All Posts By

michael

Mar 20
0
IVR Options

Having the right IVR options

By | Blog, On The Phone

The incorporation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) into telephone systems was an exceptionally innovative idea. Somewhat surprisingly, the technology began as far back as in the 1970’s, but the first editions were far too expensive to be used in the mainstream, and the complexity of the technology meant it didn’t really take off until the 80’s.

Once developers got used to creating IVR technology and when everyday companies could finally afford to implement it in their business, it soon became the norm for people to be talking to recordings on a machine.

As with any technological advance, IVR had its sceptics, and still does today. The fact is, an automated system dealing with your callers and filtering down the ones who really need human attention is incredibly good in theory. However, making this system work to the best of its ability requires a great deal of knowledge, experience, understanding, and – perhaps the most underrated factor – execution.

If you have IVR in place in your business, take a moment to ask yourself this:

  • Do you know, at call centre level, the reasons why most people call?
  • Are the most popular reasons catered for with their own IVR option?
  • Are these options placed at the beginning of your IVR options, therefore reducing caller time and effort?
  • Is the “feel” of the call in-keeping with your brand?
  • Do you play the right music at the right times?
  • Are you aware of the problems your IVR design causes your business?

Also, when IVR was first integrated, it was mainly used to segment calls to different departments within a business. Now, many companies use IVR even though all callers are being routed through to the same agents, creating unnecessary actions for the customer.

The fact is, there are at least 20 areas where your IVR can let your business down and to address them takes a great deal of time and care.

But have you ever wondered why callers can reach boiling point before your agent has had the chance to say a single word? The answer is simple. Your IVR options aren’t providing a pleasant customer journey, and these negative experience may be harming your business more than you thought.

When we worked on a white paper that focused on caller behaviour, we learnt that:

  • 93% of callers don’t speak to the right person first time
  • 55% of callers are likely to hang up if this happens
  • Of the above, 47% are “unlikely” to call you back, going elsewhere

When you consider that you could lose 24% of customers to a competitor for something as simple as your options didn’t allow them to reach the right person on the first attempt, it really does drum home how important your IVR options are. What’s more, statistics show that 80% of customers stay loyal to companies that get this right.

In short, what would you have to lose by having telephony experts look at the format of your IVR journey? It’s an OnBrand custom to offer a caller audit for free, and we can then score your journey out of 200, letting you know how this compares to your closest competitors, as well as offer advice for both short and long-term wins.

Our belief is that a company’s IVR should be reviewed annually, and updated every 1-3 years. The reason for this is the change that naturally occurs within businesses, such as fundamental changes in business functionality, alterations to departments, updates in the brand’s Tone of Voice, and also migrations onto different platforms. With all this in mind, it’s fair to say your IVR can soon become dated, and lack the functionality it did when first delivered.

So don’t delay. Apply for your IVR audit today!

Get my free IVR report                      Get the white paper

Got a question? Get in touch by e-mailing sayhello@onbrand.co.uk or give us a call on 03333 220 022 to find out more about how we can help your business.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

Mar 20
0
Simplifying your customer journey for telephony

Simplifying your customer journey for telephony

By | Blog, On The Phone

One of the most effective ways to improve your telephony channel is to simply think about the main reason your customers are calling. If you record data on incoming calls, you can often see patterns emerge regarding when customers are calling and why. Even if you don’t record data, it’s worth talking to your call agents as they’re the ones on the front line and will have the most accurate idea of what people are saying when they get through.

With the data to hand, all you need to do is ensure that the caller can get through to the right department to resolve their query quickly and simply. Repeat: quickly and simply. Let’s explore that a little:

Quickly

As modern people, we all value our time above anything else, so being able to get things done quickly and effectively always makes us feel good and leaves us feeling energised. It’s true that you may have extremely high call volumes, so waiting for a little while may be inevitable. This is generally accepted and easily forgiven, provided that the caller feels they’re being treated fairly, and they are well looked after once they get through, at the first time of asking.

