The Lucyphone Blog

United We Hold

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:11:25 -0400

Ever since we did our airline hold times piece back in August, folks know where to come for comparative data on customer service. When Virgin America switched their reservation systems in the fall, we were first to notice the long hold times (along with thousands of disgusted travelers in the Twittersphere).

Now we’re seeing the effects of the biggest airline merger of all time. United Airlines and Continental Airlines, in their $3B merger have finally, after almost 2 years moved to a single computer system, and it’s wreaking havoc on their hold times. Our enterprise sales team has been reaching out to their customer service folks for the past 8 months to help them through the transition, but even as recently as March 1st a United spokesperson said, “We don’t expect any interruptions in operations or customer service”. Um … okay.

Actually, here’s what Lucyphone sees. In January, the average hold time was 7 minutes. In February, the average hold time was 11 minutes. And as of today, 3 weeks into March, we’ve already seen four times our normal volume to the United numbers and we’re recording a 24+ minute hold time … on average!

We spoke with United personnel yesterday who said they didn’t expect the problem to “right itself” for another 2 months, so we’re taking it a step further. We’re giving United callers the ability to TEXT themselves into queue and wait for a callback. Just send a text (sms) message to 650-532-9574 and you’ll get a response asking for your record locator (or “0” if you don’t know it). Then Lucyphone will call United’s number and wait in queue for you.

We hope United Airlines will tell its customers about this number as an easy way to “stop the bleeding.” Because long hold times aren’t nearly as long as their brand repercussions, and this is certainly no way to launch a “new” airline.

SMS Callbacks for the Enterprise!

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:06:00 -0500

“Your current wait time is 97 minutes” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDMkxati5DI . What a great Allstate commercial. Wouldn’t it also be great if, instead of having to call to find out what the wait time is, you could just “TEXT” your company and see the wait time, and, if you wanted, request a callback?

Well… now you can. We are excited to announce our new enterprise offering - SMS-based callback requests.

We chose to support an SMS-based front-end to our virtual queuing service because we believe that SMS is an excellent channel in which to offer callback requests.

Here’s a few reasons why:

1. SMS-based proactive customer care. Companies are looking for ways to be more “proactive” with their customer care, rather than reactive. Knowing those customers who would prefer to be contacted via SMS in the event of some customer care issue is the first step to providing the proactive customer care. SMS-based callbacks offer the opportunity to get to know your customers in the SMS realm.

2. SMS is not your 1-800 number. Calls into the 1-800 are expensive. An SMS-based front-door to your customer care environment allows for deflection to possible self-service alternatives.

3. SMS caller-id is more reliable to use for callback. Setting up a callback requires knowing the customer’s phone number at which to be reached. SMS provides an almost failproof caller-id for a mobile phone which is presumably the number at which to be reached. Web and Phone-based virtual queuing requires confirmation of a callback number, whereas SMS-based virtual queuing can more safely assume it.

Learn more at http://corp.lucyphone.com

Text 424-999-LUCY when you do not wanna be held

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:05:00 -0500

SMS, SOS or both? We say both. According to study findings from Pew Research, text message users send a little over 40 text messages per day. Which means we think it can safely be assumed the average person is pretty well acquainted with SMS. That being said, LucyPhone is excited to cater to those users by introducing an SMS option! With this new addition, using LucyPhone gets easier.

Here’s how it works: Users have the option to text the name of the company which they’re trying to reach to 424-999-LUCY. They then will receive a text message with a list of numbers to choose from which will direct them to the correct company and/or department. After a number is chosen, the user will be called by LucyPhone to connect the call to the chosen number . While LucyPhone waits on hold, users have the option to text “S” for the status of the call, “J” for rejoining the call, or “H” for additional help.

Try texting “Dish” and see the list of available “DISH Network” numbers. Reply with “1”, and LUCY will connect you to the first result. Sometimes you just want to be held … and sometimes you don’t! LUCY lets you do the latter.

