Customer Journey Mapping Toolkit: Do It Yourself Exercise

A couple weeks ago, we shared with you the scoop on a popular customer experience trend, Customer Journey Mapping. We went over what it is, why its important, and how to do it yourself. Click here to get a reminder of the information that was presented in that blog. 

To complete the customer journey mapping toolkit, we want to provide you with a sample story to test out your new journey mapping skills. The story we used is based on a company in the consumer electronics space, but once you get the hang of the exercise you can apply the skills you've learned to any industry. 

Take a moment to go over the 'how-to' presentation to re-fresh your memory on the 11 step process. 

Once you feel comfortable, print out the story presentation below and discuss with colleagues/peers what pain points you see as major issues and how you can improve the customer experience. Remember: the main goal of any customer journey map is to identify key touch points a customer has with a company and how they were feeling at those specific moments.  

 

 

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know in the comments below. Or for more information follow the link to the website and contact us via the contact us form. Feel free to share your experience designing your own map and what ideas you have come up with to better the customer experience.

Cheers!

www.nohold.com 

How to Increase Support and Service Revenue with a Virtual Agent

Has your company ever offered a new service, but it wasn't getting much attention? Service revenue generation is a common challenge that many companies face. One of noHold's clients leveraged a Virtual Agent to help get their customers the service they need, while increasing revenue for the company. Here is a short story and some 'lessons learned.'

• The company is in the consumer electronics space.
• They implemented a Virtual Agent (VA) that can answer primarily post-sales questions about their products. 
• The VA handles over 70K interactions per month, decreasing support cost significantly.
• The company decided to promote a Premium Support Service on its website.
• They used the typical approach: banners, colorful buttons, etc.
• Very little leads came from this type of advertisement.
• noHold proposed to let the VA offer the upgraded Service in the right context. No flashy buttons or gimmicks, just let the VA play the role of an expert advisor.
• When an end user describes a problem, the VA provides an answer, but if appropriate, it also suggests to sign up for the Premium Service.
• It worked! The VA is generating an average monthly stream of more than $130,00. 

Lessons learned:

The Virtual Agent was able to create leads that otherwise would have been lost, because it can propose a new service or product within the right context.

The same button that nobody was clicking on while flashing in the middle of the website, is now scoring record sales. This happens because the VA is capable of understanding the context of the conversation and presents an offer only when it makes sense.

Humans are programmed to reject typical forms of advertisement, but everybody still appreciates a helping hand when they are trying to solve a problem. 

Does your company leverage self-service to generate revenue? How do you offer the right services at the right time? 

www.nohold.com

Top Networking Company's Winning Self-Service Solution

A leading American manufacturer of consumer electronics that specializes in connectivity devices has seen great advances with the use of self-service augmented by a Virtual Agent. In the previous month (March), there have been a couple major highlights for this company; the Virtual Agent assisted hundreds of thousands of users in seven different languages with almost one million knowledge base views.

In addition to providing the company with access (behind a secure login) to automatic dashboards and reporting, we provide a monthly value card from our team including a section for the most commonly used solutions. The top 5 solutions used for last month were…

1. What to do if you forget your router’s password 
2. Connecting a printer to your router 
3. Setting up or viewing the router’s password 
4. Resetting the router to factory default settings 
5. Setting up a password (WEP/WPA/WPA2) for the wireless network of your router 

As you can see, questions about 'password' are a common issue and the Virtual Agent provides users a self-service method to answering these problems and more. Self-service is more cost effective than employing a live agent to respond to every phone/email/chat question, and the Virtual Agent increases customer satisfaction more than FAQ’s because it provides an interactive experience for the consumer. For this company, using a Virtual Agent has saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on support costs. 

Does your company automate Frequently Asked Questions such as password issues? How do you measure the success of your self-service solution across multiple languages? 

www.nohold.com 

One of the Top 3 PC Manufacturers Along With the Leader in Networking Renews Contracts with noHold, Inc.

