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  John Chmaj 09:16:12 pm on October 16, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: best practices, knowledge, Knowledge Management, search, Self-Service

  FINDING Depends on How you SEEK -

  One of the most important things to think about in making knowledge delivery systems work is HOW users will find what they’re looking for.  At first glance it may seem simple:  type in a search, find your stuff.  But is it really that straightforward?  Do you really know what you’re looking for?  Do you really know what the right query is?  Do you even know what content exists in the system you’re using?

  One of the main reasons we all engage in building and managing support-focused search tools and portals is because we are trying to create a series of efficient, intuitive user experiences that lead people to the right answers to their questions.  However, my experience is that all questions – and all users – are not created equal.  Sometimes we know exactly what we need and how to ask, other times we haven’t a clue.  The same person, who may be expert on one issue, may be totally lost just looking for a slightly different issue in their own KB.

  In this context always think of one Christmas morning spent huddled over my sister’s computer, trying desperately to get the Disney Aladdin DVD to install and run properly, my little 4 yr old daughter wailing and pleading with me as I, the great computer expert in the family, struggled to figure out what query to enter in the Disney knowledge base to address the failure of this $5 DVD to load!  One is only as smart as the next problem, really –

  One of the most critical yet unrecognized features of a knowledge base is its ability to teach users about the terms, taxonomy, and content that is available to solve their question.  Most searches aren’t a one-shot deal – the user progressively browses to learn about an issue, scope the content, tries different queries to see what’s in the KB, and finally decides when to browse through titles and content for the best fit.  I find it useful to boil the types of interactions one needs to have based on how much one knows about an issue, and what one needs in terms of guidance from the knowledge base to get to the answer. A simple way to think about it is as follows.

  Three types of navigation

  1. I Know What I Know – Lookup

  This is the stereotypical “Google-esque” query – I know the data I want, I know the terms that should bring it back, I type in “error 99″ and voila!  There’s my stuff.  Support experts usually expect this type of behavior, and in fact the weaker a KB is the more they memorize special terms, document ID’s and keywords that will give them what they want.  But in the end they’re not really searching as much as looking up known content.  This is an important capability that must work well, but it’s far from the only interaction people have, ESPECIALLY in self-help systems.

  2. I Know What I Don’t Know – Guided Search

  In this scenario users know the TYPE of information they need, perhaps also the topic or potential terms, but don’t exactly know what content is out there.  They may browse to scope the issue, then type in a query or two based on what appear to be the common topics.  KM systems assist here by providing potential additional browse and filtering options that are relevant to the current query scope.  The user can go back and forth, examining the options provided by the system, to find the right fit of topic and query detail.  These systems work well when the user has some idea of what the right solution is and just needs assistance getting to the right area of the knowledge base.  But that’s not the final area, nor perhaps the most important…there’s still:

  3. I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know – Browse and Filter

  Many users, especially those new to a particular domain, don’t really know how to think about the information that’s in it, what terms or topics are relevant, maybe not even what they’re supposed to ask.  In my Disney DVD problem, I had some smart ideas but none turned out to be relevant.  Was it the display driver?  The computer RAM?  OS version?  Plug-in requirements for video?  And how should I query a simple Disney DVD for this kind of stuff?  These scenarios are where a good browse experience can shine.  Not only can it help users figure out what the key components of a product are, the topics and known problems, but should also quickly point up common questions the user is likely to have.  By seeing common issues and how they are organized users can get insight into what their questions are, or likely queries should browsing and filtering not bring back the answer immediately.

  At the end of the day we’re all just looking for ANSWERS, aren’t we?  If we think through what the process of acquiring knowledge entails, we can trace these patterns of inquiry and do our best to model them for particular audiences, users and issues.  When this is well done for all three query types, users experience the ‘magic’ of knowledge bases.  They DO indeed seem to ‘know exactly what you want’, yet you may not even be aware of how seamlessly the system allows you to move between these modes of inquiry and still get the scent of the answer you need.  As KM system builders, we just have to give a little THOUGHT to how people THINK….!

