of the night in his hotel room to use the bathroom. When his feet touched the floor, a motion-activated light illuminated his path to the bathroom. Dan was more than impressed with the usefulness of this treatment when upon further inspection, he learned that the illumination is created with a simple and inexpensive stick-on light. This extraordinary experience was a game-changer for Dan’s experience at this travel and hospitality brand.

Responsive. Dan points out that once you learn the WISE method, it’s important to become WISER. That’s where the R comes in — it stands for responsive. When a customer has an experience they share with others on social media, brands should be responsive. Customers want to have a relationship with brands. They want you to acknowledge and respond to them when you post about their experience. Being responsive doesn’t just show appreciation, it has the potential to convert a brand detractor into a brand advocate.

Dan’s book is easy to read, inspiring, and I would even suggest a bit entertaining. You can get your copy of The Experience Maker at DanGingiss.com.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 15 Three Reasons for iQor’s Nearshore BPO Expansion in Trinidad and Tobago

Posted on by Blake Graves

Our Talented Team Fuels our Nearshore Expansion in Trinidad

In this episode, we feature Sekou Alleyne, President of InvesTT in Trinidad. InvesTT is a government-run investment promotion agency. iQor has worked with this agency for six years to help set up our nearshore expansion with a sizable workforce in Trinidad, currently numbering more than 1000 people. In this episode, Sekou shares highlights about the republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and how InvesTT has been a valuable partner to iQor in setting up an award-winning customer care facility in Trinidad.

Sekou explains that Trinidad and Tobago are two islands off the coast of Venezuela under one republic. Trinidad is the larger of the two islands and is very industrialized with decades of oil and gas industry presence along with other industries. Trinidad is cosmopolitan with skyscrapers and nightlife. Tobago is a smaller island well known for “sun, sea, and sand.” It’s a popular vacation destination in the Caribbean.

Three Factors that Attracted iQor to Set up a Contact Center in Trinidad

iQor worked with InvesTT to set up our first nearshore contact center facility in Trinidad in 2016. We were attracted to Trinidad for three reasons; 1) InvesTT’s commitment to helping us establish and grow in Trinidad, 2) access to a well-educated local workforce, 3) the island’s location is below the hurricane belt. Demand for nearshore customer experience services drove our search, resulting in the selection of Trinidad.

InvesTT is the investment promotion agency headed up by Sekou as president, reporting to the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The agency is responsible for attracting, retaining, and facilitating investments of direct business operations in Trinidad and Tobago. InvesTT has worked closely with iQor since 2016 by providing information that allowed us to conduct our due diligence for initial site selection and set up along with assistance in dealing with other government agencies to become operational. InvesTT has been a strategic partner to iQor since day one, aiding in the development of our nearshore growth strategy on the island.

The local workforce is well educated. The country provides residents free education, including primary, secondary, and tertiary grades. The result is a skilled labor pool with the requisite technical skills needed to support companies like iQor. Residents commonly travel to and from North America, resulting in a population that understands the North American culture, is social media savvy, and is supported by a robust technology infrastructure that enables service delivery such as iQor’s outsourced customer care services.

Trinidad and Tobago’s location is below the hurricane belt, which combined with a strong telecom infrastructure, allows for a high level of uptime and business continuity.

iQor currently operates in two facilities in Trinidad, Wallerfield and Barataria, with 72,000 square feet and more than 1,000 employees. Our expansion plans are well underway to add a third site in Trinidad, bringing us over 120,000 square feet. The third site will open in Q4 2021. We are already experiencing significant demand for growth based on our performance and the country’s attractiveness, and its people. That said, we’ll continue to operate at a reduced capacity due to COVID and will continue supporting our work-at-home agents. The expansion to a third site in Trinidad is an investment we’re making based on demand and the future of Trinidad and iQor’s continued collaboration.

iQor has an excellent relationship with InvesTT and the Trinidad Government. We are known for being great neighbors and are focused on improving the lives of those around us and the communities where we operate. When COVID reached the island in 2020, the government quickly implemented social distancing and mask-wearing practices. We moved over 95% of our Trinidad staff to work-at-home within two weeks during the initial days of the pandemic, enabling our employees to continue to work and support the local economy. Additionally, we provided internet stipends to the team, and we continue to do so today.