March 20, 2014, Milpitas, California – noHold customers continue to renew contracts after achieving multi-year success with Virtual Agent and Knowledge Management solutions. Virtual Agents continue to achieve popularity with advances in Artificial Intelligence and market validation from leaders such as Apple® (Siri®), IBM® (Watson™), Google™, and more.

 

One of the largest PC and Consumer Device manufacturers has decided to continue its relationship with noHold, marking the 6 year anniversary date. The company began its partnership with noHold in 2008 and has successfully expanded to support products such as PC, peripherals, mobile devices, as well as gaming systems. A Virtual Agent is a popular choice for the end customer, specifically with gamers and technology aficionados who enjoy the Artificial Intelligence (AI) interaction with quick and accurate responses. In addition, the increasing demand for a mobile support/service option places the Virtual Agent at the top of the preference chart due to its ability to carry a conversation similar to text messaging.

 

The leader in networking has also opted to renew its relationship with noHold, marking an 8 year anniversary date. This company started its partnership with noHold in 2006, and has leveraged the Virtual Agent as well as Knowledge Management solutions across business units such as consumer electronics, small business, video teleconference, and more. The trusted brand has won multiple awards for support and self-service and is a visionary in the Internet of Everything (IoE) movement. Virtual Agents have proven to be ‘butler-like’ applications that will change the way humans interact and experience the IoE.

 

noHold customers continue to achieve Return On Investment (ROI), Higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and consistent adoption by expansion of Virtual Agent technologies. In recent analysis Virtual Agents in PC and related industries performed very well, with a cost per session (full conversation) less than the price of a vending machine gumball.  With clients in pertinent industries such as Consumer Electronics, Telecommunications, Computing, Finance and more, these Virtual Butlers are proving to be the customers’ preferred interaction channel.

 

"The industry has evolved incredibly since the late 90's. It has been nice to witness and be part of every single step forward. However, I believe the best is yet to come. We are happy to have such great customers who share that vision,” said Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold.

About noHold Inc.

noHold is a privately held company established in 1999 and is headquartered in Milpitas, CA, USA (Silicon Valley). noHold is the acknowledged leader in Web based Self-service solutions with a mission to deliver real answers to real questions - real fast. Simple to use, easy to implement and as close to human as you can get, noHold turns automated customer support into cognitive customer interaction. noHold customers include Toshiba, Lenovo, Cisco and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at www.nohold.com.

 

Press Contact

Sarah Ramoz
Marketing Operations Manager
sramoz@nohold.com
408.946.9200 ext. 305

Copyright © 2014 noHold Inc. All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners.

Throwback Thursday: Best Practices for Troubleshooting

Happy Throwback Thursday!

A recent deployment of a Virtual Agent integrating with a troubleshooter got me thinking about the progression of troubleshooting and how it has enhanced over the years.

Circa 2010, noHold created a modem troubleshooting Virtual Agent that  incorporated the knowledge from top modem providers...a sort of all in one Virtual Agent. It would be a place for consumers to go to find problems with any of their devices. This product was directed toward telecommunication companies by providing them with a way to support their consumers know matter what company their modem is from. For example, if someone is having a problem with their modem, they can type to the Virtual Agent, "I am having problems with my modem," and the Virtual Agent would respond with a list of modem brands for you to pick the correct model. This Modem Troubleshooter was made possible by Confederated Knowledge. Here is a screenshot of the modem troubleshooter powered by noHold.

In today's market, a global leader providing digital products, services and solutions, including industry-leading laptops, tablets, HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc™ and media streaming products and much more integrated Virtual Agent technology with their troubleshooting solution.  

The Challenge: The company built a flash troubleshooting solution, but noticed many users abandoned the tool, and they did not know why.

The Answer:  A Virtual Agent!  They added an “Other” option to the flash troubleshooter where end users can type in the issue in their own terms.  This launches the virtual agent, which can report on the user queries AND provide solutions.

Here's a sample of how the troubleshooter offers the Virtual Agent as an option.

Whether a Virtual Agent is being used as a troubleshooter or a compliment to leverage troubleshooting, it is a great asset to any company's customer support program. 

Cheers!