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”

   

• John Chmaj 06:25:48 pm on September 18, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: best practices, KM, Knowledge Management, search, Self-Service

  Why Support Search CAN’T Be “Just Like Google”

  Google is on my homepage.  I use it every day.  It’s an indispensable part of my access to Internet resources, and usually the first place I look to find something. But Google is NOT the tool I recommend for most support & service organizations to use for customer self-help.  Many organizations ask “why can’t support search be just like Google?”  Here’s what they WANT, and what they actually NEED:

  Why We Like Google

  • Google WORKS:  it’s fast, easy to enter whatever text you want, results always seem relevant
  • Google appears FLEXIBLE and FORGIVING:  even if you enter in text that isn’t quite what you meant usually something useful comes back
  • Google is SIMPLE:  type two words and go – what could be easier?

  These are all desirable aspects of finding good information quickly, and self-help should aspire to reflect all these capabilities.  So what’s the issue?

  THE ISSUES are the issues:  Google is geared towards worldwide access to the most popular or important resources for anything and everything.  Support & service inquiries are focused on very specific questions, applying to only a tiny subset of worldwide information.

  Most importantly, support & service self-help is a negotiation, a set of back and forth transactions by users and services resources to:

  • Define the real need (the users’ query is just a guess or vote for what that might be)
  • Explore the available resources to see what types of information is best suited
  • Bring back the specific tasks, data gathering, processes and steps required to achieve the services outcome

  All of this goes far beyond a simple two-word query.  If I enter “Sprint handset upgrade” into Google I might get all manner of interesting information, but I really haven’t defined my need yet.  Do I want a new handset?  Do I have one and want to activate it?  Do I want to know the programs I’m entitled to?  Do I have a billing question?  Furthermore, even if I could identify that in my query, do I REALLY want all the resources of the world returned as the answer to my question, or even all the resources of a large company like Sprint?

  At the end of the day an effective support & service self-service system needs to help users with these three critical phases of the support process.  Beyond just bringing back information from a query, the whole point of KM tools & technologies is to create a fast, intuitive, effective session with users to help them get quickly to the best answer for their services need at the moment.  So additional capabilities are needed beyond basic text query processing and results:

  1. Defining the Question:  helping users navigate the topics, top issues, terminology and overall way to think about the company’s products and services, so they can effectively express what they need in relationship to how support can help.  This may include additional field selection to narrow the focus, scripts that guide users to define their issue specifically, guided search interactions, filters, etc.  to help users refine and focus their need.

  2. Exploring Resources: giving clear feedback and quick navigation through the various information that is available.  All content is not the same when it comes to fulfilling a specific support request.  The answer to a question on “handset upgrade” may come from pricing tables, program offerings, technical support articles, documentation, etc.  Users need feedback from the system on what’s going to meet their need as it becomes more clear.  In many organizations the next step is not content related, it’s to generate email or even to call based on the customer and the issue.  So the support outcome is a function of the overall need, the user, and the organizational business model, not just a query and its results.

  3. Content Fit to Task:  Just finding “relevant information” is not the goal of a service inquiry.  It may be interesting to know all the Mexican restaurants in my town, but figuring out the dial-out codes to get proper roaming access internationally from my phone while in Sweden is not a casual question.  Almost WON’T count.  Support & services information itself must be written with the users in mind and with a focus on helping them navigate towards the answer without the benefit of any more details about their products than they need to get the job done.

  In the final analysis Google has performed an enormous service to the world, and to the support industry:  it’s made the Internet searchable, and provided a clear value proposition for getting good information online.  EVERYONE is interested in achieving more, better self-help.  But searching is only PART of the information definition, access and usage tasks associated with support transactions.

  Google is neither good nor bad – it just is what it is!  Beware of trying to make it more than it should be – a great search tool – and be sure to think through what service actually means and model those processes as best you can in your online tools.  We’re always searching for something better aren’t we?

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”

   
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  Kate Leggett 04:56:44 pm on August 21, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, email, enteprise feedback management, Knowledge Management, Self-Service

  Its going to be a recovery that only a statistician can love”. Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo Senior Economist cautions us against upbeat economic news. Most of us are still living the realities of the recession –being out of work, basic household budgets, and trying to save.

