Krise durch bewährte Konzepte mildern
Wer seinen Kund:innen hilft, hilft sich selbst.
Krisen häufen sich. Corona, Klima, Krieg, Energie-Schock, Inflation lauten fünf. Für Menschen bedeutet das, sich flexibler und schneller den neuen Situationen anzupassen. Diese individuelle Lebensbewältigung fällt einer großen Zahl nicht leicht. Viele Personen empfinden einen Verlust an Kontrolle oder fühlen sich ungerecht behandelt.
Lassen Sie sich nicht überraschen. Denken Sie die Probleme Ihrer Kund:innen mit. Zusammen meistern Sie mehr.
Mitigate crisis
Crises are piling up. Corona, climate, war, energy shock, inflation in order to name five. This means to us adapting more flexibly and quickly to new situations. This individual coping with life is not easy for a large number of people. Many feel a loss of control or being unfair treated.
Don't be surprised. Think about your customers' problems. Togehter you will master more.
Crisis often make managers despair.
Effects using the example of customer service
Rapidly increasing living costs lead to payment difficulties for customers (private and business). Bankruptcies are increasing. This may lead to those affected feeling helpless and at the mercy of others. Customer contacts are becoming more aggressive.
In customer service there are consequences like these:
- The stress level of the employees shoots to unimagined heights.
- Fluctuation is increasing.
- The customer contact volume is increasing and is shifting to the (more expensive) written area.
- Outstanding debts grow.
- More and more customers are agreeing to pay in installments.
- The stop or blocking of services is growing.
- Debt collection is booming.
- At the same time, the image of brands and companies suffers.
Our promise of performance for you:
Reduce conflicts
Preparing instead of overburdening relieves employees. This reduces automatically conflicts.
Retain customers
Those who experience help are more likely to remain.
Reduce overall costs
Less conflicts, less wirtten follow-ups, less outstanding debts, less collection, ... your overall costs will be reduced for sure!
Strenghten your organization
With the help of our programm you will strenghten yourself and your organization: better posture, more competent action, more confident reactions.
Mitigate the crisis with 8 proven steps
What works in many aereas of life also helps in times of crisis.
Think of patient support programmes, especially for life-threatening diseases such as cancer, debtor help, psychosocial emergency care or competitive sports. Thanks to proven concepts, even such existnetial crises are beeing mitigated. Read 8 useful steps so that you too can use proven concepts to strengthen your organization and skills.
Starting in November 2022 eisq publishes each step monthly
Acquire this knowldege.
Let's warm up together. Let's prepare for a stronger organization.
Step 1: Warm up
Just like sports, warming up makes you feel better, perform better and helps preventing injury.
Warm up and stretch for collaboration
Your consultants will prepare a virtual or persnal kick-off appointment for this purpose.
Togehter we determine:
What do you need to achieve by when? How do we measure success? Who do you need to involve? What resources are available? ...
Good to know:
- Thanks to the questions, there is even more clarity. Your first result.
- You will also recieve a handy project checklist. This meas that you can easily add other people at any time.
Warm up for the project
Let's take a look at the customer journeys and the touchpoints in your company. It is especially important to prepare your team and your processes for these. Goals: In future your organization will act in a more controlled manner at the contact points. Your team will create professional solutions more confidently.
eisq trust in the proven method PreConPro©. Pre is the abbreviation of Prepared, Controlled and Professional.
Look at the example energy price shock
Consumers who do not know how to pay the bill often react eiter in an
- angry or aggressive way.
Or they
- try to suppress to problem.
Both should be regarded to be overwhelmed or helpless.
Prepared managers, service representatives help consumers to embrace the 'energy price shock' situation.
Because if you accept a situation, it will be easier to think of a solution - together.
The identified solution must be implemented together in a professional manner. This means adapting the right process and walking together.
This concept has proven itself thousands of times in other areas of life. It is often called psychosocial competence.
eisq creates the awarenees of these setting in your company when warming up togehter.
Help your customers and you will help yourself.
Relief - PreConPro©
Step 2: Determine Sphere of Action
After we selected the relevant touchpoints along the customer journey together in step 1, it's now time for implementation.
Adapt communication elements, processes and tools
For psychosocial competence to work well, a stringent concept helps. For example, agreeing on a new plan for payment in rates:
Employees need to be trained in communication skills to help customers find solutions within the scope of their possibilities. To do this, we first create technical content.
The corresponding letters, emails, website texts, etc. should use the same tonality.
Your eisq advisors also adapt the follow-up processes, such as setting reminder stops.
You receive a list for all 'systemic' activities so that psychosocial competence can work.
Creating fitness 'tools' for your team
Psychosocial competence builds on inner attitudes. In order to convey this together with the professional content from a single source, your eisq specialists design tools/tools/techniques specifically suited to your situation and to the relevant touchpoint.
Figuratively: marathon runners train for endurance. For this, they need different training equipment than, for example, weightlifters do.
In this way, psychosocial competence has a triple effect in the right place for you.
