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Better web-based service could stop volcanic customers erupting
Tuesday, 07 May, 2010
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TravelMole Guest Comment by Dee Roche, European marketing director for Eptica, a provider of multi-channel customer interaction software
During the mass disruption caused by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud, travel operators could have minimised customer distress and the unprecedented customer service spike that followed by using more effective web-based systems to get routine questions out of the customer service queue.
In the wake of the chaos caused by the volcanic ash cloud many contact centres had to email their customers to say they were dealing with their enquiries as fast as they could and asking them not to email again as it would only serve to increase the backlog and consequently, overall response times.
It was of course an extremely rare set of circumstances that could not have been predicted but, it has highlighted a situation that contact centres experience on a daily basis. High volumes of routine enquiries slow down a contact centres ability to respond, which in turn increases the number of repeat enquiries from customers wanting an answer.
This cycle of failure demand ultimately leads to escalating customer service costs with some companies reporting that they are increasing their team of contact centre agents by up to 300 per cent – some are still dealing with enquiries caused by snow related travel disruption at the beginning of the year.
A significant proportion of the calls and emails received by the travel industries’ contact centres will have been from customers simply wanting to know “how do I make a claim for a refund?”
However, reading the social networking groups and community forums of some travel and airline operators, it’s clear that many customers are very angry about the difficulty of obtaining the relevant information and claim forms on company websites and the way their enquiries are NOT being dealt with.
Much of this unhappy customer fallout and increased customer contact could be avoided if the industries’ website’s improved their customer’s online experience, using more effective web based customer service technology to answer and process the most frequently asked questions. By taking these ‘routine’ enquires out of the equation, contact centres can better utilise their available resources for example helping distressed customers stranded abroad.
When implemented well knowledge-based self-service can cut email volumes by as much as half, providing an easily accessible and guided route to the correct answers and web forms, enabling more customers to assist themselves.
Here are my top tips:
1. Make online help more visible on the website.
2. Place an Ask a Question box prominently on every web page so that customers can immediately find it and use it as their first of interaction. Haven.com does this really well.
3. Don’t make customers register to see the information they ask for, that’s a sure-fire way to cause frustration
4. To increase the number of customers who can self-serve online, use a system that’s not reliant on keyword search. Online self-service requires an effective search technology to deliver effective answers.
5. Look for self-service described as ‘meaning based’, natural language or using semantic processing. These are different ways of describing systems which have a contextual understanding of your customers’ questions. For example able to know that a cat or a dog is a pet and that information about adapted holiday homes is relevant for disabled visitors.
6. As soon as you see a surge in calls or emails about a specific issue, prioritize a special announcement at the front of your self-service information. But think through the whole customer journey; provide the refund claim web forms here so that customers can complete the task immediately
7. Integrate self-service and email management so that inbound enquiries are routed to agents with a relevant email response answer so they can process enquires much faster
8. keep your customers posted on the status of their request so they don’t keep chasing you, a regular update on status can be easily automated
And finally, ‘listen to the voice of your customers’ through social media and when you see them complaining about issues such as how to process a refund claim, interact and offer a solution that will help them.
The eruption of a volcano in Iceland causing mass travel chaos across Europe could not have been forecast but, handling large surges in traffic is something all contact centres need to be prepared for and smart, robust and efficient customer interaction software is an essential component in these preparations if customer satisfaction is going to be maintained and costs reduced.
Phil Davies
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