  Malls are empty. Discount same-store sales are down  about 7% from a year ago. Teen clothing sales have given way to hand-me-downs (Abercrombie reports a 28% drop in sales!!). Macy and JCPenny’s sales are down over 10% from last year, even with their big sales.

   E-tailers are asking us how to do more with less and still preserve the customer experience that shoppers are used to. Here is my nuts-and-bolts top 10 list of to-dos:

  1. Design a successful shopping experience:  
     1. Structure your website with consistent navigation, theme, and use breadcrumbs to orient the shopper
     2. Go beyond search – give shoppers alternate ways to find information (ex:browse, guided discovery)
     3. Extend these principles to your self-help offering ( both to help with the shopping experience, and for customer service)
     4. Place chat links strategic points in the shopping experience
  2. Focus on converting browsers into buyers
     1. Use proactive chat to help browsers buy (this channel has a real ROI!)
     2. Use co-browse to help shoppers  with checking-out
  3. Use website monitoring to keep track of activities of your high value customers
  4. Target campaigns based on customer profiling and past purchase history – and send them from a customer service email address as they are more likely to get opened
  5. Make it easy for a shopper to ask a question- and get a useful answer  
     1. Consistently publish the communication channels that are offered to your customer base
     2. De-escalate inquiries by tying chat, email and knowledge channels together
     3. Guide customers to use the right communication channel for their inquiry
  6. Maximize agent productivity using automation capabilities built into eService tools (example: auto-responses, auto-suggestions, auto-classification)
  7. Make sure that  agents have all the knowledge that they need to answer a customer’s question
  8. Boost the effectiveness of temporary agents – give them the collaboration tools to reach out to subject matter experts and get the answers they need
  9. Keep a pulse on your business and your customer’s satisfaction (by using real time statistics, reports and enterprise feedback)
  10. If you are not doing as well as you should, be flexible enough to change.

  Any other additions to this list? Thoughts?

   
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  Allen Bonde 05:31:42 pm on June 24, 2009 | 2 | # |
  Tags: roi, Self-Service, social crm, survey

  Survey Says: CRM spending drops…and shifts to self-service

  
  eVergance recently conducted our latest industry study looking at the state of customer service and support, with a focus on multi-channel adoption and trends, shifting priorities and where organizations continue to invest despite challenging economic conditions. As part of this, we surveyed 29 customer service leaders in the US and Europe, representing a diverse set of large enterprises in the high-tech, financial, telecom, travel and retail sectors. Some highlights:

  • Companies are cutting back, with 3/4 of the survey respondents reporting lower spending on CRM or customer service this year, but perhaps surprisingly more than 20% indicated that the economy has had no impact on their spending plans this year.
  • The economy has also caused 64% of respondents to focus more on self-service, while nearly 90% of leaders surveyed said that they can show business value or at least have some evidence of the ROI for their Web self-service efforts to-date (see chart below).  What are companies who say they can show business value for self-service using for metrics?  Deflection (ah, our old friend), Completion or Conversion rates for customers using SS vs other channels, and Customer Sat are 3 of the ones most frequently mentioned.
  • Despite evidence of lower spending overall, knowledge management, call center hardware, customer analytics, CDI and social CRM/community (in that order) are all areas that were mentioned by at least 1/4 of respondents as areas which may see additional spending this year.  Interestingly, a couple of these areas (analytics and communities) are also on Gartner’s “Five CRM strategies that companies can undertake now” list published back in May.

  

  We’ll admit the sample size for our survey is small, but the data is pretty interesting nonetheless, especially since survey participants were mostly at the Director, VP or higher up in their organization.  The global economic climate has impacted spending for sure, but rather than reductions across the board, it’s apparent that funding is being reallocated and even increased in some customer-facing areas like KM, customer analytics and social CRM.

  How has the economy affected your plans this year?  Is improving your customer experience still a priority, or has cost-savings (at least temporarily) taken center stage?  We’d love to hear your comments.  And if you’d like to get a copy of the Executive Summary of our study results, drop me a line!

