Eric: Welcome back to another episode. And we are continuing our eight year Anniversary series here with this lovely backdrop put together by our culture department, and got the last episode here that I’m filming directly with Jake, I think the next time you’ll see us together will be I’ll be back in Phoenix, and you’ll be out here. So welcome again.
Jake: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we’re gonna be talking about ultimate measured customer experience metrics. And yeah, yeah, it’s, well, it’s interesting topic, and you would learn a lot. I know, there, you know, there’s so many companies, small companies who have neglected the burdens of the you know the customer experience, and I mean experiences. And yeah, this is the topic for you.
Eric: Yeah. And not just experiences. But yeah, measuring it. It’s like, they know what needs to happen. They know that they should be doing it. But it may be you don’t have the resources, a person that should be managing it is busy training new people, hiring new people, and then doing that all over again, and they can’t get out of that cycle. And so this kind of stuff falls behind, because you’re constantly training, you’re constantly adding new people. And so yeah, we’re gonna be talking about that today. And we’re gonna be so what you should get today from this episode, is some ideas around how you could measure your customer experience, or what are some metrics that you could be measuring in your call center. And, you know, by the end, if you feel overwhelmed, and you’re like, I need that, but I don’t know how I’m gonna do that I don’t have the resources, maybe you should talk to a company like PACBIZ. But before then, let’s see if maybe this is something that you could help for your business. Or if you’re outsourcing with another call center. And these are some things that you should be doing and measuring. So if not, you know, it’s time to start that conversation with that outsource company. And if it’s something you’re looking to add on, maybe to outsource so that you can start bringing it in, then I think either way, you’re gonna get something out of this episode.
Jake: Yeah, definitely. So let’s start with how would we define a customer experience?
Eric: Great question, customer experience, way we look at it is, you know, what is the customer journey from the first time they’re interacting with your company, all the way to the very end of that transaction. And so that could be that they’re visiting the website, maybe they’re making a purchase. Jake, and I were talking, before we hit the record button here that, you know, I think we’ve all experienced a really bad customer experience shopping online. You know, you add your stuff to the cart, you spent all this time finding the right products. And then they asked you to make an account, so I’ll make an account. And then your accounts made, and now your carts empty and now l’ll have to add that back in, someone didn’t code that properly. And that led to poor customer experience, because I shouldn’t have. So it could be as simple as that all the way to the checkout process to when you receive the item. Or if it’s taxi, like what are some of the things that what what are parts of the customer experience for a taxi customer?
Jake: you know, interacting with the person that they they’re talking to order a cab, you know, that they can sense if the confidence of the person that they’re talking to your faith is experienced enough to know and to get the details correctly. And just make sure that it’s not gonna mess up the appointments that they’re going to. And you know, they picked up on time being picked up in the right place and making sure that taxi driver would not miss their location and the time. So those are things that they really consider that would impact the customer experience.
Eric: Yeah, and those are the parts you could outsource that we can help with. And then there’s the parts that you can’t you have the drivers. So when they do pick up the customer, what does that experience like in the tax? All the way to the payment? What if a credit card machine is broken? Oh, I’m sorry, my credit card is broken. Can you pay cash? You know, we’ve all heard that in the back of a taxi. That’s not a great experience. You’re a corporate traveler, and you need to use your business card. And now you can’t because the machine is broken. You know, that’s like a red flag for me. And all the way to after the trips over and you get a text message and it asking you “How was your ride?” And you fill out some survey. That whole journey from beginning to end, every time that you’re interacting with that business, that’s part of the customer experience. So how do we measure that? How do we how do we because what you cannot improve what you don’t measure and so how can you start measuring some of these filler really intangible like so give me some examples?
Jake: Yeah, of course. You know, they’ll start with, you know, by dialing your number this, this are the number of you your company, that means that somebody would want to work with you to do business with you. So (Eric: trying to spend money with). So that’s, that’s already something so why not from that, from from that moment, and then the person who will answer the call, would, you know, all would really welcome them by the sound of voice, you know, being really pissy ASIC, like, you know, being excited to talk to the person, the doctor to customers. So those are small points that, you know, the customers would would, would really, you know, put an impact on their experience. And that’s, that’s, you know, that goes with how experienced, the person who’s answering the calls, or, you know, are, how experienced they are. And
Eric: they’re trained, are they knowledgeable about the products that are being sold? Or the, you know, the city that you’re calling in for a ride in? Yes, you’re calling in and you’re like, “I need to be picked me up at this hotel.” And they have no idea what it is. And I’m like, “What’s the address?” And like, “You look it up your that’s your job, you should know where this hotel is, I’m in downtown, like, how do you not know where this hotel is, I see your taxi out front, you guys dropped me off.” That that is all part of the experience.
