CONSUMER PROTECTION: GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Donal, a restaurant owner in Waterford, Ireland, had a problem with his new iPhone. An LED remained constantly on, draining the battery quickly. He phoned Apple Customer Care, where Fernando agreed to rush him a replacement.
A long saga followed. Although Donal followed the instructions as related on the phone call, he ended up out of pocket by €480, as the broken phone never arrived at Apple.
He said “I requested that they try to track down a telephone recording or at least try to speak to Fernando, but I was told it could take weeks to find the call, if it was even recorded.”
Donal’s consumer experience was not unusual, unfortunately. It is interesting that Apple had difficulty in tracking down the vital call recording, even though it would have quickly sorted out the dispute, and avoided bad publicity in a national newspaper. Why is this? Because call recording is seen primarily as a training and performance monitoring tool, or necessary for legal compliance. It is not used as a tool for consumer protection.
But it’s in the interests of a business to be fair with their customers. If an employee makes a mistake on a call, if information is not clear, that’s a quality issue and all companies claim to take quality seriously, right? Here’s a radical idea: why not make caller access to recordings automatic. Give your customer the choice to record the call, store it in the cloud, and access it if required.This is transparent, fair to both sides and shows that a business has respect for their customer.
Protracted disputes are best avoided. When a call recording exists, and is accessible to both parties, it means that many disputes can be avoided altogether, saving costs, reducing customer frustration, and the risks of lost business. The recording may also help the consumer to clarify a discussion, or eliminate a misunderstanding, without recourse to further contact.
DON’T FORGET DATA PROTECTION COMPLIANCE
Sometimes, call recording is mandatory. For example, in the financial services sector, it serves to protect both the customer and business, when decisions made on calls are legally binding and can have big implications. However, there is another area of compliance that is overlooked: data protection. In the Europe Union in particular, data protection laws are strong, and define a consumer’s right to access to personal information stored by organisations. The consumer has a right to make access requests to their personal information, including call recordings. The organization must, on request, make available the call recording or a transcript. Making transcripts is time consuming and expensive, while giving the caller automatic access to their own call recordings is much more cost effective.
TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT DILEMMAS
And costs are close to the heart in every service operation. To get long term savings, organisations are making major IT investments in areas such as unified communications and web-based self service. In the voice tech sector, automation is enhanced through developments in smart IVR and voice recognition systems. Voice biometric technology is maturing, and increasingly used in financial services to verify customer identity.
For the customer, these developments can bring many advantages, in convenient 24/7 access to services, and the opening up of data that was previously hidden. Voice will be used for more critical transactions, where speed, accuracy and quality are paramount.
However, there’s also a downside, with consumers feeling alienated by some of the new technology. Between branch closures and badly designed IVR systems, the customer can get the feeling that the business does not want to speak with them at all. Yet, talking to customers should be a fundamental part of the business relationship, especially when support is needed. Studies have shown that while consumers are happy to use new technology, two in three customers prefer to talk1. To respect the customer, organisations also need to invest in voice based services, especially those that offer new facilities to the customer.
THE ROLE OF SERVEMEBEST TECHNOLOGY
At ServeMeBest, we focus on giving organisations innovative voice-channel tools. Trust+ is a call recording product that – uniquely – makes it possible for callers to choose to create their own call recording, enabling the organization to respect their caller’s right for equal access to the recording. Survey+ is an instant mobile survey tool, which allows the business to demonstrate how it values their customer’s feedback, and take quick action when things go wrong.
TRUST+: A DRIVER FOR QUALITY IN PHONE INTERACTION
Trust+ is designed to be offered as part of the IVR welcome to callers. Callers can choose to record a call, and are notified of the recording URL after the call is complete.
Stored securely in the cloud, the recording can then be accessed by both call parties, the service provider and the customer.
Trust+ enables organisations to demonstrate a commitment to respecting consumer protection.
By giving service providers a means to automatically grant call recording access to callers, Trust+ makes compliance with data protection regulation easy.
It creates a powerful brand message based on trust and transparency, and enables organisations to be proactive in addressing quality issues in phone based engagements.
With call recording in the hands of the consumer, it ensures that information provided to the caller is accurate, and reduces the potential for costly disputes.
Sharing call recordings with callers is a new idea and some organisations – those with poor customer service – may see Trust+ as a risk. Those with the best quality view Trust+ as a positive expression of confidence in the relationship with their customer, with benefits for both.
SURVEY+: GIVING CONSUMERS THE TOOLS FOR INSTANT FEEDBACK
When service is poor, consumers are not slow to resort to complaining via social media and review sites. It’s important for organisations to manage the feedback loop, and give their customers the means to first complain in private.
Survey+ is designed to be deployed immediately after an interaction, using SMS and the mobile web. As the invitation is immediate, the customer is more likely to respond, and the feedback will be more accurate. As it is delivered via mobile, with survey screens specifically designed for mobile devices, it makes it easy for the customer to deliver their valuable response.
The product is perfect for organisations with a strategy of mobile engagement, and especially those developing social media channels. It provides a way to propagate positive feedback via social media, while intercepting negative feedback before the customer goes public.
Survey+ can be deployed after calls, as a companion product to Trust+, or used as a standalone product to capture feedback after any customer interaction.
1 Interactions/NYU Online Survey (2011)