Get Human, Lose the Hold

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:13:35 -0400

We’re always excited to get more folks using Lucyphone to “Never Wait on Hold Again!” For this reason, we’re proud to announce our partnership with GetHuman.com to provide callbacks to users of their service. GetHuman has earned considerable notoriety for providing a listing of “cheat codes” to help customers break through the phone menus of the most frustrating 800 numbers. A crowd-sourced repository of useful sanity-saving sequences has been a mainstay of the savvy consumer for many years. Now, in addition to looking up the cheat code which gets you to a human, callers can have Lucy enter this sequence on their behalf and wait on hold for them right from the GetHuman.com website. Look up a number and select “details” and you’ll see an orange button that says “Call Me Instead.” Let us know what you think, and stay tuned for more integrated offerings between our two companies.

Reducing Average Handle Times

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:02:30 -0400

Everyone knows we’re focused on improving the customer experience. What started as a free consumer to skip hold times evolved in full enterprise turnkey virtual queuing software-as-a-service. While we knew that saving customer sanity was a big deal for safeguarding brand loyalty and repeat revenue, the fact is that the gains from operational efficiency are nothing to be scoffed at. There are 2 main factors which drive the shorter call times:

Audio Intros and Customer Metadata

When our enterprise customers forward their calls to Lucyphone, we collect pertinent data from the caller. Sometimes it’s an order id, sometimes a customer id. Sometimes we collect it via speech entry, sometimes via DTMF entry. In all cases, we give this information to the Customer Care Representative, and they are “record-ready” when the customer gets a call back. This happens faster than if the customer gives this information in real time, because they’re looking up numbers on bills, or slow to answer.

Fewer Apologies and Less Browbeating

When Customer Care Representatives pick up a Lucyphone call, they’ve already delivered the beginnings of a great customer experience. They get right to business, rather than having to de-fuse an angry customer who just spend 20+ minutes listening to Kenny G.

Reducing AHT has been a great way to further demonstrate the ROI achieved by implementing the LucyQ. Contact us to hear the case studies in greater detail, and we’ll share what we’ve learned.

The Lucyphone Song Everyone knows National Customer Service week...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:11:00 -0400

The Lucyphone Song

Everyone knows National Customer Service week celebrates the hardworking CCRs who actually make customer service possible. But what about the other unsung hero of the game? You know - that sweet someone whose very voice calms you, lowers your blood pressure, and reduces the angry “been waiting on hold” forehead veins. The one who’s taken it upon herself to endure endless hours of smooth jazz elevator music from the 80s, 90s and today? You know who we’re talking about. Here’s a love song written and sung by yours truly; go ahead and sing it with us:

Now I Found Lucyphone

Sitting waiting, listening to smooth jazz crush my soul.
Half an hour now this company has had me on hold.
Oh no don’t you bring me down. Well I know when I’m getting the runaround.
I try to love, but this I hate. I wish I just could lose the wait.

Now I found Lucyphone; I don’t make these calls alone.
Lucy she waits for me … calls me back when an agent’s line comes free.

I got my bill from last month. I can’t believe I was charged so much.
Went to their website - “Contact Us” - yeah, but good luck getting in touch.
No numbers to be found - I had to read the fine print - had to scroll way down.
You say my call is important to you. Why do I feel that’s just not true?

Now I found Lucyphone; I don’t make these calls alone no more.
Lucy she waits for me. She calls me back when an agent’s line comes free.
Lucyphone; I don’t make these calls alone no more.
Lucy she waits for me. She calls me back when an agent’s line comes free.

Happy Customer Service Week!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:55:10 -0400

As we celebrate Customer Service Week and the many professional Customer Care Representatives who go out of their way to provide extraordinary service to callers, we thought it’d be a good idea to remind CCRs the many ways in which Lucyphone helps them to perform their job more effectively.

