#580: Member Care Goes Where?

Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and also Loyalty TV. If you work in loyalty marketing, you can watch our video interviews every Thursday and Sunday. www. loyalty. tv. And of course, you can listen to our podcasts every Tuesday, every Wednesday, and every Thursday to learn the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.

Today’s episode is part of the Wiser Loyalty Series, which is hosted by our partners, the Wise Marketeer Group. The wise marketeer group is a media education and advisory services company providing resources for loyalty  marketeers through the wise marketeer, digital publication, and the loyalty Academy program that offers the certified loyalty marketing professional or CLMP designation.

I hope you enjoy this weekly podcast, the wiser loyalty series. Brought to you by let’s talk loyalty and the wise marketeer group.

Aaron: Hello everyone. It’s another weekly episode with, uh, Bill Hannafin, the CEO of the wise marketer group and myself, Aaron Dauphiney, the CMO of the same organization. It’s another weekly episode of the wiser loyalty series on let’s talk loyalty with, uh, Bill Hannafin, our CEO.

Welcome Bill. How are you today? Good Aaron, how are you? I’m doing pretty good, not too bad. Uh, myself, Aaron Dauphny, I’m the CMO of the Wise Marketer Group as well, and we’re here to talk with you today about a couple of new constructs from the Little Tech Academy curriculum that we’ve designed for those individuals who are seeking to become A certified loyalty marketing professional or CLP, uh, as we call it for short.

Um, this particular week we’re continuing our journey on into operations, a refreshed course that we’ve been looking at over the last couple of weeks in this month. Uh, and, uh, we’re going to take a bit of a different stab, uh, in terms of how we take, uh, uh, uh, this particular topic to task today around member care.

We’re going to look at, uh, where it resides in the organization. So. And sometimes this gets into a bit of a longstanding debate on where it should go. So it’s a bit of an org design type of lens that we’re putting on things today, as opposed to the mechanics of how you go about organizing, constructing it.

And we’ll touch on that a little bit, but, uh, the focus will be on, you know, setting up the stage for the, um, argument, I guess, or the justification as to, to why it should lean towards operations. So Bill, maybe pop in on that one for sure.

Bill: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it could be said that this is a bit of an orphan topic.

We’ve talked about operations. Overall, and then we were talking about customer care in this case, and we think about it as loyalty marketers. We work really hard to make sure that we put together a strong customer value proposition for the brand. We want to make it work and have the program be effective.

And we have to drive enrollment in the beginning. Got to make it easy for people to join the program without too many challenges or difficulty. And. You know, once people are in the program, the goal is to create engaging moments of interaction that are relevant for the customer and that really establish this, this connectivity that builds tenure, that builds longstanding relationships.

But in the midst of that is customer care and communication is key. So, you know, what happens in customer care, people, people by definition are communicating, they’re calling up with questions, complaints, requests, and they, and they need help. So. Um, when we think about customer care, I think it serves multiple purposes.

Really, it’s not just answering questions and complaints, but it’s an opportunity for people to learn program members to learn more about the brand itself and its products. Um, they get to understand a lot more about how they can improve their experiences with the brand. Um, I look at it as an opportunity to get educated about the brand.

Like, how do I not just what can I buy, but how can I use it? They may have questions along those lines. So there’s an opportunity to explore, um, what opportunities exist to go deeper with the brand to learn more. Maybe that leads to cross category purchase and things like that. So, you know, maybe the last is to is there a community impact?

And so. Maybe there’s a chance to pull people out of the silo of their complaint and bring them into a broader community of people that have common interests. So there’s a lot that can be happening in customer care. These are all the positives, but we also know that relationships aren’t perfect. Uh, this is a difficult area to execute on and so, you know, I’d love to hear your thoughts about some of the challenges and opportunities.

Aaron: Yeah, I love that bill. I think it’s so easy for us when we think about member care, customer care, whichever terminology you want to sit with, um, really focused on the negative side of things, right? Like, uh, but as you pointed out, there are some positive elements that you can come through your member care, uh, programs and, and activations as well too.

So, uh, but, but when you think about it from the perspective of what we traditionally look at when it’s member care, oftentimes, uh, those positive interactions come more from member communications or the member engagement side of the business, which typically resides in a marketing function or, or even, uh, is less more so in this operational side where, um, we think about member care being about problem resolution, right?

