As a part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ken Kiernan.
Ken Kiernan Co-Founder & President Ken Kiernan co-founded ICS, and serves as the President. Under Ken’s leadership, ICS has grown by double digits every year, and has expanded nationally to over 150 major accounts by continuously developing its contact center support offerings. Before co-founding ICS, Ken was a top sales representative with a regional contact center provider, served as the telecommunications manager for a travel organization with fourteen locations, and was the Director of Contact Centers for a national public company.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
My contact center story started out by pure need. As they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I was hired to be a network analyst. The director who hired me was fired within two weeks. My new boss gave me an ultimatum: I could be fired, too, or I could learn the phone system. I chose the latter. We had a great leader in the call center at the time who wanted to create a better customer service experience, so we worked together to bring in skills-based routing, workforce management, and call routing based on DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service.)
I went on to design the call centers for this national company, and had an opportunity to assemble teams for a national distributor that liked to acquire customer service centers, but had no common goals for them. Having the technical background and a history of running a multiple-location customer service team, I developed the consultative call center approach that I have implemented for the past 25 years — including the last 15 years at ICS.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
The funniest and scariest thing happened at the same time. I recommended that we move from a local service provider to a national provider that promised better services and prices. I had to switch thirteen offices to the new provider over thirteen weekends, and they all had to be online without interruptions by Monday morning. I championed this move. To say this was a huge responsibility was an understatement.
For the first office, I worked with the engineer all weekend to get the services switched over by 9 am Monday. This should have been a two-hour cutover that lasted 56 hours. The cutover succeeded, but the national provider did not deliver the service they promised — and we had to move back to the original provider.
I had made the big case for savings and better service — and now I had to make the opposite case! It was both stressful and rather funny. “Remember when I said that big company would do a better job for less? Yea, well — and this pretty funny — they won’t!”
I thought my decision was bullet-proof because the savings would be substantial and the national provider was a large company. However, the bigger supplier could not meet their commitments.
Vetting supplier promises from reality is key to delivering customer satisfaction. When you have a problem, you see how your supplier responds. And that’s what customer service is about — even in the customer experience business: responding rapidly and effectively to customer problems. This experience showed me that the partner was more interested in selling their solutions regardless of the outcome rather than working with me for joint success and tenure. That supplier lost all of our other business, which was over two million dollars in services per year. One of the essential talents that ICS brings to the table is understanding which CX suppliers will actually deliver on their promises. And this is very important because hundreds or thousands of agents rely on CX systems being installed — as well as tens of thousands of customers who want answers!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I am grateful for several people who gave me opportunities, and who trusted me to make a difference. When I had that choice to be fired or learn about telecom, that same boss became a great mentor, leader and a friend to this day.
Robin was very open. She admitted that she did not know my job or the other managers, but she was also trusted her managers do their jobs. She wanted us to come to her with any news — good or bad — before it got to her boss. She felt that if we trusted her enough to share success and failure, she would have our back when we needed her. Robin was a manager’s manager, and I learned a great deal from her.
Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?
A customer is not a buyer; a customer is a relationship. When a customer buys your product or service, the relationship begins. When they are confused or have a problem, they find out who you really are. Every time a customer contacts your company, the customer is deciding whether they want to continue the relationship. If you help them quickly, they value your company. They may even recommend you to friends or write glowing online reviews. These positive recommendations create faith in the brand, so that customers will pay a fair price and enable your company to be profitable. Customers who have a positive relationship with a company will even stay with the company when the company’s products fall behind or when an aggressive competitor arrives on the scene.
We call that the Customer Experience or CX, which is part of our web address: ICS.cx Every customer touchpoint contributes to the customer experience, and determines whether the customer will buy your next generation of products, pay your subscription, or recommend your company for new relationships.
Empathy and personal touch are incredibly important in building a great customer experience. Businesses put up roadblocks that prevent speaking with an agent, and their customer satisfaction numbers show it. Have you been satisfied lately when calling a large bank, a telecommunication company or a parcel delivery company? This is an opportunity for their competitors.