- For your Customers
- For your Employees (internal and external)
- For your Company
As you know, eisq relies on the proven PreConPro© methodology. Pre stands for Prepared. Con stands for Controlled and Pro for Professional.
Those who help their customers help themselves.
Junior Vice World Champion Arne Eppers and PreConPro create new perspectives. Exclusively with eisq.
Step 3: Communicate attitude and tools
You remember. In step 1, we jointly select the relevant touchpoints along the customer journey. Then we define the spheres of influence in step 2. In other words, we marry technical content, tonality and follow-up processes to tools on a systemic level. In parallel, we create the corresponding training tools.
Here in the third step we train posture and the prepared tools with it.
Plan and carry out kick-off
In our experience, you achieve the best effect with a kick-off event for the team you have identified. For this, profound preparation with a dignified setting helps.
This does not mean that the event has to be held externally. It does, however, mean showing the participants the appropriate appreciation.
This includes, among other things:
- Introducing your company - What is the purpose of the measure?
- Hand over and present personalised toolboxes by our specialists - What do we work with?
- Show roadmap and basic rules by our specialists - How do we reach the goal?
- Clarify first questions
Initial-Training for all or Train-the-Trainer
Now we start with the initial training of the group you have chosen - either your identified team or the people you have identified for Train-the-Trainer. Typically, the initial training lasts between 16 and 24 hours. This depends mainly on the level of knowledge and previous experience of your persons with psychosocial competence as well as the skills in didactics (train-the-trainer).
9 Fixed contents are, among other points, depending on our preliminary work, mainly as follows:
- What is PreConPro© and how does it work for each person?
- How does our attitude determine our work?
- What situations do our communication partners experience?
- How do we prepare for them?
- What triggers do we have at our disposal to call on our preparation?
- How do we use triggers?
- What else do we work with and what do we have at our disposal?
- How do we use our toolbox?
- How do we process what we have experienced and learned?
What are the special features of the Initial Training?
Take the chance and get inspired by a (junior)vice world champion. eisq works exclusively with Arne Eppers.
Arne looks back on two careers. As a lawyer, Master of Mediation, mediator, business and sports mediator, conflict manager & communication trainer (de-escalation), he founded KAFKAS Mediationskanzlei und Akademie in Osnabrück. The German Association for Mediation (DGM) lists him as a member.
- As a former competitive athlete, Arne can look back on outstanding successes: Vice Junior World Champion, German Handball Federation (DHB) selection player, Bundesliga Champion, Cup Finalist, professional in the 1st Handball Bundesliga, ...
- Arne combines the knowledge of both careers and creates new perspectives. With PreConPro© he imparts psychosocial competence.
- Approachable, constructive and solution-oriented.
As you know, eisq relies on the proven methodology PreConPro©. Pre stands for prepared. Con stands for controlled, and Pro for professional.
Those who help their customers help themselves.
Step 4: Transfer PreConPro© into daily business
Introducing once works as well as signing up at the gym. Only through practice and training you will face progress and develop routine.
With the help of the tools created in the 3rd step and the attitude conveyed, we get started. According to the impact circles and processes defined in step 2, we establish PreConPro© at the touchpoints identified in step 1. Subsequently, we define the impact circles in step 2. In other words, we marry technical content, tonality and follow-up processes with tools on a systemic level. In parallel, we create appropriate training tools for this purpose.
Introduce Practically in Daily Business
Together with your team, we work on adopting the new tools and attitude in daily routine.
This includes 3 aspects in particular:
- Provide assistance and guidance
- Measure what is going well and how
- Analyze and derive the right measures
Provide Assitance and Guidance
Depending on your situation, either our specialists or your trainers accompany your team in everyday life. An important task is to repeatedly address the state of application, successes and challenges.
Hint:
In our experience, a short weekly flash per person lasting 2-3 minutes is particularly effective.
Measuring What Works and How Well
We would not be your experts for service quality without measuring the quality of implementation in parallel.
Ideally, we use at least the measuring instruments of process observation (silent monitoring, correspondence analysis, ...) and customer feedback.
Do you use more measuring instruments? Fantastic!
A frank word - Do you know these objections?
We often encounter the conviction that companies should not measure in a changeover phase in order not to create additional stress.
⇒ Our experience shows that phases of changeover are completed much faster thanks to ongoing measurements. Why? Because thanks to the measurement results, companies can readjust more selectively and in a more targeted manner. Successes become visible more quickly. That motivates! At the same time, transparent results reduce stress levels.
Some companies shy away from feedback from customers. Motto: "What should we ask customers if everything is going badly anyway?"
⇒ Especially when you know that something is not going so well, you address it. It's part of good leadership, it's part of every relationship. So it's also part of the relationship with the customers.
Analyse and Derive the Right Action
Often these are small things with a big effect. In order to identify these small things, it is necessary to analyse the results from the measurements and the assistance.
Is the contact distance not correct at one point? Where do customers experience a break? What do colleagues find difficult? ....
The answers to these questions provide the basis for our measures. As a management consultancy, this step is part of our toolkit to quickly derive effective measures together with you.