Simply

It’s important to remember that your callers don’t work for your company, so any slang words to do with your brand or industry should be avoided at all costs, as they’re only likely to confuse. Callers want to easily identify what button to press so they can get through to the right place with no hiccups. And if a large bulk of your callers want the same things, it’s best to ensure the option comes sooner rather than later.

If you have a whole host of options, ask yourself if they all need to be there. Can any of them be condensed? Does pressing 2 actually take them to a different department than if they press 3? If not, why not just drop them straight through to the agent?

Stats Don’t Lie

If your customers are often agitated about the same things, take a moment to ask how you can put this right. Often, the fixes are pretty simple when you take the time to look at the choke points in your journey and consider alternatives.

As a company who prides itself in viewing your business through your customers’ eyes, it’s possible we may see ways of simplifying your caller journey that don’t occur to you because you’re simply too close to it. If that’s the case, get in touch and let us find ways to humanise your telephony channel, helping win customer loyalty.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

Mar 20
1
Centre Managers vs Retailer Managers

Centre Managers vs Retailer Managers

By | Blog, In-Store

“Our research shows that 78% of Brits opt for online shopping rather than going to the High Street or department stores to buy gifts. This is because they find shopping stressful and only a minority find the experience of actually visiting a shop inspiring.”

This quote comes from Professor Heiner Evanschitzky, Director of the Aston Centre for Retail Insights (ACRI) at Aston Business School commenting on poor Jan footfall figures in shopping centres.

This got us thinking “Whose job is it to inspire customers?”

The answer to this can be as complicated as you allow it to be, but ultimately, it’s the shopping centre that gets the credit when a shopper has a pleasant experience and the shopping centre that customers blame when things don’t go according to plan.

With this in mind, wouldn’t it be great to know there’s somebody out there listening to customers on your behalf, understanding what it is they want, as well as how they want it?

Good news: there is.

At OnBrand, we look at your centre through the customers’ eyes, analysing the touchpoints they use to see if they’re getting the right information at the right time.

With over fifteen years of experience in the industry, we’re well placed to know what works, and when we recommend something, we do so knowing that tangible results can be measured and assessed, informing you of the positive results from your shoppers.

Engage your shoppers

A happy shopper is not only likely to return, but it’s very possible they’ll share their positive (and negative) experiences with family and friends. As repeat business and referrals are the two most valuable assets in marketing, ensuring your shoppers remain happy is hugely important.

Engage your retailers

Even if you have a number of flagship stores in your centre, a disconnect between retailers in a mall can be easily sensed by shoppers. It’s the centres that create a sense of harmony and community that stand out the most, and our “joined-up” approach to marketing can be used to have activities and events that make your retailers feel they’re truly part of the same team.

Such is the importance of your shoppers’ happiness that we advise all centre managers to take responsibility for inspiring them, and if you’re a centre manager who needs a little help, that’s where we come in.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

Mar 19
0
Valentine's Day Event

Valentine’s Day comes to Baytree

By | Case Study, Events, Shopping Centres

The Challenge

Baytree Shopping Centre wanted to organise an event that would get people excited for Valentine’s Day, as well as increase centre footfall and drive more people into the retailers.

Enter OnBrand

The event aimed at encouraging people to visit the centre and participate in the day’s activities. An added footfall driver was the Baytree Shopping Centre Valentine’s Day competition, sponsored by several of the centre’s retailers.

We developed a plan to ensure success:

  • A multi-channel marketing plan was implemented including visual and audio advertising
  • Multi-facetted social media marketing and advertising, with paid promotion to a carefully targeted social media audience
  • Retailer engagement resulting in competition prizes and retailer involvement
  • Community engagement, resulting in community partnerships and involvement in the event
  • A day of free and fun activities to drive people into the centre

To ensure that the day went off without a hitch, OnBrand was on hand, and made sure that shoppers, their kids and the centre staff had a great day!

