A Thoughtful Thursday Episode. On Thoughtful Thursday we discuss deep thoughts including overarching strategy and organizational structure.

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The Socially Supportive Podcast is Part of the C-Suite Radio Network.

Announcements:

• Catch me on Twitter! @FSaucier

• New Book coming soon: What Customers Want

“Make your product easier to buy than your competition or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.” – Mark Cuban

Book of the Day: The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty – Rick DeLisi and Matthew Dixon

Reducing Customer Effort 

• Why Is It Important?
  • Ameyo quotes Walker research with a statistic indicating that Customer Experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by the year 2020.
  • This makes sense as price and product become more commoditized
  • Any advantage is worth pursuing
  • Effortless customer service is memorable. Very memorable.
• 5 Steps to Reduce Customer Effort 
  1. Complete a journey map (see Episode 31 – Journey Mapping)
  2. Locate the pain points where customers are putting forth large effort
  3. White board ideas to alleviate that pain
  4. Create and deploy test plan
  5. Measure results and adjust accordingly
• What are Some Examples of Pain Points and Possible Solutions?
  • Pain Point: Asking customers for information you already have
    • Solution: Make it standard procedure for reps to look up information for customers
  • Pain Point: Transferring customers
    • Solution: 
      • Empower agents to fully resolve common issues
      • Allow agents to function as concierge to be single point of contact for customers
  • Pain Point: Being given the wrong information
    • Solution:
      • Train agents fully and regularly
      • Ensure agents report missing or incorrect information when they find it
  • Pain Point: Telling customers you can’t help them
    • Solution:
      • Don’t do that. Seriously.
      • Ensure that agents can resolve all reasonable common requests easily and efficiently
      • For unusual requests, allow agents to take great pains to assist customers
      • Make it a very rare occasion and only for unreasonable requests that customers are told you cannot help

Brought to you by:

• The Social Pack: Get on the inside to stay on the topside. Join today!
• ParknFly: Save 10% off Posted Rate Reserve Now 
• bluehost: The Best Web Hosting for just $3.95/month, bluehost is the #1 recommended web hosting by WordPress.org. Every account features 1-click WordPress installation. Plus, bluehost’s trained, in-house experts are there to help 24/7. Their robust help center includes guides, video tutorials and more. You can try them and love them, or get a refund within 30 days fo signing up. Your satisfaction is their top priority and they’re confident you’ll be pleased with their services. Click here to learn more:
• Ticket Liquidator:  Concerts, Sports Theater tickets. Buy or sell!
• GoldMedalWineClub.comWine of the Month Club Award-winning wines delivered to your doorstep every month. They never feature bulk wines, private labels, or close outs. Each selection is a genuine, small-production wine crafted by a winery with their family’s reputation on the line in each and every bottle.
• CraftBeerClub.com: Good People Drink Good Beer. Get the finest craft beers from America’s best microbreweries delivered to your door! They search out exceptional craft beers from around the country and then deliver the monthly beer club selections direct-to-you or your gift recipient’s door. You can choose an ongoing beer club membership or Craft Beer Club gifts to ship monthly, every-other-month or even quarterly. This is a fantastic gift for the Craft Beer enthusiast in your life. Give 1 to 12 shipments and receive up to 3 bonus gifts and an additional $25 bonus with your order.
• OneTravel: Search and compare flights from over 450 airlines.

Jobs

• Have a job opening? Email Frankie@SociallySupportive.com and I’ll post it to the site.
• Looking for a spot? Email Frankie@SociallySupportive.com and I’ll share your resume (privately) with potential employers.

Who’s Doing it Well?

• Is your team doing great work? email Frankie@SociallySupportive.com and I’ll post it on the site; maybe discuss it on the show.
• Someone else’s team knocking it out of the park? Want their leader on the show? Email Frankie@SociallySupportive.com and I’ll ring them up!