   

• Allen Bonde 04:55:25 pm on April 16, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: customer experience management, Knowledge Management, Self-Service

  Hello again!

  It’s been exactly one year since I kicked off the eVergance blog with the goal of sharing our thoughts on the state of customer service and support, looking at emerging best practices and technologies, and – hopefully – creating a community of interest which would be greater than the sum of its parts. After 8500 views, 80 posts and several hundred comments to this point, I think we have exceeded my expectations for our little exercise, and shown that there is a place for “evolved thinking” in the Blogosphere!

  I want to thank Esteban for his contributions, insights and wit in nurturing our blog over the past year, and while I don’t know if I can meet the standard (and expectations!) he has set, we have some great contributors and our team is looking forward to our second year of blogging and developing some additional themes as eVergance and KANA go down the exciting and uncharted path of Service Experence Management.

  At the same time, I’d like to re-oriented our focus a bit to get back to basics, if you will. Just as the three-martini lunch has gone out of style in today’s business climate, I think we have to remember why we are here and re-focus on some of the core questions around effective service delivery, such as:

  • what are the remaining efficiency killers in the call center? (we think KM is one solution, and it’s great to see Michael Maoz’s recent post with a similar theme)
  • how do we deliver service on our customer’s terms – while still maintaining control and visibility?
  • how do we find the right mix of channels, and leverage all our investments in systems and content to this point?

  I know there are a lot more questions we have and will tackle. I hope you will continue to check in, offer your suggestions and feedback, and pass on a good word if you like what you see. Look for additional bloggers joining the fun as we ramp up our plans for the remainder of 2009, and we’ll try to provide more frequent, punchier and more news-related posts as well.

  Thanks for reading!
  Allen Bonde, eVergance CMO

   
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  Esteban Kolsky 03:22:06 pm on April 7, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, experience management, Self-Service, Technology of Business

  How is that “new” customer service going?

  Some time ago I wrote about this “new” customer service brought on by the economic downturn.  I said back then that these moves were not based on core, sound principles and thus they would not last long.  It takes three weeks for people, and between six and eight weeks for corporations, to make a habit stick (think new years resolutions and the time when they affirmed or broken – or rather, how your gym seems to be more empty in Februay than it was in January).  We are a little bit past that time now — how is that new customer service working?

  My perspective? I started seeing some complains come across twitter for customer service problems that had gone away and are now coming back, and I began to hear again from our customers about overloading their systems, how they can reduce the costs of supporting clients with longer handle times, and whether it is a good idea to have those automated and electronic systems put back into action.  In other words, we are going back to normal.  Just as Will Smith said in “I, Robot” when they learned that the robots that were supposed to serve are actually trying to take over the world — “Somehow I told you so just doesn’t say it”.

  Remember, to make changes stick you need to change the core – not just the surface… What are you seeing out there? Am I wrong?

   
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  Kate Leggett 01:38:59 am on March 10, 2009 | 3 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, email, erms, Self-Service

  Email? Again? What’s the Deal?

  Like chat, its time again to revive a tool that has gotten a bad rap over the years. I’m talking about email. Email 2.0, not email 1.0.

  Back in the Web 1.0 days, email was all the rage. It was new. It was fast. It was cheaper than a phone call. And many companies home-built an email system, or bought one from the handful of original ERMS vendors.

  Customers loved email. They sent in thousands of emails. Jupiter Research (now Forrester) reported year-over -year volumes doubled from 1999 to 2004. But these  volumes overwhelmed companies who couldn’t keep up with the demand.  Email users started to get mad at what was going on. They didn’t get answers to the emails that were being sent in. Or they had to wait a week to get an answer. (Jupiter says that number of companies that took over 3 days to respond or never do so at all (!!!) increased to 36%  in 2004)

  And when customers finally got something back, they found out that they had only gotten half their question answered, and the English used was not particularly correct.

  What was happening with most early adopters of email, is that they had been romanced by new technology, but had not paid attention to the people and processes that were needed to keep this communication channel humming.

