Designing an effective online response management process is not particularly complex. Its effectiveness will be decided in the detail of its implementation. There are in essence four stages to a successful digital response management process:
• design media-neutral response processing;
• use contact addresses as filters;
• automate standard responses; and
• filter messages to the best service destination.
Design media-neutral response processing
First, design inbound response-handling and customer-inquiry processes for all media campaigns, both online and offline, so that there is the greatest possible opportunity for coordinating data- bases and consolidating customer identities. There must be proce- dures in place that prevent customer service personnel from ever being asked about promotions of which they know nothing.
Depending on the scale of the organization, this may mean creating a database of all campaigns, which is updated in real time.
This is likely to be considerably more effective than a cowardly recourse to unique campaign numbering systems. If a customer contacts the company about a blue ‘£1 off’ money voucher for use in a particular supermarket, the customer has probably already given a unique description to a process: why then ask him or her for the code in the top right-hand corner of the coupon? It is so much less customer friendly.
Incidentally, the same advance-filtering trick can be pulled off with postcodes if a company’s inbound postal volumes are suffi- ciently high and its relationship with its local sorting office is suffi- ciently flexible. Applying the same principle to telephone numbers, one can employ different phone numbers to indicate the adver- tising medium to which customers are responding, the product about which they are calling for service, or even whether they are new or existing customers.
Use contact addresses as filters
Make intelligent use of e-mail addresses and telephone numbers to route responses as they arrive in the call centre. Rather than having a single ‘enquiries@’ e-mail address, it is much more efficient to create separate addresses for separate enquiries, or for any other customer service function. Having created distinct e-mail addresses, make sure that they are directed to the individuals or teams that are best
able to answer the questions. Creating distinct e-mail service addresses gives customers a sense that they are asking a specific question and sending it to an expert. If care is used, such addresses not only engender a sense of precision and activity but also convey something of the company’s brand personality. A personal favourite here would be ‘oops@fool.com’, the e-mail address used to notify the Motley Fool that a browser has experienced a navigation problem, or has been unable to launch the page correctly. This kind of technical issue can hit any site at any time without warning.
Accept that it can happen, and make sure that it is handled in the best way possible, to minimize the chance of losing a visitor.
Automate standard responses
Wherever possible, automate standard responses. Among customer service e-mail addresses there will be many where an automated response is both appropriate and possible. In the first instance, an automated ‘bounce-back’ e-mail does let customers know that their enquiries have been received. Managing expecta- tions is one of the more important steps to achieving great customer service, so simply letting customers knowing that their enquiries have been received is a good first step. Make sure that the bounce-back e-mail gives some indication of when the customer can expect a response. Naturally, it is smarter to manage expecta- tions positively, and give an indication of a turnaround time that can be beaten, rather than one that will leave the customer feeling misled and disappointed.
Some companies include hyperlinks in these bounce-back e- mails, which show the customer where else they might look to answer their problem. On the face of it, this might seem a smart idea. Web sites can be difficult to navigate, and in some larger company Web sites it can be hard to find specific resources, even if you know what you are looking for. However, it is not helpful to give customers some hyperlinks even if they may send them in the right direction.
There are several possible outcomes from this, and none of them enhances the actual service that customers receive, or their
perception of the service that they have been given. To begin with, when customers open the bounce-back e-mails and see the hyper- links, they may simply think that the customer service team is treating them like idiots. They may already have spent some considerable time trying to explore the Web site, or the question may have been so specific to their own circumstances that no hyperlink is ever going to answer it. Either way, the hyperlinks make it look as if the customer service team is asking the customer to do more work, or alternatively that the indicated response times elsewhere in the e-mail are not to be believed and that customers would do better to look for the solution themselves. If customers do click the hyperlink, they had better find what they are looking for. If customers spend further time investigating a Web site and fail to find what they are looking for, then they would have the right to feel frustrated and a little angered at the company for wasting their time.
Even if the hyperlinks turn out to be the perfect resource, and customers have their questions answered quickly and easily, the hyperlinks have already created some other problems. No matter how carefully crafted the bounce-back e-mail, it will still have been clear that a member of the customer service staff would be dealing with the request. So the successful hyperlink is now wasting the customer service team’s time as it deals with the customer’s question. Even before the personal customer service reply contact is made it has already been devalued and is likely to be treated as an interruption. If customers already know the answer to the question, why would they need another e-mail or telephone call to confirm it?
They might well have no way to tell the customer service team that their question has been answered. Far better not to put hyperlinks in the initial bounce-back e-mail, and concentrate on answering customers’ questions within the time specified.
Filter messages to the best service destination
Use content filters to route messages to the people best able to answer the customer’s question. As the company’s servers receive messages they should be filtered on several levels. Initially, the
receiving e-mail address should provide top-level segmentation. A keyword search of the message’s subject line will provide the next level of breakdown. It is also possible to filter e-mail messages on the basis of keywords and phrases that customers regularly use to describe their enquiries. Naturally, product names and ranges are also useful filters. Even the sender’s name can be used proactively, perhaps forwarding particular customer e-mails directly to their own dedicated key account managers. All of these facilities are available in conventional ISP account management services and as e-mail filters in the most popular desktop e-mail programmes.
However, these cannot provide the level of sophisticated filtering offered by specialist software. Rather than simply identifying keywords or phrases, more specialized software is able to establish the nature of the e-mail enquiry, and categorize it as, for example, a sales or support enquiry, or a complaint. The system will then attempt to match the customer’s request to a known solution: this may involve compiling the reply e-mail from a database of technical support phrases, product descriptions, and digital literature. The confidence level in this compiled reply is often sufficiently high to allow the e-mail to be dispatched without human intervention. Best practice would suggest that, for particular enquiries, or for enquiries from particular customers, even if a prepackaged solution is available, a customer service representative should follow up the inquiry and its automated response. If the system cannot generate a satisfactory response, it should send the enquiry to the person best placed to provide an answer quickly. This should involve a combi- nation of available service representative’s knowledge of the customer in question and the products that he or she is asking about, and a calculation of their availability.
Once an inquiry is passed to a customer service agent with specialist knowledge, the customer service contact should not simply be left to get on with answering it. It is extremely important that customer service staff should be supported with a real-time knowledge database, so that product information, availability and pricing, for example, are all absolutely up to date. They should also have access to a phrase bank, which will allow them to construct detailed replies to customers’ questions, without misleading them.
It should clarify the answers that customers receive, and speed up the process of dealing with their specific questions. The phrase bank should also minimize the chance of legally misrepresenting the company and its products. Customer service agents should have the option to escalate any question that they do not feel they have the authority to deal with, or to involve local agents and retail dealerships if that is likely to be the best and quickest way to resolve any issues.