In 2020, iQor Trinidad was awarded Center of the Year as number one in performance by one of our clients in customer support and sales. We competed against large competitors with nearshore and offshore operations doing the same work. This is a great accomplishment for our Trinidad team and certainly speaks to the quality of our employees and the support we receive from InvesTT in Trinidad.

A Collaborative Relationship

Sekou points out that he’s worked with several people at iQor, starting with Dustin Fleming, Senior Vice President Finance, in Trinidad’s initial selection. Today, Sekou works closely with the local leaders at iQor facilities, emphasizing the safety of our employees.

Trinidad’s Future Is Bright

Sekou is very optimistic about our relationship. He looks forward to our continued growth in Trinidad. He is very confident that the model we have in place is mature, and it allows us to continue to expand in the region, considering the demand we are experiencing.

What Sekou Does for Fun

Sekou is native to Trinidad. He spent about half his life in Canada. He relocated back to Trinidad from Canada and enjoys family activities and spending time outdoors. Of course, he enjoys the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival during non-pandemic times. He also travels to other Caribbean islands. Additionally, Sekou enjoys educating people about Trinidad and Tobago and the opportunities available for businesses and the people to live there.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 14 How Attrition Risk Modeling Enables Employee Happiness

Posted on by Bernie Borges

The Key Focus of Attrition Risk Modeling at iQor

In this episode, you’ll meet Andrew Reilly, a data scientist at iQor. He explains the Net Happiness Score’s method and technology, which we covered in episode 13 with William Adams. Andrew’s data science career at iQor has evolved across several functions. It’s currently focused on finding solutions to operational challenges, emphasizing attrition risk modeling to mitigate employee attrition.

The Attrition Risk Modeling Process

When the Covid 19 pandemic went into full swing, it changed our operating model in many ways. The most significant impact was moving more than 14,000 employees to a work-at-home (WAH) model in 10 days. Today, we have more than 20,000 employees in WAH. We quickly realized the need to measure how the employee felt about their job. We realized the need for tools to measure the agent’s overall mood. In other words, the level of their happiness.

As the Lead Data Scientist on this initiative, Andrew and his team developed the Mood-o-Meter. The Mood-o-Meter is based on a weekly survey sent to all agents that asks just one question: How is life going for you at iQor? The agent scores their response from 1 to 5 with smiley faces, one as least happy and five most happy.

Perspective Gained from Mood-o-Meter

Managers review the Mood-o-Meter data each week. Managers know to check in with the agent if an agent responds with one or two for more than one week. In fact, the team discovered that there is as much as a 20% attrition risk associated with those agents who scored one or two for more than one week.

Leveraging the Mood-o-Meter data and other machine learning tools that can gauge the agent’s mood resulted in the creation of the CheQin process. Skip-level meetings were set up between an agent and a manager. These are informal conversations where managers check in with the agent to listen and learn why they scored their mood low on the Mood-o-Meter survey. These open forum conversations center around what’s working and not working. The CheQin meetings are well documented to create a record of the discussion along with the next steps.

Examples of the CheQin Process in Action

One example Andrew shared is about an agent who had challenges with the technology needed to help solve customer issues. The agent was already very proactive with their team leader to improve their performance. In the skip-level meeting, the manager arranged special training on the tool. The agent was very encouraged by the outcome and felt very supported. Additionally, the manager committed to keeping the communication stream open with the agent.

Qool or UnQool

Part of the CheQin process includes measuring how the employee identifies with either being Qool or unQool. After each skip-level meeting, the manager asks the agent if the issue was resolved from unQool to Qool.

Another agent was feeling the pressure of being on the frontline handling customer calls.  The manager showed compassion and explained a career path roadmap to boost confidence and show that iQor supports the employee every step of the way. The agent was motivated to continue to do his job well to stay on the journey.

What’s Next for CheQin

Andrew says the data science team at iQor is looking to add more data sources to predict attrition risks by allowing the models to blend with each other, helping to identify when agents are at high risk of leaving.

Because the CheQins are documented thoroughly, the data science team is developing natural language processing (NLP) scripts to review all the text written in the documentation. By adding more digital CX automation, iQor can keep improving the CheQin process and the working environment that enables employees to excel at their job and career goals.

