Comcast, CareerBuilder, HP Provide Customer Experience Wisdom

Call Center IQ's 15th Annual Call Center Week is less than three weeks away. And in anticipation of the largest customer service event in history, we asked some of the program's most accomplished speakers to share essential bits of customer experience wisdom.

Those pithy insights, derived from conversations with standout companies like CareerBuilder, HP, Comcast, Time Warner and Comerica Bank, follow.

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Kyle Cleaver, VP of Global Customer Care & Operations, CareerBuilder

We all know that without our customers we would not be in business, so we definitely owe our professional success in part to them; thus my advice to my peers would be "never forget the value of your customer." Think about I.O.U.:

Important (make every effort to personalize interactions with customers)
Ownership (strive to make all interactions easy and effortless)
Urgency (empower your team to take action)

Heather Rattin, Director of Customer Care, Cars.com

Figure out what really matters to your customers before adjusting any goals or processes. This was a game changer for us, when we realized that certain things we were doing added no value or were missing in satisfaction. Our next effort is to calibrate our internal Quality Assurance metrics and scoring with the Customer Satisfaction data, to ensure we are training and coaching to what impacts the experience most.

Terry Lang, VP Retail, Customer Contact Center, Comerica Bank

Know what’s going on inside and outside of your organization. Day-to-day events, especially in a financial organization, can radically change the call volumes and customer information required at a much faster pace than ever before. Sensationalism in news around bank card compromises, data breaches and other news that questions the security of the banking system will immediately impact the customer’s perception of the bank; whether the bank was involved or not. Being able to rapidly respond to these demand changes both from a consolidated communication and human capital standpoint is tantamount to maintaining customer’s trust in the bank.

Deborah Alvord, Customer Engagement Management, HP

You can have the greatest technology in the world…but without effective and efficient foundational processes in place, the technology will not bring nearly the value that it could, and you will not see the results that you expect.

Graham Tutton, VP of Customer Insights, Comcast

Value is not just Quality and Price. It is heavily impacted by an entire organization and consists of varying elements within customer experiences, "risk" mitigation, emotional benefits/returns, consistency, among other items.

Christopher Cardenas, VP of Customer Care, Time Warner Cable

Customer Service is not rocket science and customer needs are no different from that of our own. Most customers just want someone to take the time to listen to their concern, empathize with the situation and resolve the issue the first time. Any organization that can master these three things will certainly provide first in class customer service.