#217 - Get Out of Wrap TV - why are customer satisfaction scores still low ?

[00:00:21] Hello and welcome to the 93rd show of Get Out of Wrap TV, the 18th of February. Is it me or is February going a lot quicker than January when? But it's great to be back, it's good to be here. If you are here please do say hello.

[00:00:45] Let's start with I couldn't do this show or pretty much anything else without my partners and that is Better Outsourcing. Had a great catch up with Rich Knox yesterday, they're doing some amazing things. They're fully committed to their team leaders, they're trying to be super super positive. Love working with them and also the forum. What's not to love about the forum? Those guys are awesome.

[00:01:13] The legend that is Chris Rainsforth and Phil and Dave and the whole team always putting out great content and here to help everyone in our industry. So we're live, we're here. How is everybody getting on? I should, I should say the usual health and safety. I've done that today's show is brought to you by Better Outsourcing and the forum.

[00:01:41] If your comments are not showing, I'm not ignoring you. Please just refresh LinkedIn. Hopefully LinkedIn and StreamYard will get better connected so that I see all of the comments that do come up when you are writing them.

[00:02:00] Although saying that no one has said hello yet. What is going on? I always have a bit of fear around this that I'm not actually saying anything. That there's no one that there's no one watching. If you are, please do say hello. I had to go through a whole show once where there was no connection and it was very disconcerting.

[00:02:28] Oh, few. Aman, thank you very much. Good morning. Aman, all things quality and more doing amazing stuff. I recommend getting in touch with Aman if you want to talk about some of the stuff that they're doing there. Aman, good to see you. I hope you are well. Well, let's kick off. Maybe this will. Oh, Lewis is here. Good morning. Hi, Lewis.

[00:02:53] And we shared a chat yesterday, didn't we, about the streets. We both love the streets. Tomorrow, Lewis is doing his Wednesday wisdom. Nice videos. Really interesting. So do keep them up, mate. Hi, Lewis. Marianne. Marianne, good morning. Super to be here this morning. Marianne with us. Probably one of the busiest people I know.

[00:03:19] More power to you. Catherine. Hello, Catherine. How are you? How's things in the fab world? Of course, Catherine works with the amazing Double G. Okay. Alan, Alan Donaghy. Good morning to one and all. Running a contact center to do with all things golf. Lovely, lovely guy. And very, very knowledgeable.

[00:03:47] Nathan is here. Hello, Nathan. We've caught up recently. Nathan, super, super generous. Nathan's consultancy give 10% to charity. And actions speak louder than words. And Nathan is a man who wants to wowzers. Yeah. Pavements, please, for me. Oh, Charlotte is here. Hi, Charlotte. Saw you the other day at DDC. All thing comms, marketing. Charlotte's awesome. Absolutely awesome.

[00:04:18] I'm assuming... Yeah, okay. Morning, Martin. I get called Mark quite often. And Mart, which is always confusing for people. I quite like Mart, as you can tell, other way. There. There we go. So, there's other people here now. A few. So, we can start with... What do you do every day that makes you happy?

[00:04:43] This is a chance for us all to get to know each other a little better. But what do you do every day that makes you happy? Oh, and Nathan, I will check out what you said yesterday. I'm snowed under. And that goes to anyone that's contacted me recently. I will get back to you. So, what do you do every day that makes you happy? Keep it clean, people.

[00:05:12] Sorry, I was doing two things at once. Fault of the job. I think we can all relate to that. I just appreciate that one of those things is that you are here with us, Charlotte. Do make use of the networking bar as well that comes up on LinkedIn. Because that is a chance for you to grow your own networks with some awesome, awesome people. Catherine is kicking us off. Eat good food. Oh, that's a cracker.

[00:05:42] That is a cracker. Do you make it yourself, Catherine? Or is it something that you buy in? What's your favorite? What's your go-to? But that is a good one to kick us off. What do you do every day that makes you happy? I would have to say, I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing Hugo chasing a ball and running back with it. It's like he's done it for the first time.