Referring, uh, to giving support in some, in regards. And, and so when we’re talking about that support, you know, that is needed to resolve your customer issues within the loyalty program. You know, there are multiple channels that exist for the LULZ program engagement tactics. So the positive side of communications like you talked about, but you really do want to have more distinct channels that are oriented towards knowing how to resolve your customer challenges.

You don’t want them going through all of them. You kind of want to guide them through the journey and give them a little bit of choice. And the reason for that is. It’s really because we know that about 70 to 80 percent, uh, you know, depending on which study you read, of your members, uh, are going to contact you at least once annually on average.

And that’s, that’s quite a bit. Again, that’s an average, of course. But, um, so you may have to, you know, group, uh, one individual who might be contacting you way more than others, and some aren’t contacting you in a given year. So law of averages, as they say. But we also know that upwards of 7 out of 10 customers will continue to do business with you.

If you resolve their customer complaints. So, so there really is a need to make sure that you’re going through this problem resolution effect. And, and the key to delivering, I guess, effective customer care is making sure that members are, are funneled through to the proper people and resources to resolve those issues.

Like it, that just seems like an obvious eddy moment, but it, it is. It is something that needs to be said and, and sometimes, um, as individuals look for this, they can get muddled, uh, in terms of, uh, or the, the, the process of where they should go can get muddled and, and you don’t want that to, to be the case.

You want to make sure that their concerns or challenges of the customers, um, you know, that might be on a brand level or a program level or resolved irrespective of what path they go. Um, And I guess I should maybe clarify that at brand level, I’m  thinking more of if I have a problem with merchandising, like an issue that says an item’s out of stock or, or maybe they’re returning an item versus at a low to program level, we’re talking about maybe they’re inquiring about the points balance after a purchase with a number of promotional items.

So, you know, the two are distinct and it’s why we, you know, separate. Typically teams that manage the brand side versus those that, uh, have inquiries around those programs, we, because they are distinct knowledge, it’s logical for us to organize our, our company and the response in that way and for training purposes and just a knowledge base, particularly when it comes to the human human interactions, whether that’s, you know, human to voice or, you know, Face to face to face or, or whatnot.

But, but increasingly with, uh, the digital competencies that we’ve developed out, whether it’s online chat or, you know, AI search or enhanced, uh, response on FAQs, um, the, there’s an increased usage of digital means to solve problems. You know, whether that’s through the app, right? Websites or online chat, and, and the lines between what.

And how a customer’s concern resolved at a brand level or loyalty program is becoming less and less, um, uh, distinct. And so it’s much more modeled. And the individual, in fact, doesn’t really, I might say, care too much about how you, you organize your back offer support and how it’s structured. Uh, all they know is they just want to have their issue addressed you, you to help them.

Uh, in some way and, and that whether they’re contacting the brand again at that product level or sales level, uh, to find a store or, you know, uh, whatnot, uh, down through to the loyalty program, which might be more about like, how do you manage my reward program or how you enroll me into a new product or program that, that may be a section of the program.

Bill: I was listening to you talk, Aaron, and you. Even the nomenclature has changed because I noticed you’re talking about a contact center, not a call center. And I assume that’s because you were thinking about we’ve extended beyond the traditional call center. I mean, I think that was your intent, right? The multi channel, the digital.

Era is here upon us. I mean, I, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I [00:09:00] think there’s only maybe been three waves of development and call center in the, in the beginning. It was purely call center dial a toll free number to get to somebody, answer your question. Then it moved on to the web, but really it was web meeting, fill out a form.

So you just had a digital way to, to, instead of sitting in a call queue, fill out a form, hopefully you got an answer. We know that that didn’t happen consistently for quite a long time, but now we’re in a brand new era. And I think that’s really where we want to focus is that. What are we looking at today?

What’s the future going to bring? What’s going to be the influence of AI on on customer care and customer communication? So, um, you know, I, I think for 1 thing, this, the nuances between delivering customer care for brand related questions or loyalty related questions. I think they’re going to be. They’re going to be brought together and use your word coalesce those 2 functions, bring them together.