Key Wins

  • The event resulted in increased competition entries
  • Increased the marketing database
  • Family involvement in the event
  • Positive feedback from retailers
  • Improved tenant relationships and engagement
  • Advertising resulted in increased anticipation of the event
  • Expanded event reach with the balloons travelling down the high street outside the centre

What They Say

“The centre had never hosted a valentine event previously so it was with great excitement when we received Onbrand proposal. This event was a huge success and was supported by a record number of competition entries and an incredible increase of 22,000 in website views
The event also allowed the introduction of the fantastic local theatre school, Razzmatazz.
The event video is a feature page on the centre website and shows the shared values and ethos”

Dan Foley – Manager of Baytree Shopping Centre

Mar 19
0
Valentine's Event

Sharing the love at St. George’s

By | Case Study, Events, Shopping Centres

The Challenge

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, St George’s Shopping Centre wanted to organise an event that would get people excited for the day of love, as well as increase centre footfall and drive more people into the retailers.

Enter OnBrand

The event needed to be welcoming and help reinforce St. George’s Shopping Centre’s presence and its caring nature to the community, by encouraging people to participate in the day’s activities. Two primary activities were used to help encourage participation, free face painting for the children and roaming Valentine’s Day themed St. George’s selfie frames, linked to a retailer sponsored competition.

We developed a plan to ensure success:

  • Retailer engagement and participation with a sponsored competition prize and free gifts on the day
  • A day of free and fun activities to drive people into the centre
  • Implementation of a multi-channelled marketing strategy
  • Radio messaging and advertising to promote the event
  • Social media marketing to a carefully targeted audience, including paid advertising

During the day, OnBrand was on hand to ensure everything went smoothly, and that all parties involved, including the staff, retailers and shoppers, had a great day!

Key Wins

  • Excellent event engagement from shoppers and people passing on the high street
  • Local media coverage
  • Great social media engagement before and after the event
  • Advertising resulted in increased anticipation by shoppers
  • Good tenant involvement
  • Increased shopper competition entries for the retailer sponsored Valentine’s Day competition
  • Shopper data captured through competition entries, expanding the marketing database
  • Family involvement in the event – parents and their kids loved the face painting, and the balloons and chocolates handed out
  • Expanded event reach as the balloons and selfie frames travelled up and down the high street outside the centre
Mar 19
0
phone call

5 ways for call deflection to enhance your customers’ experience

By | Blog, On The Phone

There’s a certain irony that although the telephone is still the preferred choice when it comes to customers dealing with your brand, they’re often very happy to go online if it means they can help themselves quicker or more efficiently.

Be warned, though – getting your “deflection” options wrong has the potential to backfire hugely if mishandled. After all, there’s a big difference between giving your customer alternative options and simply fobbing them off.

The key word here is options, and with our top 5 tips, you can highlight how well you’ve incorporated deflection into your IVR.

1. Lay out the alternatives

If large groups of your callers enquire about the same thing, and if the help they need is available online, then make sure you tell them how they can do it themselves. Sure, they might still stay on the line. But they might not. And more importantly, once you’ve educated your callers about the options available on other channels, they may very well “deflect” in the future.

2. Get callers to “be prepared”

If a caller is on a line where they’ll need a reference number, take a few seconds of your “on hold” time to let them know. If it’s left to your agent to remind them, it may take a couple of minutes per call to gather the relevant information, which can add up to be a significant waste of time.

3. Offer a joined service

With customer service, communication is king, and letting your customers know what types of things they can do by deflecting online makes them feel informed. This leads to new sales and upsell opportunities, and as you’re only informing them of what they can do if they want to, it’s not at all intrusive.

4. Be open to viewing your stats differently

Call centres, more than most industries, use statistics to measure their success, but sometimes information can be viewed incorrectly. If “abandoned calls” is something you mark your business down on, make sure you factor in the heighted amount of positive abandonment that can come as a result of deflecting callers away from your agents.

5. Always let the caller end the call

Anyone who has ever had a phone put down on them can attest to how infuriating it is. Therefore, even if a customer’s initial query has been dealt with in your IVR, the smart move is to always assume they may need something else. Therefore, instead of making the call end, you should always provide options such as returning to the main menu or visiting your website for online services. Although the options your offer will include deflection, it still has a magical way of making the caller feel loved.

Adopt these 5 tips to your telephony channel and you’ll be the masters of deflection – but in the nicest possible way.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

Mar 19
0
AI chatbot

AI, Bots, and the human touch

By | Blog, Digital

Like or it don’t, your business will become increasingly dependent on bots. But your first step towards making them something customers want to deal with can actually be straightforward.