  There was no thought to content management – How canned answers would be periodically reviewed to ensure that they were still accurate? How would new content get added and obsolete content removed? What reports would be run to see what content was the most used?

  There was no thought to queue, rules, workflow management. Very few times did companies tweak the initial setups to make them more in-line with the businesses real need.

  They had not thought of automation – autosuggestions and autoresponses to make an agent’s life easier.

  And, there was no thought to a vision of multichannel service. For example, few companies had thought through what channels customers needed, and what channels they could effectively provide. As well, few thought through the interplay of channels. For example, if a particular question was coming in frequently over email, did a business have a process to make sure that there was a customer-facing FAQ, or knowledgebase content for this question?

  And, the nail in the coffin was that many of the system administrators who had originally purchased email systems left. Do a survey at your company.- How many of you are still using an email system that is over 5 years old?

  Email is now seeing a second coming. Why? Because there are real quantifiable gains that can be realized using this channel. And many companies have implemented it successfully. However, to do it right, and to have your customers learn to trust this channel, you must properly care for it. You need to know what email best practices are, and you need to implement them.

  How many of you know what these are? Or are actually using them?

   
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  Keith Holt 07:00:37 am on November 4, 2008 | 0 | # |
  Tags: customer service, Experience, Relationships, Self-Service

  First Things First

  Last week KANA Software, Inc. hosted our 3rd annual Customer Summit where representatives from KANA’s world-wide family of customers come together to hear what’s new, give us feedback and share their experience and expertise with each other.

  I always look forward to these for one particular reason and this year I was not disappointed – I learn stuff from our customers.  And so I thought that, in that spirit of sharing, I would share with the readers of this blog some of the things I learned.
  (For the record, some of our customers have terms in their nondisclosure policies that prohibit us from using their name so no corporate names will be mentioned.)

  • Bill reminded everyone in one of our sessions that even after more than 10 years with a product you can still be excited about what you can do with it enough to share that passion and encourage others with less experience.  It’s not about being the stodgy old “expert” who’s been there, done that and got the T-shirt.  It’s about being the kid with the new toy that’s still figuring out new and interesting ways to enjoy it.
  • Peter spoke to the whole assembly about the importance of consistently going the extra mile and doing things for your customers beyond what they expect.  He encouraged everyone to weave that into the attitude of the brand so that customers notice the difference from just following company policy.
  • Anne reminded everyone to not forget the basics.  It takes a balance between getting the fundamentals right and then adding the right amount “stretch”.  Too often we in  customer service and business in general try to reach for everything at once before we build a solid foundation.  Then it’s all too likely to fall down around us.  But, whether building customer service tools or launching a new product, if we take time to get the basics right, then build on that initial success with something more daring, the combination can amplify success beyond anything we imagined.
  • Amas had an interesting problem: his e-mail support was too successful.  Customers were so pleased with the prompt, accurate and consistent responses they got that they are sending e-mails to his customer support addresses more frequently for less critical issues.  That pointed out to me that it’s just as important to plan for success as it is to plan to avoid failure.  What his company needs is a way for their customers to help themselves to those same solutions on the company’s website.

  So a big “Thank you” to all the people who taught me something and who confirmed something else that I suspected all along – As nice as it is to have prestigious brand names as my customers what’s most important and most valuable are the people behind that brand and the relationships we at KANA have with them and that they have with their own customers.

   

• Keith Holt 07:00:06 am on October 9, 2008 | 1 | # |
  Tags: Collaboration, Customer Support, future technology, Knowledge Management, search, Self-Service

  I’ve seen the future

  Well it’s October and that means that Halloween is just around the corner. What better time to pull out the crystal ball (which looks suspiciously like a Lava Lamp in my case), put on my swami turban and do my Karnak the Magnificent impression. That’s right, it’s time to predict . . . the . . . future.