Happier Callers (who just got a callback)

Shorter Handle Times (because of our audio intros)

Higher First Call Resolutions (because of dropped-call callbacks)

We typically have only provided this guide to our Enterprise customers, but all of the ~3000+ toll-free numbers that we call enjoy the fruits of the Lucyphone architecture. Attached is the latest CCR guide. Happy Customer Service Week, and thank you CCRs for Listening for Lucy!

Flight in August

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:19:55 -0400

Summer travel can have its share of woes, and August has certainly been no stranger to delays. We thought it’d be compelling to take a good look at the hold times with each of the major domestic airlines this summer. Of the over 10,000 calls Lucyphone has sent to these airlines over the past month, here’s how their hold times stack up.

With catastrophes like Irene and airport closures up and down the Eastern seaboard, nearly 30% of calls to airlines have exceeded a 5 minute hold time. Furthermore, when it’s bad, it can be really bad - see US Airways with 16% of their total calls taking more than 20 minutes to speak to an agent!

Introducing Audio Intros and Record-Readiness

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:32:41 -0400

“May I ask why you’re calling?” politely asked Suzanne, the reservation agent. [Take a deep breath. Let it all out…. That was just the TENTH time you’ve been asked that question during this call!] But let’s not take it out on Suzanne. She is doing her best.

Then why is this experience so infuriating?

People don’t like to repeat themselves, especially when they have to repeatedly tell the painful reason why they are calling customer service.

That’s why we launched “Audio Intros” ~ the latest of our Lucyphone features. This feature has been active for a while in our enterprise solution but we’ve gone ahead and activated it for the consumer service as well.

So here’s what’s new… With audio intros, you’ll have an opportunity to record a short message for the Customer Service Rep before leaving Lucy to wait in queue. For instance, I’m calling an airline and after I select “existing reservations” and that I need to speak with an agent, I press ** to engage Lucy. Instead of her usual “I’ve got it from here,” she allows me to record,

“Hello, this is Mike Oristian; I need to change my return flight; my confirmation code is QXR245”.

This means that when the customer gets a call back, the CSR could already have my record pulled up and be ready to help me with my issue. Or perhaps the CSR pulls up my record and realizes there is a another agent that is better suited to handle the call. In that case, the first CSR can just pass the call over to the other CSR. Meanwhile, Lucy is as cool as a cucumber ready to re-connect or re-play the message.

When the agent finally takes the call (presses 1) they are re-played the audio intro so that they can be looking up the record during the callback to you.

When you receive your callback, the agent is “Record-Ready” and prepared to deal with your specific issue.

Ahhh…. that’s better.

Calling the IRS ? Lucy is just-in-time!

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:45:14 -0400

April 15th is less than 10 days away and that means everybody is scrambling to get their taxes done. And if you’ve ever had to call the IRS around April 15th, you know what a pain it can be. Nina Olson, who is the head of the National Taxpayer Advocacy, has stated the declining ability of the IRS to answer the phone is the most serious problem facing taxpayers ( see article ).

That’s why we’ve decided to help out the taxpayer by showing off the latest in our enterprise toolkit and making it free for callers between now and the end of April.

1-888-365-6435 is what we call a just-in-time Lucyphone number. It’s a special number that we’ve set up that “wraps” the IRS number. When you call a just-in-time number, it’s just like you are calling the company directly, except you have “Lucy” with you. That means, if you ever get put on hold, you can press ** (press ## if you use Google Voice) and Lucy will step in to help.

When you use the IRS just-in-time number, you’ll also get a preview of our new Lucyphone features — including “audio intros”. After you press **, you will be prompted to record an audio intro that will be played to the agent during the callback. That way, when you receive your callback, the agent already knows why you’re calling!

LucyPhone for Android is here y'all!

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:38:00 -0500

We have released the LucyPhone app for Android. So give it a spin and let us know what you think. If you have seen the iPhone app, you’ll notice that the experience is very similar to how the iPhone app works. The added benefit of the Android app is the notification bar functionality. Whenever you have a live call in progress, you will see a notification item in at the top of your Android screen. Just pull that down to see what the current state of the call is. Check out the screenshots!