[00:06:10] In his head, you can just tell he's just going, yes. Yes. Yes. And I love that. Oh, Aman. Yeah, good one. Aman says, eating chocolate and listening to music. Yes. The power of music is an amazing thing, isn't it? And you can't go wrong with eating chocolate. Dark chocolate is my favorite. Catherine, come on. What do you cook yourself? I'm interested. Marianne Withers, talk to people, make them smile and always hug Kane.

[00:06:40] What a lovely sentence that is. Well, Tracy is here. Tracy Newton says, I play music first thing before I start working. Current happy song is the Ali McBeal theme tune. Showing my age. I remember Ali McBeal. I love that. That's amazingly and brilliantly random, which I'm all in for. 100%. Tracy, I think that's great. Alan says, I walk my dog.

[00:07:09] He's a cantankerous, argumentative little sort, but the dog's out of K. Good one. Good one. What's the dog called again, Alan? I do like to know names. I don't know about you, but there's so many people that I walk past most days. And I know the name of their dog, but I don't know their name. They're just dog's owner. Flynn's mum.

[00:07:38] Flynn's dad, for example. Lewis Murphy says, morning coffee. Yeah, can't go wrong. That reminds me. I need my Nespresso machines broken. I don't know if Dan Cohen's on. Morning coffee and listening to my two-year-old daughter explain how busy her day is going to be. What a gold. You are in the midst of a golden time. That age when their personalities start coming out is just fantastic, isn't it? Ah, Catherine. Thank you very much.

[00:08:07] Catherine Elias says, I cook a lot of meat and pasta. Oh, yeah. Lovely. Lovely. I'm with you on that as well. I do have to. I've one of the things I've got to try and sort out is my my diet. I don't get many vegetables. None at all. Darren Gracie. Good to see you. It makes me happy when my kids tell me about their day. Easy with my youngest. My oldest isn't a sharing. That is a cracker, isn't it?

[00:08:37] It's great when they do explain. And then there's a moment when they hit an age where they, you know, like, how should they be boring or whatever? It's like a puzzle to unlock. It's a very good way of testing your questioning skills. Can you ask open questions but get a teenager to talk? Here we go. Alan Gizmo. Oh, I love it. He is a Yorkshire Terrier who thinks he is a great Dane. Yeah.

[00:09:03] Some of the dogs that Hugo is not super friendly with because they're pretty aggressive are all the small ones. There's one coming that's literally that big and it just wants to fight. Hugo looks at me like, what do I do with this? Just walk on by, mate. Walk on by. So what do you do every day that makes you happy? We've had some crackers already. As I mentioned, much like Alan, mine is just walking the dog.

[00:09:32] Seeing Hugo run back with the ball is one of the best things ever. It's just his expression. And I'm inserting what I think he's thinking into his brain. Hopefully we can have some nice conversations today. It was a suggestion from a good friend of mine, Peter. I don't know if he's here, but he said, look, I really enjoy the conversations. So I'm going to start with a question for you all.

[00:10:00] And you guys never cease to amaze me with how well you know the industry and how insightful you are about where we are at the moment. So here's my question. We've never had better tech. We have more CX experts than ever. So why are we not seeing customer satisfaction go up? Morning, Darren.

[00:10:28] I think that's come through my end a little bit late, I'm sure. But it's great to see you, my friend. So my question for you all for us to chat about. We've never had better tech. And it's more accessible than ever. We have more CX experts than ever. Why are we not seeing our customer satisfaction go up? And I could have included on every level, whether that is how we recruit, how we train.

[00:10:58] We've progressed. We're more progressive than we've ever been in our industry. And I don't mean maybe there's a question here, right? When I say we've more CX experts than ever, I'm not being facetious. There are plenty of people who have some really, really interesting views on CX and share it regularly on LinkedIn. And, of course, we've got great tech.

[00:11:26] The tech is far better than it's ever been. So why are we not seeing customer satisfaction go up? Because by any measure from any organization, our stats as an industry are pretty low. Now, of course, you can get into that.