  But seriously – a year ago at a self-service conference in San Diego, someone in the audience asked a panel of industry representatives I sat on, “Where do you see self-service in fifteen years?”Fifteen years!? I can’t predict what I’ll have for breakfast tomorrow. I was lucky enough to be the last of four to respond so I had some time to make something up. I didn’t give the distant future much thought after that. That is until last week when I saw the following question on a Request for Proposal (RFP) from a prospective customer: “Where do you see the knowledge management industry in five years?” OK, it’s not fifteen, it’s only five but still that’s a long time in a field so intertwined and interdependent with information technology. Just look at the advances that have been made in computing in general, and search and database technology in particular in the last ten years. Now consider that the rate of advancement is not linear but rather it’s an accelerating curve. There was only one place to turn for insight – science fiction.

  Now understand – I’m a SciFi nut. I have read literally thousands of novels and short stories from every sub-genre and generation of science fiction from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne to David Brin and John Ringo. I just didn’t imagine those fantasy worlds ever intersecting my “real life”. But Verne predicted nuclear submarines and spacecraft landing on the moon. Heinlein predicted both the commercialization and the governmental regulation of space. What do my favorite authors have to say about the use of knowledge in self-service and customer support?

  It didn’t take much searching in my library to find two great examples: William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer (©1984) and Vernor Vinge’s short story Fast Times at Fairmont High (©2001). In Neuromancer, characters have access to knowledge libraries and skill enhancements on a kind of memory stick (called a “microsoft” – no connection to the corporation of the same name) that plugs directly into their brains via a “wetware” implant. Usage of these devices gives the user access to previously unknown facts as if they had been memorized in a more conventional way as well as the ability perform tasks for which they have no previous experience. Maybe that’s a little far-fetched. Maybe that’s what we have to look forward to in the fifteen-year realm.

  Vinge describes capabilities more in the nature of “just around the corner”. His characters, primarily middle-school students, are engaged in the usual day-to-day activities of school, friends, the latest entertainment and interacting with peers all over the world via laser links, broad-band wireless and virtual reality equipment micro-miniaturized right into their clothing. To call up information – text, live or synthetic imagery, anything – or open live interactions with other people, they have merely to make subtle gestures and sub-vocalize commands that are picked up by the wearable computers as input and requests. The visual portion of the output is projected directly into their eyes through special contact lenses. The audio arrives through sub-mini ear-buds. These characters routinely enjoy interactions much more interesting to (and closer to home for) us in the customer support and knowledge management industry. Assigned a programming problem in computer class? Collaborate with a cyber geek in Belarus. Someone uses a word you don’t know in a conversation? A gesture noticeable only by your personal interface calls up a definition with examples and overlays it in your field of view.

  Just imagine a technician servicing a complex medical diagnostic device being able to review a service manual or watch a tutorial video without taking their hands – or their eyes – off the device they’re working on. Imagine an auto service representative being able to hear the noise your car makes only when it’s at least twenty miles from the shop. Imagine your personal system hearing your boss ask you for the latest sales numbers and sensing your request to display them like a queue card so that you appear to have been prepared for the question. Imagine your current checking or credit card balance appearing in your field of vision while your looking at that new gadget at the local electronics store. Imagine . . .

  In a nutshell, that’s the future of support technology and knowledge management. And it could be within that five-year window. It’s the idea that knowledge, information and even transactions are available in real-time, while you’re doing what you need help with, aware of your current context and –most importantly – without you having to leave what your doing to go get it. My twelve year-old daughter told me she saw video contacts just like those in Vinge’s novel on the Discovery Channel last week and she is usually ahead of me on these sorts of things. Now where did I put my Lava Lamp?

   

• Keith Holt 04:22:08 pm on August 26, 2008 | 3 | # |
  Tags: agents, assisted service, call center, case management, customer service, knowledge, multi-channel, replacement, Self-Service, service experience, warranty

  Sometimes it works

  “Don’t panic.  Just breathe.”  That’s what I told myself when the most unthinkable, darkest, most desperate of situations descended on me without warning:  My BlackBerry® died.  One minute I was master of my domain - making and receiving phone calls, handling e-mails from three different accounts - the next I was completely cut off from both my personal and business worlds.  Was the next draft of that whitepaper ready for my review?  Was I supposed to pick up my daughter from her Taekwondo lesson or was it my wife’s turn?  Was the band practicing on Wednesday night or Thursday night this week?