Um, you know, these systems have to be designed in a manner that they can really respond to any type of question.

Aaron: That’s right.

Bill: And people should feel as though, you know, if I have brand questions, that’s great. If they recognize me as a loyalty member, even better. And but, but the people on the other end.

Digital or human should be able to address questions across the board. Um, because even though we have different information on different different applications, you might have some on the website. Some on the app, you know, those 2 bodies of. Of knowledge and research need to be brought together. So I think that’s what people are looking for too is.

You really want to try to avoid a situation where. You can only get certain types of questions answered on the mobile app. But if you wanted to answer, ask something else. Oh, now I have to go to the website. Well, no, that’s that’s just not that’s not acceptable anymore. So that’s I don’t think it’s table stakes, but because I’m not sure everybody is there yet.

Yeah, but it should be there and. Um, I mean, we just saw some research that said 76 percent of consumers are frustrated with businesses when they don’t experience personalized interaction. So that  just shows you people. They really don’t care. They want if they go to the mobile app, they go to the website.

However, they choose to contact the brand, they’re expecting to be recognized and to get some level of response that’s specific to them. And, you know, there’s. I think there’s forgiveness on the part of customers when an issue isn’t resolved, like maybe dealing with a product return or when somebody is interacting with the loyalty program app and they can’t, um, you know, maybe they redeem points and now they want to put them back in the bank and they had a little trouble doing that.

You know, um, most, most people understand that you’re going to have some speed bumps, but their expectations, let’s face it, these days are extremely high.

Aaron: That are rising for sure. Yeah,

Bill: it’s rising. The expectations are high. Um, people want what they want, and they want it in any channel that they want. So, um, you know, I might say that if you’re.

Uh, in a call center type of interaction, there could be more forgiveness for what transpires there. Maybe because you’re talking with a specialist and maybe you get some sort of a. Confidence level, and the fact that there’s a human there that will actually take notes and follow up, but. One of the things I think that’s still just really odious is, um, this, this transferring of like, how many times have we been Through through a call tree asked to input all of our information, explain our situation and then being told, like, let me transfer you.

And it’s really more times than not. It’s really not a warm transfer. It’s a transfer and then you get to start all over again. So, a lot of brands are using self service as a result, and they’re trying to make it happen. But I Gartner report that said that 73 percent of customers. Who’ve used self service at some point in time in their customer journey.

Only 14 percent of them said that they were able to fully resolve their customer care issues. So a lot of  people are using it only 14 percent happy. And then even for the issues, the report went on that customers describe is very simple in quotes. Only 36 percent even said they could resolve that sort of self service issue.

So, so there’s obviously promise in AI and AI conversational chatbots and these sorts of things, but their capacity right now for accuracy and, and just breadth of knowledge is not quite there yet. So I think there’s a couple of things to give attention to, and then I’ll, I’ll let you maybe sort of take us home on this, but I just think the customer’s journey has to be simplified.

Not too many overlapping channels. Um, not disparate bodies of knowledge, but but tightly integrate and give people 1 point of contact where they can get really anything that they need. So if there are organizational silos, they’ve really got to be, you know, if they exist, they’re going to be transparent to the customer.

In other words, if you still insist on having something organized that way. Great. But don’t the customer shouldn’t have to be [00:14:00] suffering as a result of that. So, um, and then I think that. One sort of truism that I read this also in a report, but I think it’s a good statement that we should keep in mind is we should recognize that the adoption of AI for customer care is probably going to lag behind its ability to innovate and really deliver until the AI industry becomes more trusted.

So there’s that aspect of it too. People, people are still getting their warm and fuzzies from talking to a human being. So, um, maybe, maybe the standard you could say at this point in time is even higher for. type of app, um, because people, you know, if I’m not going to get to talk to a human, then the thing better be comprehensive and accurate.

Aaron: That’s, that’s interesting to me in terms of the application, uh, that getting to the standard of trust, because in the, you know, human to human interactions, you know, whether it’s voice only or, or visual, um, you know, they, they really, they are at a point where. That’s why I go to them is because [00:15:00] I hope that I have a trusted individual across from me that will be able to resolve it.