Andrew’s Fun

Andrew has fun with his two young sons, ages three and one. He says that his three-year-old son enjoys playing “vroom-vroom” with toy cars while the younger son watches. Andrew also enjoys playing golf once each month, which is a 2021 resolution fulfillment.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 13 Why the Net Happiness Score is Simple and It Works

Posted on by Blake Graves

The Net Happiness Score Measures the Sentiment of Employees

William Adams started at iQor nine years ago. He is Vice President of Operations, managing a team of employees in the Philippines that support two telecom clients. The client programs he oversees manage the entire life cycle of the customer journey, including customer care, collections, chat, and retention. Another client program that William leads is a B2B program. Both are large customer experience programs that require keeping a pulse on employee’s morale. When iQor moved thousands of agents to work-at-home (WAH), he came up with the Net Happiness Score to monitor their morale with data to enable leaders to engage with them more effectively.

Net Happiness Score Defined

The Net Happiness Score is derived from a simple survey that determines an employee’s sentiment based on one question: How’s life going for you at iQor? The employee clicks one of five smiley faces on a scale of one (unhappy) to five (very happy).

Similar to Net Promoter Scores (NPS), the Net Happiness Score measures satisfied employees by subtracting the number of unhappy employees from the number of happy employees. This method is calculated by the Mood-o-Meter model, invented by Andrew Reilly, the lead data scientist featured in episode 14.

Context for Net Happiness Score

Covid was the springboard that accelerated the need for a metric to measure employee morale. In 2020, we moved thousands of employees to work-at-home. We realized that we needed an effective way to monitor agent sentiment for the expanding remote workforce.

William saw that previously, high-performing teams were beginning to struggle with attrition and performance, so he made it his mission to determine how to address this challenge. He met with 600 agents on his quest to understand what agents want from an employer relationship. What he learned is that frontline employees want compassionate leadership. They want an environment that balances conversations about KPIs with recognition of effort while celebrating small successes.

William realized the need to create a best-in-class employee experience. He needed a measurement tool to help meet that mission.

Operationalized Data

The Net Happiness Score metric has provided the impetus for leaders to create richer engagement and balanced conversations with agents. Simple things such as asking about their family demonstrate compassionate leadership. To get there, iQor trained frontline supervisors and managers to engage with more intentional compassion. The results include an improvement in sentiment score while one program experienced reduced attrition by 50%. 

Now, we’re experiencing an amazing cultural improvement through one-on-one conversations. Leadership engages with iQor agents effectively through an intentional conversation focused on the agent’s humanity, and positive sentiment continues to grow.

The Mood-o-Meter survey is provided to employees weekly. At that time, frontline leaders can access the data to put the proper action steps, such as reaching out to employees for more details on their positive and constructive feedback. Since the survey data is updated weekly, leaders can be constantly engaged in intentional conversations and ensure employees are getting what they need.

The Future of the Net Happiness Score

The survey process is elegantly simple creating room for the consumption of the data and actions to evolve and improve continuously. The survey delivery will continue to occur weekly so we may continue to maximize our employee’s happiness on an ongoing basis.

What William Does for Fun

In pre-pandemic times William liked to ride motorcycles. During pandemic times, he enjoys binge-watching Netflix shows and spending time with his family.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 12 Top Trends in the Customer Experience Management Industry

Posted on by Bernie Borges

Understanding the Current State of the Customer Experience Sector in BPO

David Rickard serves as Vice President at Everest Group. He’s based in the UK and manages the customer experience management practice and sourcing and vendor management on a global scale. Before Everest, David spent a couple of years consulting and was at Microsoft for 18 years overseeing their contact center outsourcing business. 

Despite the pandemic, the BPO industry has bounced back considerably and more quickly than initially anticipated. David explained that the current state of the outsourced customer experience management (CXM) market is at approximately $89B to $91B in terms of spend. That number is expected to continue increasing over the coming years.

CXM Growth by Vertical 

Everest has found that there has been growth across all industries. Still, the most significant and fastest-growing verticals are in technology, including retail and online retail brands, due to increased demand. People are buying online more than ever. There’s also been a growth in government outsourcing. This growth has been consistent across all regions and geographies, except the Middle East and Africa regions, since they are experiencing significant growth as they introduce more outsourcing to these areas.