Jake: This the sound alone of the person that they’re talking to would also make an impact, like the confidence. And, you know, if you if you’re planning to go out the next day, and you wanted to make sure that would be picked up, and especially when you’re going to the airport, and you have this flight scheduled on that time? And why would you call somebody who sounded like, they don’t know what they’re doing? And deal with question, right? After you drop the phone like? Oh, is is that really going to is I am I going to be picked up tomorrow? At that time, I’m going to, you know, stuff like that. So that’s, you know, getting the confidence and the of the company would would, you know, it would require something, some experience. So that experience would be, you can get that from, from call centers, or by outsourcing. So, those, you know, the, the things that we take care of, are the things that we have been doing for eight years, or a little more. So…
Eric: Eight years in a couple of days.
Jake: And, yeah, those are the things that you’re, you’re gonna get when you outsource.
Eric: But how do you measure that? So, like, how do you measure confidence on the phone? How do you measure that knowledgeable, you know, and I think there’s a couple of ways you could do that of some really basic things you could be looking at, such as, how long are the calls, if your average handle time is two minutes per call, and you have this one agent that’s doing five minute calls, like this, there’s a problem there, because the customer is used to to minute calls, and other calling in and it’s spending five minutes, six minutes, those extra three minutes and four minutes. Those are painful, you know, you’re sitting there, like, this shouldn’t take this long. Who is this person on the phone? And it doesn’t give confidence, like you said, like that scenario, I’ve traveled a lot for this business. And I, I would, I’d be concerned that that taxi is not going to pick me up, if they didn’t give me the confidence that they know what they’re doing. And so handle time, is one way, but what are some of the other ways that you could measure that confidence because we want to give these guys some ideas on how to do that,
Jake: you know, the their interaction, the way the call take the call taker would talk to the talk to the customers and get that confidence and, you know, being accurate, and, you know, being asking back the right questions, you know, just did me to, you know, finish finishing up and, you know, getting the right, getting the booking done. So that’s, that’s the experience, that everything should be right, in order for the customer to give them the good customer experience. So yeah, that’s the call taker side. And, you know, aside from, aside from that, there are so many factors that would, that would be considered to get that customer experience that like, you know, right after the call, and like, if they’re going to call back, you know, doing some little changes, you know, they have to have the consistency that the person who will be answering the call would have that same the same level of, you know, confidence. And, yeah, we, you know, we, you know, going back to the experience, it will lead back to, you know, how we experienced the person who’s answering the call. And, yeah, and the same as the words that they’re using. Like, you know, if, if they are waiting they’re there. He can’t guarantee all the time. But you know, when they call for, you know, when going back to the taxi business, when you call for a cab cab will be there. Right away there. It’s assist that there will be delays. They’ll how are they doing while they’re waiting? So if they’re their calls in between being made by the call takers, and just to make sure that they’re updated, though what they mean, how close is the taxi? Where is it? What’s causing the delay? Those? Those are you know, there are delays. Lets you know, you know this is already given more data,
Eric: there’s always more people that need transportation than there are vehicles available and drivers, especially dirt, right? Not one is busy. But there’s peak times like New Year’s Eve, how many people want a taxi or Uber or Lyft after the bars get up like on New Year’s Eve, or just any weekend really after a sporting event? Or just during rush hour people are needing to get home they’re needing to travel around. So that happens. But another way to look at it too, because we’re talking about these intangibles like how do you measure the confidence? How do you measure the knowledge and another way to do it, which is a huge part of what we do here at PACBIZ is QA. Because now you get to standardize things. Like, you know, the call center agents need to be consistent, you need to be like McDonald’s and Starbucks on the phone. Right? So like Starbucks, I can go to any Starbucks in the world. And I expect that coffee to taste pretty much the same no matter what if I want to, I slept in Phoenix. And then I get an iced latte here in the Philippines, because they had Starbucks here and do we get to believe it or not, they should taste the say, McDonald’s, you get a Big Mac in Phoenix, and then you drive across country on a road trip and you keep getting Big Macs at other places and fries, they should be consistent. And if not, if they tasted way different in one place to another place, then you’re not going to keep going to McDonald’s because you don’t know what you’re gonna get. “Man, it was really good in that one spot. But over here that was trash, if that keeps happening to your Starbucks to McDonald’s, you’re