When I see technology vendors developing software that cater for languages other than English it makes me extremely happy. Question is, why has it taken so long?

Now ofcourse technology vendors cannot cater for all the 6,900+ languages currently spoken around the world but if you look at the top five languages spoken around the world:

1. Chinese
2. Spanish
3. English
4. Arabic
5. Hindi

(source: http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size)

Isn't it clear that at least vendors would have considered the top 2 languages as well as English? Now this is not a blanket statement, as there are some vendors out there that cater for languages other than just English, but there needs to more vendors that should do this.

Linking back to the contact centre industry, contact centres in Asia and South America are growing in seat sizes at rates of 10-30% per annum whereas their western counterparts are growing, if at all, at less than 10% per annum.

This proves that overseas markets for traditional western based technology vendors is the ideal and possibly inevitable way to expand. Software is well and truly global.

There are several factors that vendors need to take into account when developing multilingual software, here are a few to start you off:

1. Accurately translate text within the application, back translate to the local language a few times to ensure phrasing and vocabulary are natural sounding
2. User interface should be flexible with different languages as the same word written out in different languages may be longer or shorter than another
3. Consider using graphics that are not considered offensive in some countries. Also in-graphic text will also need translating

 

Video as a customer service channel is becoming more and more popular.

Recently the Jiangsu Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) had established a video contact centre with Avaya solutions to boost its customer service. Bank clients will now be able to interact with customer service agents with just one click through video-enabled computers placed in the outlets of the ABC Jiangsu Branch. Enterprise bank customers can access the video contact center service from their own video-enabled devices, such as computers and IP telephones. The bank plans to install video-enabled ATMs in about 100 locations in the future, which will also integrate with the Avaya solution.

Brilliant!

Now if only more organisations saw the opportunity in video calls...

Currently a huge gap exists between what organisations are adopting vs. what consumers want.

Based on the Fifth Quadrant Multi Channel Contact Centre Technology Report, around two in five consumers were likely to use Real Time Video when speaking to a company representative. However, the contact centre industry has not adopted Real Time Video to match the level of consumer demand, with less than one in ten centres having implemented a video-based contact centre solution.

Consumers are avid users of video based social media and messaging systems. By way of example, in Australia as at September 2012 there were 11 million unique Australian visitors to YouTube[1], which is half the population of Australia. In addition, in March alone a record 35 million concurrent users were online using Skype[2].

Consumers are open to using new technologies and channels and are more 'connected' than they have ever been...

Smartphones, mobile devices, smart TVs are among the emerging methods that allow the adoption of video calls possible. By deploying more mobile and visually engaging technology organisations will be better able to deliver services via channels that consumers are already using in their personal lives and therefore improve customer service delivery.

Footnote references:

1. http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-september-2012/

2. http://blogs.skype.com/en/2012/03/35_million_people_concurrently.html

Picture this:

Beanbag-filled meeting rooms, ping-pong tables and a free cafeteria... does this sound like a place you currently work at? Yes, if you work in an organisation like Google which is the number one workplace in the US.

 
Recently I attended site tours run by the ATA in Australia and had the chance to visit a couple of contact centres in Sydney.
 
In particular at iinet I found the physical work environment quite different to many contact centres that I have visited in my 10+ years in the industry.
 
Plants, comfortable sofas, bright colours and xbox consoles were some of the 'cool' things on show at this centre. I don't know about you but this would certainly make me want to come to work everyday!
 
Gone are the days where contact centres are stereotyped by young students working part-time, corded headsets, grey cubicles with papers pinned to the walls.
 
Contact centres these days have people of all ages, workstations with medium height divider walls and wireless headsets. 
 
With the high levels of attrition in the contact centre it is becoming harder and harder to retain staff. Ofcourse the number one retention strategy for contact centres is to offer flexible working conditions, however, more and more contact centres are making the workplace fun and enjoyable in order to attract and retain staff. A fun and relaxed atmosphere will also ensure staff engagement levels are high and will feed through to how they respond to customer enquiries, thereby improving the level of customer service provided.

It seems like everyone is talking about Big Data these days – including those in the customer service industry.

Firstly a quick definition: Big Data is terabytes of semi-structured log data in which businesses use to find correlations, perform advanced statistical analysis in order to assist with decision making.

Big Data is beneficial to the customer service industry in many ways. It provides organisations with large volumes of customer data that they have never had access to before. This data may stem from multiple data sources including research, retail, Internet, social media, financial, contact centres, and internal line of business sources. Best thing is, Big Data is continuously growing! According to IBM 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every day.

This customer data allows for new ways to improve the customer experience by understanding the customers better in order to drive satisfaction, retention and loyalty.

The challenge for organisations is the difficulty in analysing this Big Data – primarily due to Big Data stemming from multiple data sources (multiple format/multiple businesses) and the unconstrained growth of this data.

Ofcourse there are technology providers and tools out there that may be able to assist, however these can become quite costly considering the complex nature of Big Data. Nevertheless have a look at Hadoop which provides a fault-tolerant, distributed storage system and an exhaustive analysis technique for huge distributed data sets, at an affordable cost.

With customer service being in the top 2 strategies for contact centres in Australia and New Zealand, Big Data may prove to be valuable in assisting contact centres achieve their customer service goals.

P.S. Keep an eye out for the upcoming release of the Fifth Quadrant Customer Service Industry Contact Centre Strategy Report, to learn more about the strategies being adopted by the industry.

 

A couple of weeks ago this story caught my attention.

In short, a Japanese Airline would not accept complaints during flights, instead advising customers to direct their complaints to public organisations such as the National Consumer Affairs Center.

This is appalling!!

Sure, in the airline industry you would compete on price, on-time schedules and safety – however customer service I would have thought should be up there too, especially considering the strong service ethos of the Japanese people.

Considering that this particular airline specifies as part of their business objectives to “create a competitive environment, and contribute to enhancing customer satisfaction”, then this no complaint policy during flights would seem to be somewhat contradictive.

Customer service is no longer defined or clustered per industry, customer service is now driven by the consumer – who will have an expectation of service based on their interactions in their life, what they expect from a Bank, a Telco, a Supermarket will be the same level of service, and as different industry verticals continue to improve their customer service levels, the consumer will have higher and higher expectations.

This is also evident in the consulting work we do, organisations are requesting to be benchmarked against 'best practice' not by industry, or by seat size – there is consumer-driven need to keep up with what is happening in the wider customer service industry, not simply within their competitive set.

Just to finish off the Japanese Airline story, under pressure, this airline recently agreed to revise at least the part of its guidelines regarding complaints.