The Everest Group found that there has been a significant push towards digital customer experience management (DXM). They consider DXM a combination of technology such as speech analytics or robotic process automation and the servicing around DXM. This includes customer journey mapping, design thinking, and consulting. Everest has seen DXM increase by $17B over the past year, driven by COVID and companies needing to accelerate their digital transformation to ensure business continuity. 

COVID wasn’t the only driver, however. Everest did a survey and found that there were four main reasons companies were accelerating their digital transformation. They found that 47 percent of respondents said it was due to their customers’ expectations; 57 percent said it was to reduce costs; 55 percent said it was due to their desire for market differentiation; 49 percent said it was because they were trying to achieve a 360-degree view of the customer. 

Where are CXM BPOs Investing Heavily?

BPOs invest in the technology and capabilities to bring in more DXM solutions and provide more than contact center labor. For example, providing Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions or an end-to-end solution while bringing in technology analytics and intelligent virtual agents. 

Impact on Consumers Who Need Support

Digital channels have a positive impact on consumers who want more choices for service. At iQor, we use our omnichannel customer care services to provide customer service to consumers where they want, when they want. David mentioned that the best customer service companies in the world, however, remember that not all consumers want to be digitally served. Some still want to chat on the phone with an agent. David mentions his mother, for example, who doesn’t have internet access. His mother still relies on a live agent on the phone line when she needs customer service. 

Most consumers, especially younger demographics, like the options of digital channels, but the best outsourced customer care providers keep in mind the inbound solution because not every customer wants to be served through one of those digital channels. And for certain types of calls, it’s better to talk to someone on the phone. With availability of all of these options, the consumer gets a better choice and a better experience over time.

CXM Sector Growth  

David expects that the CXM sector will continue to grow at a rapid rate. What will change, though, is the mix. The BPO providers with CXM solutions will grow quicker than traditional voice-centric contact centers. David quickly pointed out that traditional contact center needs will never disappear, but they will decline slowly as digital CXM offerings capture more and more of the market share. 

What David Does for Fun

David likes to take his boxer dogs on walks with his wife for fun. He also just started playing golf again. He used to play regularly with his three friends but took a 20-year hiatus due to raising children but is now picking it up again.

To learn more about the Everest Group, go to everestgrp.com.

Ep. 11 Non-Stop Recruiting of Irresistible Contact Center Agents

Posted on by Blake Graves

Meeting Ambitious Talent Recruiting Goals 

Our featured guest on this episode is Flo Navarro, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at iQor Philippines and Head of Global Recruiting. Flo has a huge responsibility. In addition to overseeing all traditional HR functions for roughly 27,000 iQorians in the Philippines, she also oversees global talent recruiting. 

As a BPO with a presence in nine countries, we’re constantly recruiting to meet the needs of our clients’ customer care programs. Whether it’s a new client or an expansion of a current client program, we’re always recruiting to attract and retain customer support talent. And Flo is the leader who oversees all of it. 

Flo is quick to point out that talent recruiting is a big team effort. Her team partners with Operations, Marketing, and Workforce Management to create awareness for the available customer support agent opportunities and fill the pipeline with qualified candidates. 

Flo says that recruiting thousands of new hires is both complicated and fun. It’s an end-to-end recruiting process that starts with sourcing, then screening, selection, and onboarding. In each step, the team devotes time to ensure they use best-in-class methods to achieve the recruiting goals for each client.

Flo’s professional background includes two decades in the BPO industry. She has seen many different recruiting strategies in her career. She is very appreciative of the leadership team at iQor for the high level of support given to recruiting. Likewise, the investment made in technology has been a game-changer. She is very grateful for having access to the right systems that enable her team to source and hire thousands of contact center staff each year. 

