How Inbound Keeps Outbound Alive: Dialing for Loyalty
1 Jan, 2007
By: Eric CamulliDoes your phone still ring around dinner time? Are you greeted with silence followed by a sales pitch when you answer it? Do you wonder why or how this can be happening since you are an officially registered member of the Do-Not-Call club of America? Since the advent of the Do-Not-Call list, people are even less tolerant than before of unsolicited corporate calls received on their personal and private time. If you are a manager of an outbound contact center, you understand that serious issues like these place your entire existence in jeopardy. But a provision in the law allows companies to call customers if they have an existing business relationship with them. So, while most outbound contact centers were geared for customer acquisition before Do-Not-Call, now they are retooling for customer retention and loyalty, which is actually more important in today’s world where substituting and switching products and services is easier for consumers than ever before.
I recently experienced one of these loyalty initiatives from my phone company. First, let me start out by saying that in our home we let the phone roll into voice mail during dinner time. However, if the phone rings after dinner, we will answer it with your standard “Hello” and then allow two seconds for a response before hanging up. If there’s a human being on the other end of the line, then I believe two seconds is plenty of time to begin introducing yourself. Otherwise…”click.” The two-second rule has worked well for us for many years, but on this day I slipped up. I was enjoying a Saturday afternoon around the house when the phone rang. I picked it up and neglected to remember the two-second rule. The customer service representative chimed in and it was already too late to hang up (at the risk of being rude to my fellow contact center brother-in-arms). Not before letting out a big sigh did I answer the man’s question and said, “Yes, I’m responsible for making those decisions in the house…” But what happened next genuinely surprised me. The agent, representing my phone company, went on to explain that by switching to one of their new plans I could receive the same service and features, but at a lower price. I actually asked him to repeat himself because I was a little confused by all this. So he spoke more slowly this time, reviewed the offer with me, but it didn’t change. He was truly explaining how I could stay with the same phone company and lower my monthly phone bill. I didn’t believe him and told him that I found it very odd that my phone company was calling to tell me that they wanted less money from me every month. I was intrigued to say the very least and stuck it out with him through the details of the call. How about that?
As you have seen, my outbound contact center story has a different ending. Not one that abruptly ends with “click,” but rather an ending where monthly bills go down and, get this…my loyalty to my phone company goes up. Customer loyalty is built upon repeated positive experiences with a company that affirms a customer’s decision to continue purchasing from them. For example, after a positive experience like this from my existing phone company, I am much less likely to switch my service to a different carrier.
Acknowledging Service Outages
Here’s another example where outbound dialing has provided positive customer experiences and generated good will. At one contact center for a major cable service provider, the manager was looking for a way to help them handle the flood of calls that normally occurs during a service outage. The manager knew that customers who report a problem want to know when it will be fixed. On the inbound side, after the customer entered his or her telephone number, the front-end IVR compared the phone number to customer phone numbers in the outage area. If customers were in the outage area, they heard, “We are aware of a service outage in your area and repair crews have been dispatched...if you would like us to call you back when service is restored, press 1.” Callers who pressed 1 were added to a list. When cable service was restored, the technology began working off the list and calling back customers. Customers received an automated message indicating that their service-affecting outage was over and the problem was solved. The infamous two-second rule was not invoked by any of these customers and the successful reconnection rate was well over 90 percent with less than 10 percent of customers requiring the need to speak to an agent. The reason for this success was tied to the positive encounter experienced by the customers when they originally called the inbound contact center. By educating and empowering your customers with respectful options, you elevate the level of service you provide them. Therefore, your customers are more receptive to receiving calls from your company with an outbound campaign. Creating a positive inbound experience fuels a productive and positive outbound experience.
The Human Touch
The education and empowerment process is not just for automated systems…humans can participate as well! For instance, customer service representatives can offer your customers the opportunity to schedule a follow-up callback days or weeks from now in order to complete or confirm a transaction. The callback number the agent receives from the customer is entered into the outbound system and launched at the time promised. Just as with the cable company example above, to a customer, nothing builds loyalty better than a promise kept.
Virtual Queuing
Another technology that merges the best of inbound and outbound in order to build customer loyalty is virtual queuing. Virtual queuing eliminates the frustration of waiting on hold by offering customers a callback in the same amount of time as if they had continued to wait on hold. This turns the negative experience of waiting on hold into a positive one because the “virtual hold” time for the customer allows them to be productive. Instead of waiting with a phone stuck to the side of their head and wondering if or when they will ever reach a customer service representative, they are free to go about their lives and do other things, like read e-mail, get a cup of coffee or even make another phone call. When the outbound call is placed by the contact center to the customers in the time promised, they are elated to answer the phone and be quickly connected with a customer service rep.
The more positive outbound experiences you can provide, the more quickly your customers will embrace and trust your outbound strategy. Outbound has been perceived terribly by customers for a long time, but great experiences will go far in changing their view. When inbound and outbound contact center strategies come together, an excellent customer loyalty program can result.
In the ‘90s, CRM was billed as the panacea for all business big and small, and promised to deliver a strong ROI and increased profits. Implementing a tool to manage and improve customer relationships made sense to many. But for some, the ROI was elusive with few explanations. Customers did not see their relationships with companies grow stronger because rarely were they ever shown the love by way of positive experiences. How can you build a relationship with someone if you don’t first provide them with experiences that justify greater trust? With CRM data in hand, outbound contact center managers believed that cross-selling and up-selling of existing customers would be a slam dunk. They were mistaken because the opportunity to truly build a relationship that would ensure a productive outbound campaign had already been missed by not building loyalty with customers with customers when they first called. It should not have been a big surprise when many customers spurned attempts to call them. In fact, companies put loyalty in jeopardy when customers perceived a breach of trust.
The Formula for Customer Loyalty
This simply reinforces the fact that managers of both inbound and outbound contact centers today must work together to ensure each other’s success. Use your inbound contact center to educate and empower customers with choices and options. Set good expectations and only make promises that your people (and automated systems) can keep. Then, use your outbound contact center to deliver on your promises. Customers will be receptive to your phone call because they expect it. And then, once you fulfill their expectation, you will find them truly amazed by the increased service. Their business will definitely be yours for the keeping.