I have the contact point as opposed to self service, as you noted on, on a web or on an app, uh, on my own, that someone’s written and doesn’t have the context of why I might be coming to the brand or the, or to the loyalty program to, to, you know, ask questions, seeking, seeking understanding and, or get something resolved.

And so. You know, this idea of the back office sharing and automation needs to become much more of a priority so that irrespective of what type of interaction, like I said, if they’re, you know, in the call center or the contact center, pardon me, or if they’re, you know, using a two way social online or AI chatbots or enhanced self serve, whatever it might be, that customer expectation is really coming down to having the issue resolved in a reasonable timeframe.

Uh, and to an acceptable solution. And then I think, as you noted, with the least amount of pass offs, right? That really is what it comes down to. It’s like, I don’t want to hop through a number of steps. I want to have as minimal a number of steps as possible. So, um, [00:16:00] this is one of the reasons I think that, you know, as we’ve talked about the past few weeks, with operations teams being in that quarterback role in an organization, that there really is sound reasoning for the member care team and the associated channel points of interaction around providing support to your customers are aligned into an operations mandate.

Um, you know, when we talk about the capabilities that member care must have in our, in our courseware, it’s effectively a similar list to what the operations team members we list out, you know, they have to have access to multiple systems. If not, if not all of them, quite frankly, they’ve got to have deep knowledge of the, the loyalty program and T’s and C’s as well as the brand itself.

They’ve got to. have deep knowledge of how to earn redeem bonus points and offers and all those personalized offers and everything. Um, you know, understanding of your tier systems and any parameters that might be affecting someone to achieving those tiers or causes for a downgrade from them. Um, a whole understanding around rewards, redemptions, uh, no matter what type of redemption option that might be.

Um, and then it gets into like the seamlessness of being able to transfer between your partners and brand agents. So it’s not just about, um, you, if you, you got a program where it’s interacting with other partners, being able to resolve outside the organization as well as within it, because it’s a holistic view that the, you know, It individual vendor or customers taking around the program’s operations.

And then, and then the last of course is, is of course being able to manage those issues that need escalation, whether it’s points missing, uh, points missing or points expiry or something wrong with the currency, um, or technical issues and support, you know, for web actions, mobile apps being down, registration process, um, all the like, um, and for me what it really comes down to is a, is a, is a group that really has, you know, if I take one thing away.

Both the autonomy and the authority to just make it right. I think that’s the take home I would say and, and, and if you’ve got that it’s structured in a group that has all eyes and interaction points to the other groups, you know, merchandising, marketing, technology, um, of legal, finance, whatever it might be to be able to then bring it together as a QB to make it right.

I think that that’s really the statement. I’d say autonomy and authority to make it right is really what we’re talking about. And that’s why the operation makes sense.

Bill: That’s good. So, I mean, with with that list, which is really comprehensive, I’d say we agree that member care, given all those attributes really should be housed in operations.

And I know that you could. You can, you can make an argument say, it should be in marketing, or you should have a specialty part that’s just reportable to the loyalty management group, or maybe it should be in another area of some specifically some call center management. But I think operations gives it that quarterbacking type of oversight and stewardship and.

It’s really a place for it to be. So, um, actually this is what we get into a lot in the new course we have on operations and we go in depth on, on some of these options and we, we have more time to rationalize various arguments there, but not today.

Aaron: well, I think that’s kind of it in terms of what we wanted to talk about.

This is a little bit, as I said, a little bit of a different lens that we took. So summer’s closing out, uh, here in the, at least the Northern hemisphere, for those of you listening. It might be a little bit different. Um, and next week, uh, we’re heading into September as it falls upon us, uh, kind of course intended when it comes for me like that.

Um, but we’ll be looking to build on this conversation more. Uh, and, and actually, as we look to put new material into place on a refreshed loyalty market and communications course, because, um, for us ourselves, we used to have member care connected to that course. And so we’re walking the walk and talking the talk here as we.

as we reshuffle and realign how we deliver the courseware as well when we think things need to move. So, um, without that, I’ll say adieu. Thank you again for listening for everybody. As always, stay loyal. And Bill, always a pleasure to see you. Have a great week.

Bill: Always fun. Hope you learned something. We’ll see you next week.

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