not going to keep going back. That’s where the opportunities lie for business owners like you guys listening, because you can do better that like they cannot get the best they can get consistent. You cannot be consistent and also amazing, like, really, really tasty coffee, and really, really tasty burgers, that’s hard to do all of those things. So you have to pick which one you want to do. So QA is going back to that. So QA that consistency. That’s how you do it. It’s because they’re listening. We have people here, our QA department, how many people? Do we have an hour to a department? To we have five? Yeah, so they’re listening to calls. They’re monitoring emails are looking at what are the agents doing? Are they being consistent? So you have to have a script, the agents have to say the same thing every time. And so if you don’t have the scripts, put that in place, but then now, all right, how are they doing on that script? Are they following the script? Are they being friendly? Are they being rude? Did they make mistakes on the call, you know, this if you’re doing an online order, and you need to review the order before submitting it for a purchase? Like okay, let me repeat, these are the items you’re looking to buy. Because if you skip that step, and maybe there was a product, they one that didn’t get included? Well, maybe there’s a product that didn’t want that got included. But again, it goes down to consistency, you got to follow that same thing every time. But how do you know that’s happening? If you’re not listening to the calls, if you’re not following standards? And and so are you guys feeling overwhelmed a little bit? Yeah, is that if they’re not doing that in your business? Sure, like this is a lot of stuff to put in place. But that’s that’s how you start measuring customer like some of the metrics around what impacts the customer experience.
Jake: And that’s something that we also offer. So backbase says as that QA team, and yeah, I would say that we’re pretty confident that this you know, backfist has been here for a while and QA has been also been established and they so as the the call takers and they the agents so yeah, we have built something we have built with standard quality to you know, if you don’t hear Pappas yet, you know, we live known for for a good quality of service. So that’s, that’s one thing that you can get when you’re at source and, you know, aside from a you know, we talked back about the how to measure it metrics. We, it’s all been covered by, you know, the the QA if anything that there you feel like there’s the you want to be added to how we do the QA? Yeah, we can definitely do that for you. And other companies are also they have different types of, you know, running their businesses, like, you know, reduce QA a little bit, like, you know, they want fast paced, you know, taking those bookings in orders, and, you know, stuff like that. So we can do adjustments, and
Eric: yeah, but it’s tailored to your business, you know, when you outsource, it shouldn’t be a because if you guys are listening, and you’re thinking about outsourcing, then it’s not like a one size fits all, like, here’s our QA, the out this is we’re going to plug this in for every business, at even within tax even within e commerce, even within virtual assisting what we offer here, every client is different. Like, what matters to one business, that that doesn’t mean it’s going to matter to another business, you know, for like, we’re we just are working with a new client that’s coming in from New York. And his his, his objective is speed, you know, and he doesn’t even have like, his script is “where do you be picked up? Where do you need to be dropped off? Okay, thanks. Bye”, right. That’s his script. And like, Oh, this is a little different, like, but that’s what’s important to him. And so, like, for us, that’s one of the things that’s one of the phrases we say, and I repeated it to, we had a company meeting this morning with all the staff and, you know, we focus on what matters most to your business, and we deliver. So if it’s really, you, we need to move through those calls faster. Now, there’s a certain level where you want so fast that we can be providing good experience, we might not be a good fit, but there may be as another like, so if the business needs to be focused on speed, we might not be the best fit, you know, because we’re more of a customer experience customer like we flew, we want to make it a positive experience at the end, by the end of that call.
Jake: And yeah, yeah, that would depend on how the business works. Like, if, you know, the cost that in the area, or different areas, so they have different cultures, like people in the area probably don’t care about the experience, as long as they get the job, the endo from on from point A to point B, that’s, that’s the main goal. So and they’re not asked to do an after the, you know, some, you know, customers that much like, they know that customers are really a lot. So, yeah, they they will we will they would we would adjust to that, but their companies are not really keen with no, I really keen with taking care of customers and getting them giving them the best customer service or customer experience. Yeah, that’s, those are the type of companies that would really want, you know, to talk to the customers like, they use off with a use of Q A’s and all this things to make it better. And so, yeah, there are different types of companies in Yeah, we accept what kind of company you run. And, yeah, we can make adjustments and our rear rear hitch.