We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?
When you are working in a retail environment, there are many disconnects. Retail does not hire or target long-term personnel and does not invest in the proper training that would positively impact the brand. Vendors and manufacturers market technology that will improve ROI by replacing, and consultants are often biased toward a certain partner. The systemic issue is that we value technology and short-term profit over the customer experience and long-term, profitable relationships. If we, as leaders do not set the example from the C-Level, the vendors will promote their solutions regardless of customer needs, and front-line personnel will have no one to guide them.
The main reason that companies do not commit to great customer experience is that they value short-term profits over long-term value. One of the fundamental decisions every person must make is: how do we want to spend our lives? Do we want to create relationships for long-term value, or will we sacrifice anything for short-term profits. Money is the blood of business: it must keep flowing, but innovation and relationships are the muscle and joy of business. We need that, too. It’s possible to be scientific about customer relationships — to create great systems without overspending. Like marketing, though, excellent customer experience must be budgeted into the cost of the product or service.
Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?
Yes, competition can improve customer service, and, yes, there are other pressures. For example, customer service is long-range thinking, which can conflict with the C-level compensation, which is often tied to short-term increases in market cap. Great customer service is like going on a diet: the long-term benefits are terrific, but it’s easier to do nothing — or, worse, cut costs for short-term profits. Cutting back on customer service is like eating a whole banana cream pie: fun for the day, but it makes for a sickening week.
There are examples of companies that have focused on customer experience and outperformed their powerful peers. For example, T-Mobile was once an also-ran in telecom, but T-Mobile answers customer calls quickly and solves their problems. Today, T-Mobile’s market cap is $191B. The other two major players are worth $165B and $119B. Have you tried calling the other two lately? Fewer people do.
Great customer experience is proactive and not reactive. When one competitor creates great relationships with its customers, it’s too late for other competitors to catch up. Consider Apple customers, for instance. It’s hard to believe today that Apple almost went out of business 30 years ago. You could have bought the stock in 1993 for 24 cents a share on a split-adjusted basis. Today, Apple is worth $2.96 trillion. Great products, yes, but supported by great customer service.
Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?
I have a fresh experience. The ICS.cx team has been working with a company that has used a competitive solution for the past few years. We follow an empathetic consultative approach asking where the customer is now, and where they need to be in one, three and five years without trying to sell them the full suite at once. I recently received an email from a C-Level executive raving about our process and thanking us for our support. It’s unusual to get thanks during the presale process from a high-level executive, but it was very gratifying, and I think it demonstrates that our consultative approach — rather than “Buy our roadmap!” — is rather unusual and satisfying for our customers.
Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?
We did sell this customer a WFM (workforce management) solution last year, and there were roadblocks and technical issues that we had to work through with their current CCaaS provider. The customer thought their vendor had their best interests in mind and that they would support them through the implementation. We continue to support the customer with consultation for their WFM platform even after the system has been live for over a year. The customer is a 100% home-based employee company, and they believe in everything I mentioned to create an excellent customer experience. They do not want bots answering customer complaints or calls, and they expect their vendors to honor the same experience they provide directly. Their retention rate is 100%, and they believe they can do better for both their customer and employees. They can be the Diamond Standard for what other businesses need to thrive.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience.
I tell my team all the time: what sets ICS.cx apart is that we follow our customers’ journeys and timelines — not the manufacturers’ roadmaps. If we are vested in our customers’ success, we do not have to promote our own success. The customers will do it for us. As leaders, we need to set the standard for every person on our team so the message is the same from the president to the new ICS team member.
1. Follow the customer journey and guide them to success.
The ICS team was working with a customer that had purchased our workforce management solution. They mentioned that they were not happy with their current CCaaS (Contact Center as a Solution) solution and provider. Our discovery process dove deep into the client’s needs for the next 90 days. We worked with them on their current solutions, contracts and issues. Because ICS does not have to worry about answering to shareholders to sell our branded solutions, we can be confident in the solutions we choose that match the customer’s needs. This process helps us understand the customer journey from a top-down approach. We concentrated on the customer’s needs in stages, so the customer saw success at every stage, and is now happy with his CCaaS solution.