[00:11:45] And it could be that the feedback is about the brand, but not necessarily the contact center and how they've dealt with the customer. The scores are more reflective of a customer's view of the brand. And that could be a product or a service rather than the operation that they're dealing with. Alan Donaghy says, you know what I'm going to say, Mark?

[00:12:12] Too much focus on tech, not enough focus on people. Best way to save money is to invest it early in your squad. And, Alan, I am not surprised. And I totally agree with you. You are consistently been banging this drum. And good for you for doing it.

[00:12:31] Whilst I said we've got more progressive, you know, there's so many great training providers out there who have really started to deliver training around emotional intelligence and how to be more resilient. And some real key things that we didn't even consider when I was on the phones or when I was a team leader.

[00:12:54] However, to your point, senior leaders do seem to be fixated with tech and thinking tech is the only answer. It's a part of the answer for sure. So from Alan's point of view, too much focus on tech, not enough focus on people. Best way to save money is to invest it early in your squad. Because you wonder, don't you?

[00:13:20] Another question I could have asked is, will we ever see a point where our attrition levels across our industry start to drop? Because for many, that is a real challenge. It's an ongoing challenge. It never seems to change. But we lose talent.

[00:13:37] Actually, I was having a really interesting discussion yesterday around with Rich from Better up there, over there, around do we think there's something with the latest generation of people coming into our industry who don't want to progress? And is that a concern? Is this a problem for the future?

[00:13:59] The very near future, because if we have people who are customer-facing team members right now, that doesn't seem to be the same gusto about becoming a team leader. Certainly from contact center leaders I'm speaking to, it's becoming a real concern. Marianne, Marianne Withers. Because if everyone is an expert, then we have no experts.

[00:14:27] That's such a lovely, you're smashing it today. Everyone says they are an expert these days. Also, it's not just about the tech. It is about a proper entwined tech strategy with people strategy. Then there is the culture and values of the company, the environment. I could go on and on. And you've seen through my question, which is there are so many variables, Marianne, as you mentioned. I do love this.

[00:14:57] If everyone is an expert, then we have no experts. Tracy Newton says, great tech alone doesn't guarantee high customer satisfaction. It's all about how it's implemented. Great point. Supported and integrated into the customer experience. That's so important, isn't it? I'm sure even in our own households, right? We have not fully utilized the tech that we have because we haven't implemented it properly.

[00:15:26] We haven't been supported and we haven't integrated it. And the same is true in our industry, isn't it? Ah, Double G is here. Gary Gormley. Brilliant question. Thank you, my friend. I'd love to hear your views on this. Aman says, I agree we have less experts in specific fields and more jack of all trades. This then dilutes coaching skill sets. That's really, really good point.

[00:15:52] Coaching experts are very, very sought after, aren't they? These are coming in thick and fast now. Alan says, make the training neat, sharp and informative, but also inspires people to become inquisitive. Love that. And ask why. Some of the best ideas I've heard have been from people new to the business and just simply ask, why do we need to do that? So powerful.

[00:16:17] So powerful to utilize people that are brand new and to actually listen to them and say, why do you do it this way? Lewis says, there's a rush to adopt the latest tech when in fact the fundamentals need work. People are great. Invest in making your people's lives easier. Customers just want correct answers quickly. Lewis, Murphy, I love that. Correct answers quickly.

[00:16:42] We know if we can deal with first call resolution and answering the contacts quickly, that is the biggest frustration for customers. So you'd think if we deal with that, then we would see a corresponding uptick in customer satisfaction. Dennis, Dennis Parker, how are you, my friend? Customer experience is so wide now. Very true. And personas are converging. CMO, CIO, CDO.

[00:17:10] I have fascinating conversations with CMOs on data and their point of view on CX. It evolves so quickly. Yeah, that's a really, really good point. Similarly to you, whilst looking for partners, I often end up talking to the CMOs and they have some really interesting views on customer experience. So totally agree. What is a CDO? No such thing as a stupid question. This has always been my way.