Talent Recruiting is a Team Effort

Flo is very intentional in declaring that everyone on her team is very involved in the talent recruiting process. Her team is hands-on with designing digital marketing ads to communicate the company’s culture and values, not just the job details. They work with Marketing to attract viable candidates through digital advertising and a digital bot named Qori, who can help candidates fulfill an application process digitally. They also provide valuable input on the messaging to ensure consistency with the brand and convey our irresistible culture with authenticity. Her team ensures that the content effectively communicates the benefits of working at iQor. 

iQor’s Response to COVID 19 

Flo explains how we acted very fast in response to the pandemic. Under Flo’s leadership, HR created a dedicated COVID-19 group. The group provides a direct line for employees to contact for any reason to report something or if they need help. The group is trained to answer questions about COVID-19 and iQor’s procedures and will escalate if the question can’t be answered. If someone tests positive, someone from this group checks in with them every day. If the employee is alone, the iQor COVID-19 group will do whatever is needed to provide meals to the individual. Contact tracing is also provided to ensure the safety of employees who are working in the office. 

Talent Recruiting Success Story

Flo points out that there are many examples of recruiting success, but she shares one example. One client has an annual need to add thousands of agents to support their program during a peak season. Flo’s team is ready with the processes, recruiters, and technology to launch the recruiting effort. She proudly proclaims that year-over-year, her team exceeds the recruiting goals of this client. As always, Flo recognizes her team, including the recruiters on the ground and the technology that enables candidates to apply with great convenience. She gives credit to the collaboration between her team and Operations, Marketing, and the Workforce Management team to successfully hire thousands of new agents in a matter of weeks! 

Fun Time

Flo shared two ways that she has fun. In pre-pandemic times she and her family enjoyed hosting parties. She looks forward to going back to throwing parties in a post-pandemic world. In current times, she is very satisfied with binge-watching shows on Netflix with her family. 

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 10 The Power of Listening in Your Career

Posted on by Bernie Borges

Listening Skills are Valuable in All Areas of Life

Gary Praznik has worked at iQor for more than twenty-one years. He is currently President and CEO of the 35,000-employee company where he has held roles in operations and sales. In this episode, Gary shares how he learned the power of listening early in his youth and how listening has helped him in all relationships, including in his career.

Career Motivation

Gary tells the story of how in his youth in Columbus, Ohio, his father said to him that he could no longer sit on the couch upon college graduation. So Gary moved from the sofa to another piece of furniture. His father told him he could not sit on that piece of furniture either. Gary’s father was signaling that it was time for him to go out and get a job. This was a valuable lesson for Gary on the importance of good listening.

So, Gary moved to Houston, Texas, with college roommates without a job. He ended up finding one and a new wife. After a few years, he moved back to Columbus and found himself in the same predicament of searching for a job. He knew he needed to find a place to live for him and his wife and somehow convinced a landlord to rent them a condo even before landing a job with the power of listening and persuasion. That’s when Gary realized he had a gift for selling. He soon started a sales job in the business process outsourcing business.

Listening as a Skill

Gary says that listening as a skill is a fantastic way to understand how to be instrumental in any situation. When Gary listens, he says that he’s listening for more than just the content. He studies the vocabulary chosen by the person, their sentiment, emotion, delivery, body language, and generally the total communication experience. His listening skills are multi-sensory and more profound than just listening to the words being spoken.  

Listening is the fundamental way to build relationships in every area of our life, whether personal or professional. Gary says that listening is a skill that anyone can learn and improve. It starts with paying attention. Whomever you are listening to convey to the person that you are engaged with their message. Demonstrate attentive body language with eyes locked on the communicator. The listener should ask good questions that require more than a yes or no response. The question should result in a meaningful response. Learning how to be an effective listener is very important in your career advancement.

Listening Day to Day in Your Work

On any given day, it’s essential to provide a forum for employees to enable their voices to be heard. These channels must include good listening along with relevant feedback. Whichever platform is provided, the communicator should always be willing to solve a problem and then ask for feedback on the proposed solution. Ask people to come to a discussion with solutions, not just with issues.

Generally speaking, every element of what we do in business is related to problem-solving. Listening is crucial to understanding problems. There must be clarity in what was communicated. Good listening skills include asking for clarification when it’s needed.

Does Role Matter?

Gary has held many roles in his career. He believes that effective listening skills are not limited to just a sales role, for example. We’re often selling our ideas or solving problems wherever we are, and therefore, the art of listening is crucial in one’s career, no matter your role.