2. Promote the customer’s success.
We want our client to become a reference for every solution we sell. We invite our clients to annual solution user groups and work with the manufacturers on their success. Last year, we invited one of our clients to share their journey with ICS and their solutions with other customers and partners. Having the client speak about their success creates an atmosphere where other companies want to know how they use the solutions to succeed.
3. Set and follow our company’s standard and message top-to-bottom.
When I worked for a national roadside assistance company, I sat through our orientation where our VP introduced himself to everyone regardless of their new position with the company. He valued the idea that he remembered everyone by name. At that time, we had over 500 employees and he did know everyone. Part of his delivery to us was the value statement of the company. He felt that every team member who was asked about the direction of our company should deliver the same response: our company goal was always known to everyone.
I held those same values for the past 30 years and want everyone at ICS to know the same goals of the company. When the team understands the value of our customer success is our success, they realize the importance of each team members input to the success of ICS. In ICS there is no top to bottom though, communication is open and encouraged for all.
This is our official ICS Mission Statement:
To create delightful experiences for customers and agents everywhere. To create frictionless communication that adds value to authentic brands.
Explanation
Customers want clear, courteous communication; support agents want the same, but they need better tools to quickly access information to solve customers’ problems. ICS is at the forefront of customer experience (CX) technology. By enhancing the customer experience, ICS improves customer retention rates, increases customer referrals, reduces marketing spend for new customers, increases profitability and adds value to brands. We seek to work with “authentic” brands — that is, companies that share our interest in improving customers’ lives and the customer experience.
4. Remember: this is a journey to customer excellence — not a sprint to sales success.
If we follow the first three steps I have defined, we put the customer first and their success of the solution first. If we celebrate the success of a sale instead of the journey, we are no better than anyone else selling the same solutions. If we become the customer advocate driving an empathetic approach to our sales and support process, the customer journey is celebrated with success and they will remain a loyal customer.
5. Believe in your message and your solutions. It will show.
ICS has been a partner to one manufacturer for the last 17 years. We believe in loyalty to our partners, but we will only partner with solutions that will benefit our clients. If the company behind the solution does not hold the same values, ICS will not represent them. If the solutions do not live up to clients’ or our team’s expectations, we cannot, in good faith, support the solution. We believe that if a company has a great solution that clients can adapt to their journey, we can enthusiastically partner with that company. ICS has a range of trusted partners. When clients trust our judgment, our belief in what we sell is apparent to them while we join their journey to excellence.
In short, ICS helps our customers achieve their customer experience goals.
Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?
ICS.cx invites those customers to events and shows where we either co-present or share our experience among others involved in CX. Including customers in events helps them show their success and markets our services to others as well. You would be amazed by their loyalty.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would like to start a movement that puts relationships first, and that encourages everyone from politicians to shareholders to managers to put people and delightful service first. Imagine how that would improve the quality of life! Imagine if government bureaucrats treated citizens as customers, and if one of our core values as citizens was making people’s lives easier.
We can even suggest a set of guidelines:
THE CARDINAL RULES OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
1. Respond effectively to every inquiry. Never ignore a customer.
2. Make it easy to do business.
3. Respect the customer’s time.
4. Customers are not always right, but they deserve an explanation.
5. Solve problems better and faster with innovative technology.
A famous Harvard longitudinal study found that the key to happiness is good relationships. Today, many people are frustrated and isolated. Companies can make the world a better place by simply offering better customer service and a little empathy. And it’s good for business, too.
That study: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/harvard-happiness-study-relationships/672753/
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Most of our business-related posts are on LinkedIn — just search for ICS.cx
https://www.linkedin.com/company/3024145/admin/feed/posts/
We’ve also made it easy for people to contact us. Our name IS our web address, and it’s only five characters: ICS.cx And if you go to the contact page, we practice what we preach: you can communicate with ICS however you like: phone, chat, mail, text, or schedule an appointment on our online calendar.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