Eric: So again, we’re talking about how can we measure this customer experience. And and so we need metrics around it. And I think there’s a couple other areas that we can give our listeners some ideas about on measuring and putting in place. And one might be, you know, some companies will make this even an acronym F R. FC, our first call resolution, and now we have some clients that they actually do measure that they’ll look at that, and others that don’t. Because maybe their business doesn’t have a lot of people calling back. So again, it really depends on what matters to that business. And how are we delivering but yeah, like what what Tell me about your experience with first call resolution, what does that mean? Especially if these guys if you’re listening and you’ve never heard of first call resolution.
Jake: Um, first of all, the first call call resolution is is really ideal for in offer customers like I would call her pray for your business and, you know, get everything resolved to just one call. But you know, doing I would, I would like to put an example where the taxi business like people would do call backs when you know where they were in the when they’re not picked up on time. And you know, it went hard or you know, there, there are things that they want to make. Do I would do adjustments, and there’s those stuck by demos normally. We don’t want them to call back because they’re not being picked up on what were we we said that they’re gonna be picked up like human being in being there for five minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes? Yes, stuff like that. So they, they make a call back at the check. So those are the things that we would want to avoid, you know, another thing that this one call resolution would, would really help is that, you know, when, when that customer is not gonna call back, you get to entertain another customer. Yeah,
Eric: that’s a good point,
Jake: it takes time to talk to, you know, to, especially when they’re calling back, because that means it’s not the normal, you know, talk with, you know, about booking, but it’s about their concerns, and it’s, it’s gonna take a little louder than their usual call. So, yeah, that’s the sort of things so you need to have those right, people who are really trying to be really precise and accurate with the details. And, you know, getting the information renamed, getting the right information as well, like, you know, if they can see how long will it take you to do, you know, giving that to the customer, the with the correct time, like, if a customer is expecting to the driver has to be there in 10 minutes by and we know, the person they talked to, didn’t it? Did it really check properly? That, you know, the read The truth is, is 20 minutes. So those are making problems. So, you know, this thing’s the, you know, customer experience and,
Eric: and tax customers. Yeah, you know, that’s an example that I could not get out of my head, because I spent, I won’t name the company, but it’s a certain internet service provider, the leading one in the Phoenix that wouldn’t like they charge me extra for eight months. And I stopped calling for a while because I was so frustrated. But what happens when your issue isn’t solved, you’re going to call back, and you’re going to call back, I probably took up like 15 hours of over eight months of trying to resolve this issue. Because every time I had to explain it, the call got longer because I had more issues to explain. They kept ever the, the more I talked to them, the more mistakes they kept making. And you know, it got to the point, we’re actually involved the Attorney General’s office, and that’s what finally got it resolved. But like it shouldn’t get to that. And again, when we talk about small businesses versus giant companies, the people listening here, you guys are the small businesses, you’re you exist to out compete these big giant companies. And so measure your first call resolution, how many times does that customer have to call back to get their issues solved. Because if they’re calling back a bunch, they’re eating up resources, and like you said, those calls get longer and longer and longer hours. And now you got frustrated staff because now they got this person on the phone, whose issue they can’t solve. So it also is you have to empower your your frontline staff and your customer service staff to actually solve the issues. If they don’t have the ability to solve those issues, then they’re going to keep calling back, and you’re not going to be able to get rid of them. Because in my case, they owed me $800, I’m not going to let that go. I’m the like I my assistant calling them every day, like let’s like what’s going on? How are we gonna get this fixed. So that, that takes up a lot of resources. Imagine if I really did take 15 hours of time between my assistant calling and me calling every week and it took an hour for months, then, like, that’s, that’s a lot of money.