Inspiration from a Call Center Agent Journey

Gary was very inspired by Strawberry Castro’s story in episode 5. She experienced a bump in her career journey when she didn’t complete the courses in time to graduate from the sQholar program. She listened to advice from peers, friends, and supervisors and committed to returning to the program. When Strawberry did return, and she over-achieved by graduating with honors. Strawberry’s personality and tenacity combined with her strong listening skills enabled her to graduate and achieve her dream job at iQor.

The Power of Listening at iQor

We have many forums at iQor where we can listen to our 35,000 employees. We hold Town Halls where business updates are provided, and feedback is also available from employees. We administer a Mood-o-Meter to collect weekly feedback from our contact center agents. We also administer an NPS survey so we can react to what we learn. Additionally, coaching is available at every level. Coaching is critical at the agent level since more than 20,000 agents work at home. We train our coaches to defer judgment, demonstrating that they listen well. Supervisors,  who have walked in agents’ shoes, are welcoming and always providing advice, which is a crucial element in successful coaching.

Listening Experience Return on Investment

Twenty years ago, Gary’s superior told him that we all have a limited amount of calories to spend each day. He asked Gary, do you want to spend your time on what you can control or cannot control? When we spend our time on what we can’t control, it is very exhausting.

Gary’s Fun

In his leisure time, Gary loves spending time with his four grandchildren. He is listening to them as their vocabulary is developing. He also enjoys spending time on the water, and he is an avid golfer. Gary enjoys sports. He sees the correlation between sports and business and life.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 9 The Trust Building Imperative in BPO Industry Sales Success

Posted on by Blake Graves

Experience Drives Trust-Building in the BPO Industry

Troy Sanders has been very successful in his sales career at iQor. Troy’s career includes an extensive background in professional services, marketing, sales, and operations. He credits trust building as the biggest factor to his success in sales in the BPO industry. In this episode, we examine Troy’s strategy that has fueled his success.

Troy began his career at AT&T, where he spent fifteen years in various roles. One such role was procurement, where he was responsible for selecting and managing relationships with outsourcing partners who provide outsourced customer service, direct response, and direct fulfillment services. At the time, Troy was working with an outsourcing partner named Interactive Response Technologies (IRT). Troy considered the quality of the people and services delivered by IRT to be the best in the industry. When iQor acquired IRT, he got the chance to learn more about the company, culture, and service offerings. He decided to join iQor to represent those services in the market as Vice President of Business Development.

Secret Sauce to Sales Success

Troy has been successful in his sales role at iQor because of his ability to build trust with clients. Many of the people Troy interacts with are in positions he has previously held in his career. Consequently, Troy has the knowledge and skills to understand what it takes to enhance his client’s end-customer experience. In short, he’s walked in their shoes, so he understands the scope of work needed to design customer care solutions that meet his client’s needs.

Teamwork in BPO Sales

Troy acknowledges that CX technology and the family-like culture at iQor are a great recipe for team selling and support. It starts with senior leadership and transcends throughout the organization and to frontline employees serving as the voice of the customer. He attributes this culture to great communication across the organization that drives smiles and happy customer experiences supported by processes and tools that make agents effective at their job.

Bringing All the Experience Together

Troy works with clients such as big-box retailers and emergency road assistance brands. He leverages his background and experience to create efficient solutions that include self-help options such as digital IVR and speech analytics that help agents understand the customer’s sentiment.  Ultimately, Troy designs efficient CX solutions to drive a good customer experience, ranging from self-help to a live phone conversation with an agent to answer the end customer’s specific questions.

Digital Solutions for Call Center Agents

The digital CX solutions available to agents at iQor begin with design thinking from the voice of the customer first. These solutions make agents more efficient and happier. Digital tools reduce some of the labor effort needed to make the end-customer happy through intelligent automation such as AI that can help the agent ask the right questions or RPA that reduces the workload of mundane tasks. These result in happier frontline employees, which Troy refers to as brand specialists. These tools enable them to feel good about their job, which creates more smiles all the way around.

Looking to the Future

Troy is looking forward to the continued impact of digital interaction on contact center agent’s ability to drive efficiency and drive cost down in the client’s business. By giving our clients more self-help options in customer care delivery, we can deflect calls, reduce costs, and still provide the end-customer the option of speaking to an agent when needed.

Troy’s Fun

Troy lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL. It’s no surprise that he enjoys boating, fishing, and just about anything that keeps him out in the sun.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.