Let’s start with the simple stuff. What’s the lowest effort change you can make to instil your lifeless bot with some semblance of humanity? Give it a name.

Siri has a name, Alexa has a name, Cortana has a name. But why?

But crucially, a name is also a connection. A name is humanising. Imagine two AI voice services, identical except that one opens every interaction with ‘Hi, my name’s Maria and I’m a robot.’ I’ll bet dollars to donuts that, for CSat at least, she performs better out of the two.

Beyond that, name is brand, and brand is important when you want consumers to value your product over others. Brand is why Microsoft opted for ‘Cortana’, a reference to a futuristic AI in one of their flagship video games.

Key takeaway: draw three dots on a balloon and it has a face.  The change itself isn’t necessarily what matters – it’s the impression it gives your audience.

Let’s stay with the topic of introductions for a moment. Not just for each interaction, but at the macro level – new technology introduced to consumers. At the moment, we’re rarely telling customers how to use it.

Although auto attendants have been kicking around since the 1970s they are still the cause of a lot of aggravation. Why should that be? Why aren’t customers who grew up using IVR more comfortable with it?

There’s a good chance the blame lies with the designers.  Any bot operates within certain conditions. There are inputs it can use, and inputs that won’t trigger a response.

A UK energy provider has one of the easiest to use IVRs. It will ask you a question, but before you reply it clarifies: ‘you can answer using full sentences, or just list some keywords like meter reading, or billing information.’

Our industry should have been doing this kind of leg work over the last 30 years of widespread IVR deployment. Because we haven’t, we’ve added to customer effort. That’s not just extra clicks or transferred calls, but the mental effort of uncertainty. Am I dumb if I explain my situation to this machine? What am I supposed to say?

You’re probably forming this objection right now: ‘If we’re humanising bots, why draw attention to the artificiality?’

Well, because the object isn’t to trick our customers. When we talk about humanising bots, we’re modelling behaviours that fit with how humans really interact. And something humans do well is establishing rapport, which is a sort of ‘best practice guide’ for talking to one other.

The deaf lady working at my local supermarket will ask you to speak clearly and to face her, so she can lip read. To put that another way, she sets the terms for how to communicate with her effectively.

Key takeaway: Humans are already comfortable with other humans. If you want them to get comfortable with bots, give them (simple) instructions.

So far we’ve only made progress on our opening line – maybe we need to paint with a broader brush.

In an earlier post, I talked about this great quote from Shep Hyken: ‘Kindness and courtesy are at the root of a positive customer service experience.’

If you regularly deal with customers, you can’t hear this enough. But what does it mean for AI?

Superficially, it means they need the vocabulary of kindness and courtesy. I can’t count the number of times an automated system has said something like ‘state your name’ instead of ‘can I take your name please?’

(Is it silly to find that rude? Bots doesn’t know what they’re saying. But then, the industry has had decades to test, refine, and deploy these responses…)

It’s certainly worth making sure your bots are polite. A certain credit provider has various automated payment services with responses ranging from ‘too direct’ to ‘starting a fight’.  We can only assume that they’re not interested in impressing customers who are calling to pay bills – although I wonder how many are paying those bills for the last time before jumping ship.

What about beyond the superficial? The kind of AI we’re talking about will probably not be deliberately courteous – not really.

The courtesy is in how you choose to deploy it. Rather than interactions, think about journeys; are bots a resource for guiding staff and aiding customers? Or a way to save a buck and keep some people off the phones?

Key takeaway: Any asset is judged in the context you give it. Be human-centric in your delivery – your AI strategy – and you’re halfway to humanising the resource itself.

When was the last time you went through the same experience you give customers? Does your IVR measure up? When you take our Customer Experience Audit, you’ll find out.

Feb 26
1

Mother’s Day Messages 2018

By | Campaigns

We’ve created some beautiful messaging options, allowing you to customise the mood of your centre this Mother’s Day!

Feb 01
1
RIP organic search

Facebook just killed Organic Reach – a social game changer?