Find it in the market by searching “lucyphone” (no spaces)

Twitter for Customer Service -- a match made in heaven?

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:39:00 -0500

About six months ago, I tweeted about my frustration with Comcast when their digital migration left me without the channel lineup I previously had. It was my first time trying out Twitter as a customer service tool, and I must say I was quite pleased with the results. However, there are still plenty of reasons why Twitter alone is far from the perfect customer service tool — this goes for the customer as well as the company.

Here’s what makes Twitter attractive as a customer service tool:

1. It’s public. The reason that Comcast responded so expediently to my tweet was obvious. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. That saying is all the more true in the context of a hyper-social web. When a company has a reputation to protect, it’s going to do what it takes to make things right. The “public-ness” of Twitter also serves to create somewhat of a historical record of customer service so that other customers (or would-be customers) might see how well a company performs in the customer service category.

2. It’s asynchronous. Another reason that Twitter has become a popular tool for customer service is the fact that the other means for customer service are notoriously painful. Namely, calling customer service toll-free numbers! Waiting on hold is the second biggest consumer frustration ( second only to “hidden fees”). That’s of course why we created Lucyphone, so that the customer doesn’t have to sit around waiting for an agent. But, why should we have to wait at all? Well, it’s because phone conversations are synchronous. That is, both parties need to be present and available for the conversation at the same time. Twitter conversations are asynchronous. The asynchronous nature of the conversation allows the customer to get on with their life while the company attempts to address the particular issue. At the same time, asynchronous conversations are easier for the companies because each conversation doesn’t require a fully dedicated human being.

Alright, so that’s what makes Twitter a good starting point for customer service. But something’s missing. I, for one, certainly don’t use twitter for all my customer service interactions. So what’s missing?

1. Privacy . What’s the first thing they ask you when you finally reach an agent? They ask you for your name, your SSN, your account number, etc. So if Twitter was ever going to be the means by which customer service is conducted (not just initiated), that means that sensitive information would have to pass through Twitter. Is that going to happen? Not if this is true.

2. Mechanical Issues. Here’s how most Twitter customer service inquiries work:

@somecustomer: hey @somecompany i’m annoyed. my account needs fixing. pls fix it!

@somecompany: @somecustomer sorry to hear that you’re annoyed. DM us your acct number so we can fix it

The rest of the customer service conversation happens over DM, or maybe it transfers over to email. That’s where any sensitive info is exchanged. In order to DM a company, that company must follow the customer. This raises an important mechanical issue. That is, the company must first follow the customer in order to receive the DM. This means that a company needs to follow anybody with an issue. With twitter’s new policy of a limit of 2000 follows, this can get tricky.

3. Lack of History/Follow-up/Status. Using the same example from #2 between @somecompany and @somecustomer, do we have any idea whatever came of the issue ? Do we know whether the company resolved the issue? Unless you happen to be @somecustomer, you wouldn’t know how things turned out. And unless you like scanning timelines all day, it’s hard to find out if / how the issues were resolved.

3. Impersonal. This one is obvious. What happened to the good ol’ days when we talked to each other? This is certainly one element of the customer-company conversation that Twitter alone will never be able to deliver. The value of hearing a human voice is something that drives customer loyalty. That is why people hate IVRs and recorded messages saying “Your call is important to us”.

Alright, that’s it for now. What are your thoughts? What am I missing?

Excitement abounds

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 21:21:00 -0400

Mike and I are headed to Miami for the International Contact Center Expo on Monday thru Wednesday next week. We are really looking forward to not only showing off all the cool stuff we’ve been working on, but we are psyched to learn more about what’s on the minds of contact center leaders.