[00:17:38] But what is a CDO? Answers here, please. Gary says, American CSAT is 78% and UK is 76. And we are trying to squeeze people down a path they don't want to go and make it harder to speak to an agent. Provide the choice. So true. Why are we doing this? Darren Gracie says, organizations have an option to cut costs or reinvest the value realized from better tech utilization.

[00:18:08] Solution X achieves a guaranteed return and increases resource availability by 10%. Do you leverage this to reduce wait time, eliminate abandonment rate, improve agent and customer CX, free up recruitment budget, provide more coaching and development, etc., etc.? Or do you cut headcount by 10%? I would always opt for reinvesting the value, but not everyone makes this choice. Really good point, Darren. Darren.

[00:18:38] Gary, Gary Gormley says, we need more customers around the board table. Yeah, love it. To have a better and more structured approach to voice of the customers. Layered with listening to the voice of the employee. They have all the answers. That seems to have sort of disappeared a little bit. I can remember maybe five years ago, customer groups became really, really important. How you've got your customers in a room, a virtual room, a room in person and listened to them.

[00:19:08] And that the senior leaders of these companies were there and listening. So I totally agree. See less of that these days. Amandip says, businesses still have the need to implement changes quickly rather than effectively and with considerations of consequences. Very, very true. Dennis. Good to hear. Good. Thank you, mate. Good. Good, good, good. Been too long. CFO's rule. Yes, they do. Rachel.

[00:19:37] Rachel Schaefer. Good to hear you. Chief data officer says, Gary and Alan. Confirmed by Dennis. Snap, says Alan. Thank you, Amand. So, yes. Thank you, guys. Chief data officer. Wowzers. Wowzers. Again, whole new roles. New roles, certainly in the last five years. And Dennis, as you say, they're converging, aren't they?

[00:20:07] They're converging. So, again, you could probably add that to this question. We have all of these new roles. We're getting more scientific about our approach, whether that's data, specialization, how we structure our organizations. Yet, we still aren't seeing customer satisfaction go up. Of course, the one area we haven't considered is how much of this is customer behavior and expectations.

[00:20:38] Some of the research I did with Calabrio, we asked, do you think customers' patience has changed in the last 12 months? And there was no, generally, the answer was no, it's the same. With some saying patience has reduced, others saying it's increased, others saying it's the same. You know, we're five years past that period where we were all in it together during the pandemic and customers were like, yeah, take your time.

[00:21:08] Look, we understand you guys are scrambling to get to us, so take your time. But customers now, the demands, the immediacy that's required. And are they right, actually, to call us out on how they interact with us? Because to Gary's point earlier, we're making it difficult and we shouldn't. We've got more choice than ever. Rachel, you're dead right. Rachel Schaefer says, wonderful comments here, very true.

[00:21:36] Gary says, so many new roles, yet we quibble about hiring an agent to answer the phone. Yes, I was going to say, we've got too many chiefs. Because there's a theme running through a lot of your comments, right, which is kind of keep it simple. We know some of the things that can have an impact, yet we are perhaps overcomplicating it. But let's get people in, let's train them, motivate them, and let's make the customer journey nice and simple.

[00:22:05] Utilizing all the different channels that we have. Being delivered by great tech. And to get that kind of all aligned, where Gary, again, I think you mentioned, let's get customers in a room. Let's hear the voice of the employee. Throw all of these things in and come up with processes that enable us to, and as Lewis mentioned,

[00:22:31] get to our customers quickly, deal with their question, and happy days, right? So Contact Babel said, didn't they, one of the stats that we looked at a few weeks ago, or we've done 93 of these shows, so we may have looked at it a few times. But the single biggest frustration, which then manifests itself in customer satisfaction scores,

[00:22:56] is waiting too long to speak to someone, or waiting too long to chat to someone. That is the area we should be focusing on. Jake Barnett, Gary Gormley, second that. He agrees with Gary's point about new roles of we quibble about hiring an agent. And Jake, congratulations on your new role. I saw that on LinkedIn, so well done, sir. Gary says, fix the basics, deliver today, build for the future, in that order.