  It was already past 8:00 pm so I huddled into my pre-technology cave, built a fire against the dark and waited for the next morning when I could seek assistance at my provider’s local store just a few blocks from my home.

  Another day dawned and I wasted no time getting down to the store.  I was hoping they could fix the failed device but would have been perfectly happy with a replacement, even if I had to purchase it myself.  I went to the customer service desk, handed the BlackBerry® to the agent there, described the symptoms I was seeing and hoped for the best.  He took my phone number, opened my account on his computer and spent the next few minutes alternating between prodding different parts of the BlackBerry® and typing notes into the open session on the computer.

  “I have some good news and some bad news,” he said about five minutes later.  In that short amount of time he had:

  • executed a series of front-line troubleshooting protocols to rule out problems with my charger or the battery – causes that would have been easily addressed

  • examined the device for signs of abuse – crushing, cracking, chewing or dunking in liquids – and recorded his observations in my account record

  • been given a determination based on the first two steps and the purchase date that the unit was under warranty and eligible for free replacement (part of the good news)

  • checked his own store’s inventory as well as every other location in the city and determined that there were none available in stock (part of the bad news)

  He apologized that there were none available for immediate replacement on the spot but getting this news up-front and in so little time was infinitely better than calling around to the dozens of stores in the metroplex area and checking them myself.  He tore a sheet off a notepad on the service desk and wrote two numbers on it.  The first, he explained, was a direct line to the company’s handheld technical support call center.  The second number was my case identification number.  I accepted the piece of paper with all the care it deserved as my last and only hope to reconnect to my life.

  When I got back home, I dusted off the “land-line” phone on my desk and dialed the toll-free number he had given me.  “Hello, my name is Steven.  How can I help you?”  What was that!?  No IVR, no canned request to press a number for service?  I explained that I was calling about a warranty replacement and gave him my case number.  “I’m sorry to hear that you had trouble.  Please give me just a minute to read the notes on your case . . . I see here that our service agent has already verified that the phone wasn’t damaged and is eligible for free warranty replacement.”  There were really notes on my case!  And he was reading them to brief himself on my situation!  I didn’t have to repeat anything to this phone agent.  I didn’t have to convince him that I hadn’t somehow caused the problem myself.  It took only three or four more minutes to confirm that the physical address on file was where I wanted the replacement sent and to give me instructions on activating the new device and returning the faulty device.  I was to expect the replacement by expedited shipping early the next morning - at no charge.

  I thanked Steven and hung up.  Moments later an e-mail popped into the in-box on my desktop computer’s monitor with a complete record of the transaction and detailed instructions on how to activate the new device when it arrived.  The next morning, a well-known white van pulled up in front of my house and my daughter signed for the package containing my replacement BlackBerry®.  And you know what?  The activation process worked exactly as described in my instructions.

  I’m a little unsure why I had to make the call instead of the store agent triggering the replacement while I was there but given the level of coordination and smoothness of the whole process – spanning and linking an in-person visit, a telephone call and an e-mail follow-up to avoid the need for a second call – I’m more than happy to overlook one possibly extra step in the process.  Visiting the store service desk and giving them the chance to examine the device saved a major delay that would have been experienced had technicians had to determine warranty eligibility after I shipped the inoperative unit.  So I was rewarded for my effort and the seamless connection between the two events in the service experience made it completely painless to me.

  So sometimes, service does work right – even when something breaks or initially goes horribly wrong.  But what made it work in this case was the seamlessness of the process, the obvious connectedness of the steps in the experience from one to the next and the complete lack of need to ever repeat myself or deal with a clueless participant impeding the process and service like this is extremely rare.  You know what I did next?  Within an hour of successfully activating my replacement, I went to their on-line self-service site and ordered the new smart phone my daughter wants for her 16th birthday.  There are natural and direct rewards for outstanding customer service.

   

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  November 2009

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