Visitors to our booth will get a sneak peek at our Android app on my new Samsung Captivate. Still some minor bugs we are working on cleaning up, but it’s close. We will also be giving a demo of some of our more enterprisey stuff, collectively dubbed “LucyQ”. We have some great ways of helping contact centers give their customers a better experience while at the same time helping them cut costs. In an age where companies are talking about being “proactive” for their customers (think Nationwide commercials), we are just one way in which a company can do that.

Another reason I’m excited…. As we speak, I am using LucyPhone to help me with a quandary related to a Amazon/UPS shipment that I need before I leave on Monday. The package was originally “promised” by Friday, but now they are saying Monday. Well, that’s no good, because I’m on a plane at the break of dawn on Monday.

Enter LucyPhone. First, I called UPS. I talked to a dude named James and explained my situation. He was very cool and Lucy-friendly. About 3 minutes into our conversation, he had to put me on hold to check to see what expediting possibilities there were. So I pressed ** and went back to some other work. About 4 minutes later, James was ringing me back. He suggested that I call Amazon to request an expedite of the package. Enter LucyPhone again! I called Amazon and talked to Julia, who had to put me on hold to call UPS. I thought to myself, this is where LucyPhone really shines! There is no other way to avoid the “interstitial” holds when the James’ and the Julia’s are doing stuff on their end. About 6 minutes later, Julia was ringing me back to let me know my options. Of course, every time they put me on hold they would apologize profusely, but I replied “No big deal — I’ve got Lucy :) ” .

Thanks James and Julia (and UPS and Amazon) for helping me get the shipment quandary settled. I need that stuff for Miami!!!

Lucy for Mobile is Live!

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:52:51 -0400

We have released the mobile version of our site to production! You can now point your mobile browser to m.lucyphone.com. Check it out!

Congrats ! Vlad is the big winner!

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:55:39 -0400

We just got off the phone with Vlad (@Vlad33141) from Miami who won our LucyPhone Summer Contest for saving the most time on single call using LucyPhone. Vlad saved over 1 hour and 28 minutes when he called a phone system that handles Prison-related complaints. Vlad makes regular calls to this system in support of his son. With LucyPhone, no matter how long the wait, he can handle it, thanks to Lucy’s insatiable appetite for boring hold music and messages that say ‘Your Call is important to us’…

Vlad will be meeting up with the LucyPhone team next month in Miami when we are there for the International Call Center Expo and he will be given his awesome Apple iPad. Congrats Vlad! Keep using LucyPhone to make those calls!

Testing Lucy for Mobile and SMS

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:26:19 -0400

We’re about to unveil some new ways of kicking off the Lucy experience. Some of our users are going to help beta test the experience of the two new features:

1. Ability to SMS to a short code to start a LucyPhone call.

2. A version of the site that is very mobile-friendly (well, it’s more than mobile-friendly, it’s mobile-focused).

We are hoping to get some feedback as to how we can make the user experience better in each of these two areas.

Will let you know when we are going live with these new features…

Choosing a good problem

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:50:00 -0400

What a year it has been so far! Just over 5 months ago, we launched LucyPhone as a public beta. So much has happened since March. We’ve been lucky to have been featured in a number of newspapers, TV and radio news outlets, and some pretty cool magazine publications. We think this speaks to the fact that we chose a pretty good problem to solve.

We are also working with some neat companies to help alleviate their customer service demand issues, and we are doing it in pretty novel ways.

I remember right after we first built LucyPhone, we spent a fair amount of time on Twitter (we still do) responding to the people that were complaining about being on hold. Here’s a good one. We see ones like this all the time:

“Been on hold with @mediatemple for 35 minutes. Went from position 14 to position 11. Looks like I’ll be on hold for 2 hours at this rate.”

With the publicity/exposure we’ve been getting, we see that more and more people are thinking, “Hey, maybe I’ll let Lucy wait for me this time”. But we still have work to do… there are still a lot of people tweeting about being on hold — perhaps they have not yet discovered the virtues of our dear Lucy?

Here is kind of tweet we love to see. It really confirms why we set out to build LucyPhone in the first place:

More to follow …