[00:23:26] That sounds like Gary's making a play to be, you're going to form a new political party, because that could be your tagline. I'd vote for you, Gary. Fix the basics, deliver today, build for the future. Gary Gormley, MP for Chorley. I don't know if that's where you're from. I just said Chorley, Gary. Please do keep these comments coming. Such a critical area for us, isn't it?

[00:23:53] Because we often talk about changing the perception of our industry. This is how we do it. This is how we do it. We deliver for customers consistently. Darren says, Darren Gracie says, there's organizations who recruit up to 20% more people than they actually need to ensure they can always answer the phone within 10 seconds. They intentionally invest more to guarantee quality of service and adhere to service levels.

[00:24:23] I love that. You're welcome, Jake. Congrats. Thank you for being here. And I imagine you're in the throes of that induction and getting to know your new company. The contact center party, says Gary. We would be a niche party. Notice I've already included myself in that. I can be your deputy like John Prescott to your Tony Blair. Yeah.

[00:24:50] I'm sort of small and rough around the edges. You're tall and polished and debonair. This could work quite well. I don't think we'd get many votes, but maybe we'd get enough to be significant. That's the thing. Yeah. I think we'd certainly offer a better choice than what we currently have. And I'm not talking about the current government. They're far better than the previous one. I just mean political parties as a whole. Okay.

[00:25:20] Swiftly moving on. Gary says, who are these people, Darren? Ah, Spencer's here. Spencer Collins, sorry for the delay. We talked about it last week, but do check out Roger Voice. They're not a partner of mine. I'm not being paid to say this, but I've seen the difference they've made to Spencer and others in the deaf and hard of hearing community.

[00:25:43] We have an onus in the contact center world to be there for people who cannot communicate the same way as the majority of our customers and to be truly inclusive. And this is where tech can help. So do get in touch with Spencer. Martin, two jags. I wish. Martin, one Skoda at the moment. Okay. Changing the mood slightly.

[00:26:13] I need your help. It's been a while since I've had any new merch. So I've done a couple of designs and I would like to know your preference. A or B. So I've been messing about with Get Out A Wrap t-shirts. Maybe it could be neither. I don't mind. But if you had to choose between A or B.

[00:26:39] Darren says, Gary Gormley, Moneypenny for one. Certain banking clients of ours who don't have an IVR, the call goes straight to the agent. Moneypenny do amazing stuff. I've been lucky enough to spend some time there many years ago. But I do watch them with interest. Skoda's built to last. Yeah, mine's like a rallying car. I literally don't care about it. But it does. It does the job. I'm not a car buff, if I'm honest.

[00:27:08] You can tell that by the state of it. Not the inside. The inside's full of football equipment. Anyway, A or B. What do you prefer? I could, of course, do both. But I wanted to get your opinion on these new, potentially, potentially new Get Out A Wrap T-shirts. Which do you prefer? Tracy says, B. Thank you.

[00:27:37] We have one vote for B. Alan is also B. Catherine is B as well. Okay. Yeah. Nice. Because I was undecided. Darren is also saying B. Well, this is a landslide. The stubborn part of me thinks, right, well, I'm going to make A then. But no, I would. A is prettier, but B stands out more.

[00:28:07] Aman, yes, it is prettier, but B stands out more, yes. And that's kind of what it's all about, isn't it? I was going to ask a question, actually, is what kind of stuff should I do in terms of merch? And it wasn't prompted by, albeit it did make me laugh, Gary. I've seen your post this morning, just before I came on, about socks. So maybe I should do some Get Out A Wrap socks.

[00:28:37] Would that be better? Option C. Which is here. Which is, what? Budgie smugglers? Swimming trunks ready for the summer? Get Out A Wrap swimming trunks? Spencer says, word on the street is that VW Group is merging with a Chinese company, so Skoda is about to come Yokoda. Funny you are. Okay.

[00:29:06] So it seems like it's overwhelming. You'd wear them. The socks or the T-shirts? You'd wear the socks. Get Out A Wrap socks. Yeah, it's not a bad idea. Okay. So moving on. When or what, sorry, is the next event you are going to? In your calendar, this is just a chance for us to share and possibly meet up.