By | Blog, Digital

If you didn’t spot this news already, Facebook just changed the game significantly. Underneath an announcement to “make sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent”, Mark Zuckerberg effectively just killed organic reach on Facebook.

From now, Facebook friends and family posts will start to take precedent over public content including posts from businesses, brands, and media – prioritising what it calls ‘posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people’.

Facebook will punish posts that try to click bait their audiences e.g. posts with a ‘Tag a friend/Follow us/Comment Yes” as it will see them as worthless.

As an end user that sounds great, less click bait, spam, unwanted posts – but for marketeers, brands and businesses alike, it’s time to rewrite the strategy. Don’t and you’ll be sending your £££’s into social oblivion. Facebook just set it’s intent to move to an ad platform. Cut through is only going to be achieved going forwards by paid social activity.

How? Consider the typical Facebook journey. Brands get you to like their page once, giving them the opportunity to engage with you when their content appears in your timeline, when they post organically on their page. (although only circa 20% of them will see it currently anyhow). What this means is that it will become irrelevant (to a point) how many people like your page, as unless they actually visit your page they will never see the organic content you post there.

Brands will therefore need to pay to get their content in front of their audience and cannot rely on organic feeds reaching them.

The good news is that paid content can be targeted to reach your desired audience, people who haven’t previously engaged with your brand and who otherwise wouldn’t have seen it.

Hopefully it will also improve the quality of content and creativity coming from the industry as well, as by rewarding creativity, it might strike at the heart of mediocre agencies, and get them off their laurels – thus ending the default social media agency fee justification of a post a day.

At OnBrand, we welcome this further maturing of the Facebook platform, as it reflects our path of travel – know your customer – who they are, where they are, and what they want from you. OnBrand social strategies embrace what we believe are the three pillars of a good social strategy – great content, precise and targeted social reach, and tuned into to what your customers truly want.

In summary:

  • Facebook are changing what appears in your news feed
  • Organic reach is over, if you want to increase visibility then paid content is the way forwards
  • Click bait will be punished
  • Engagement and true brand conversations will benefit
  • Creativity and relevance will be rewarded – create content that matters.
Jan 22
1
Beauty Awards 2017 red carpet

Beauty Awards 2017

By | Case Study, Events

The Challenge

When OnBrand were approached, again, to run the Beauty Awards with OK! Magazine we were of course delighted. This year, however, presented a bigger challenge. With 650 guests, 120 high profile celebrities, press and paparazzi and the associated media coverage, it had to be a night the client would remember, and for the right reasons.

The Beauty Awards is, without doubt, the most prestigious date in the beauty calendar, bringing consumers, retailers, celebrities and beauty advisors together with top brands, to determine the industry’s greatest product innovations over the previous 12 months.

This year the gauntlet was also thrown down with a unique venue – a pop-up venue in the ground of the Tower of London which would only be built 2 weeks before the event.

Enter OnBrand

Running an event with multiple and significant stakeholders requires real attention to detail, and our remit this year widened into the following areas:

  • Event Management
  • AV Production
  • Transformation, Branding and Theming the venue for drinks partner: Gancia and Zubrowka
  • Event Security
  • Managing all press – approved and paparazzi
  • Awards music and theming
  • VIP area staging and management
  • Event Operations

As always, preparation is everything, and we created a project plan that was approved by all stakeholders in advance to make for a smooth process on the day. Four site visits, 1200 emails later and we were ready to go live.

Key Wins

  • Full event management
  • High quality AV production
  • Sourced and supplied well known presenters
  • Managed VIP’s
  • Full event logistics
  • Contractor management
  • 100% client satisfaction

What They Say

“The OnBrand team was tasked with both transforming the venue with a very tight lead time, and final branding was only approved 4 days before the big night. On the day logistics went very smoothly – it had to given the heavyweight media exposure, and the expectations of our partners. Daniel Graham and his colleagues together with a whole troop of suppliers partners pulled it off, making The Beauty Awards 2017 with OK! an event that will be remembered by everyone for many years to come. Looking forward to working with you in 2018.”

Tim Langford, Managing Director – Communications International Group