Jake: And that’s how you choose the the company that you are source bit like, it’s, you know, there’s a different level of your companies there, you know, then you can go with the cheaper ones, when, you know, it’s, it’s not really essential to, you know, to partner with those. But if you want to grow your business, like how would you represent your company, if you’re not those people that you work with? are not doing well. So those are also Yep, you would consider those things. And, yeah, they make sure that you are very careful choosing the right company that you want to partner with when you first and
Eric: and measure those first call resolutions. You know, if they’re repeat customers over and over and over again, something’s wrong. And that could be another metric. And maybe you start out and it’s higher. Alright, well, let’s focus on shrinking this down. But until you start measuring it, you’re not going to be able to shrink it. And there could be an issue going on in the call center, you have no idea if all you’re looking at is average handle time how many calls are being handled, you’re not going to see that wow, like why the 10% of our customers repeat calling over and over again. That can be 10% less staff needed to answer the phones which that becomes a big cost. So yes, so first call resolution and and the other one I want to talk about is Post customer surveys. So it could be NPS or Net Promoter Score. Or it could be just a Survey Monkey link that goes out. But like, tell me how important is that that survey. And, and also, like, from your experience, how many of our clients are actually doing that?
Jake: Yeah, we have a lot, because you know how important it is. Because sometimes customers will just say, they’re not going to do anything that they’re gonna send, you know, feedbacks that just, you know, walk away, I’m not going to call you, I’m not going to call the company again, true. But if you have that text message or an email, checking on them out the hour, their experiences, while they’re, they’re using your services, like they, they they have the chance to let you know. And, you know, if you know that somebody’s not feeling good about how they were treated, you, you will be able to correct that and, you know, save that one customer. So one customer is a lot?
Eric: Yeah. Is that one of the things that I’ve learned over time is, what’s the lifetime value of that customer? How many times is that person going to use your business over the next 12 months, 24 months, 36 months and beyond? And, you know, is it worth it to let that go? Because you didn’t make sure that that experience was positive?
Jake: Or if you don’t know that he that customer was experiencing, you know, bad experience, you don’t get the opportunity to fix it? They are so it’s really important to ask them like, you know, right after this service is done, you know, sir, surveys, like text messages, or, you know, just send him an email, I’ll just ask them, how was your experience? And know, what do you think should be approved? And, you know, because in between those, the whole entire process, there could be some part of it that’s, you know, messed up like Now you wouldn’t know. And but, you know, by asking them getting the survey out, you would you would know what’s going on and know what to correct?
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. So I think we covered a lot of ideas for you guys hear on ways that you could measure customer experience. So we talked about QA, we talked about first call resolution, we talked about looking at your call times, we talked about post survey, POST call surveys or post interaction, maybe it may be all they’re doing is shopping online. So after the purchase, survey goes out, not everyone’s gonna fill that out. But you’re gonna get a percent, and it’s gonna give you an idea on hired, and then do something about it, don’t just send up the surveys and never look at the data. Because then what, you can’t take action, you can’t fix problems. And I see that a lot, too. So start measuring those start looking at that. And you know, if you need a partner to help you out with that for your business, if you’re like, I need that, but it’s a lot, then look at outsourcing pack, this is an option, a lot of other options out there. But think about those options. Think about those metrics. And again, you know, there could be people listening, that you’re just managing a call center. And so think about how you can with the call center you’re currently working with ask about these things. Hey, what is our first call resolution? What is the you know? How can we get a survey out to the customer after that transaction? That’s what I would challenge you guys. There’s some homework for our listeners. And if you guys have any feedback on this episode, send us an email, actually email me Eric@pacbiz.com. Or you can put some comments on YouTube or Tiktok, or wherever you’re listening, you’re watching this. And let us know because we want to we hopefully we want to be giving you guys some good information and ways that you can improve your customer experience for your business, or the call center relationship. And if we’re not giving you information like that, let us know because I make this valuable for you here. So
Jake: yeah, that for me. So yeah, I hope you learn a lot with them with that talk. And you know that topic. We you know, we can provide information about what’s going to happen when you do this and do that with your business. So yeah, we can talk to you about though, how’s our Adobe outsourcing help to grow? So
Eric: all right, well, Jake, again is always a pleasure. Next time, I will see you virtually I’ll be back in Phoenix. So until then, make sure that if you like what you hear today, if you’re listening for the first time, make sure to subscribe. You could also catch if you’re listening to us on podcast and you actually want to see our faces and talk us talking. You could also find PACBIZ outsourcing look for our channel on YouTube. And you could watch this as well. But until then, good luck with all that homework you have now and we’ll catch you on the next episode.