[00:29:33] But what is the next event you are going to? Jake is with B as well. B all day. So it's got to be B then, I think. Look out for that. Look out for getting spammed on your... And with socks. Branded socks. Why not? What is the next event you are going to? And this is also a chance if you have an event that you are organizing to share that as well.

[00:30:01] But what is the next event you are going to? Or maybe you don't have any planned. Rachel says, maybe CCW. When and where is that, Rachel? Because they do quite a few, don't they? All around the world. But thank you for kicking us off. I have been to one of their events, but it was a long, long time ago. I haven't been recently.

[00:30:31] Maybe I should check it out. Ah, Rachel says, going to Gary's event. And the very next comment, the Contact Center Network webinar, 20th of February. Shameless plug. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. My watch has just said I've been playing squash for 20 minutes. Absolutely do check it out, Gary.

[00:30:57] Do check out Gary's Contact Center Network webinar. They're always very interesting. Hey, it looks like the logo has been on a hot watch, says Jake. Yeah. Which is something I do very often. 26th of February is the CloudX launch party, which looks great. They've got a magician. Spencer says the International Confex in Excel. What's that about, Spencer? What is Confex?

[00:31:28] 6th of March is UKCCF with the CCA. Oh, Gary is. See, Gary is in control of his calendar. Then probably rush back to Gary and Ollie event if I have the time. Spencer's a man on a mission. Customer Contact Week digital event. Oh, thank you, Rachel. Sharing the link so we can see the events. Lots going on then, isn't there? Gary will be in attendance in all of them, I think.

[00:31:57] But what is that, Spencer? The International Confex in Excel. I do like an event at Excel. Because if you walk along some of the other halls, there's some really interesting ones. There was a running one the other day that I did when we were there doing the expo last November. There was a running one and I didn't go into it. And talking of that, let me just give you an update on my marathon training.

[00:32:26] And so many of you have already donated. 86, in fact. And I'm very pleased to say I got a message from JustGiving to say we were in the top 10% of fundraisers for the London Marathon. I am running the marathon for ActionAid. They do amazing work around the world for women and girls.

[00:32:52] They work to take women and girls out of poverty. And they also work to get them out of violence and help them when they've been in these awful situations. And the reason I chose them was because of my own girls. But also the fact that for the last four or so years, I've managed and coached the girls' football team. Lovely, lovely charity. Super, super supportive.

[00:33:20] You may have seen my videos on LinkedIn. I'm committed to doing a daily vlog of my training. I'm not yet at the point of... I am enjoying the fundraising, though. And thanks to all of you. Like I say, we're in the top 10%, which is amazing. And that's down to 86 donors.

[00:33:44] And we are also at £2,550, which is amazing. Gary is a networking hustler. Yes, you are. Ah, Marianne is doing International Women's Day. Entrepreneurs in Residence with Portsmouth University. I'm undertaking a workshop as part of this on values, vision and mission. Well, very apt that you mention International Women's Day as I'm talking about ActionAge.

[00:34:15] Age? ActionAid. Sorry. Spencer Collins. Trevor Butterworth. Okay. You guys are talking about the events, I think, aren't you? So, yes, if you can or if you haven't already, if you can donate to ActionAid. I'm always putting the link in the comments of my video. It is running along the bottom, but you'll be a better person than me if you can find it from that.

[00:34:43] But please do carry on watching. It's lovely. It does help me with my motivation. And maybe some of you I'll see on the day itself. If you are in London on April the 27th, the Sunday, I will definitely be in a pub afterwards. Well, we come to the end. We come to the end of the show. Thank you all for your input. Your comments, as per usual, have been amazing.

[00:35:13] I've really enjoyed it. When I, you know, what do you do every day that makes you happy? One thing I can say for certain on a Tuesday is this. And being here with you guys is amazing. So thank you all very much. I hope you have a lovely rest of the day and rest of the week. And I will see you all next Tuesday because I will be doing the show again next Tuesday. I hope you can join me.

[00:35:42] Same time, 10 o'clock on LinkedIn. Bye, everybody.