As you know, eisq relies on the proven methodology PreConPro©. Pre stands for prepared.Con stands for Controlled, and Pro for Professional.
Help your customers and you help yourself.
Schritt 5: Dranbleiben
Hooray, we reach ... the halfway point. Halfway? Wait, aren't we taking PreConPro© over to day-to-day operations in the step before?!
Exactly. Now it's time to keep at it. Change doesn't happen in a day. Everyone who has tried a diet knows the yo-yo effect. It threatens to happen to two groups at once:
- with the customers
- In your own organisation, with your employees
Sticking with the customers
People tend to put off unpleasant issues. Money will come in next month ... Problems multiply. Customer service ⇒ debt collection ⇒ blocking ⇒ dunning procedure ⇒ insolvency.
Companies that help their customers with psychosocial competence to accept the situation more quickly and find solutions help themselves.
Incoming payments are increasing! Debtor counselling confirms this. If you master a crisis together, you increase loyalty. Scientifically proven. If fewer deviations occur, costs are reduced.
So much for the benefits first.
Staying in touch with customers means expanding the contact routes identified in step 2 step by step. Modern technical possibilities help immensely in this.
Messages and content are expanded either by you, you together with us or by us for you.
Confirmation elements give customers the good feeling that they are doing the right thing. Small adjustments in the mostly digital dialogue do a wonderful job.
Keeping employees engaged
In our experience, 2-3 follow-up trainings provide the desired routine effect. Ideally, the trainings take place 3-4 weeks apart.
In contrast to the initial training, units of about four hours per team are now sufficient. We pay great attention to the joint processing of learning experiences.
Why is this so important?
In order to adopt a new or changed attitude in the long term, this reminder and correction function helps. It ensures the success of the measure and motivates.
Keeping up with the organisation
Your eisq advisors will provide you with a 1-hour status update every month. Together, we look at the status of implementation as well as the open issues and those that need to be adjusted.
This enables the management to push the measure further, to reprioritise possible activities or to distribute them differently. That's life and that's part of it.
As project managers, your eisq team will ensure that your project is a success.
Those who help their customers, help themselves.
Den Unterschied machen mit regelmäßigen Impulsen, Informationshappen und Erklärvideos. Wir gestalten für Sie psychologisch optimierte Kontaktstrecken.
Step 6: We take care of psychologically optimised contact routes in parallel
Do you remember? At the beginning we defined the relevant touchpoints and circles of influence. In the following steps up to this point, we addressed the issue of how to empower your most important resource, your team, to mitigate the crisis. In step 5 we already touched on it briefly:
"Staying in touch with customers means expanding the contact routes identified in step 2 step by step. Modern technical possibilities support this in an extraordinary way.
Either you, you together with us or we for you expand messages and content.
The good news is: By using modern and innovative contact plugs, we support you digitally in parallel.
Create psychologically optimised contact routes and relieve the burden on customer service with digital resources
The letters for the electricity and gas price brakes were sent out by April 2023. As is well known, the legislator caps the price for citizens at 80% with 40 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity, respectively with 12 cents for gas and 9.5 cents for district heating.
Compared to 2021, the year before the introduction of the new law, this corresponds to a "socially acceptable" increase of about 20% - only for 80% of the energy demand.
It doesn't take any prophetic abilities to know what kind of scenarios we are facing.
Will all citizens be able to cope with the increased energy costs despite the continued high increase in prices without adequate wage compensation? Hardly likely.
The supplier evm writes aptly about this:
"Kerstin Andreae, the president of our federal association, put it aptly: we are currently the government's call centre," says Peerenboom. Not least the government aid packages need so much explanation that people have many questions. At the moment, the situation in evm's customer service has become even more difficult.
Accompany instead of overload with adapted information bites
Sending people on the path to saving energy and spending means changing behaviour. We know from other areas of life that this takes time and regular impulses as reminders.
Energy providers can also follow this path. The trick is to provide adapted information bites at appropriate intervals. Too much is often too much.
Therefore, we create psychologically optimised entry points, for example, for a 6-step programme to save energy in the household:
"We are at your side and support you. In 6 steps, we will look together at how you can save energy in your household as easily as child's play.
Let's talk in good time, before a possibly too high annual consumption bill could cause unwanted difficulties.
Join our programme right now."
This could be a QR code on the paper, a link in the customer portal or a field on the website for opting in.
With short, emotionally engaging videos and optimised texts, you can relieve the burden on your customer service.
It pays for itself!
Think about what a full-time equivalent in customer service costs. Estimate how many full-time employees you will need for the energy crisis....
You will be pleasantly surprised how quickly 'crisis mitigation' pays off with eisq.
Less stress, more loyal customers, fewer expensive follow-up processes.
As project managers, your eisq team will ensure that your project is a success.
Those who help their customers help themselves.
Durch anfeuern geben Athlet:innen nicht auf, sondern mobilisieren ihre letzten Kräfte
Step 7: Cheer for the finish
The success of measures depends to a large extent on sustainability and following through until the end.
Who doesn't know the famous yo-yo effect of diets?
"I lose weight. But it always finds me and brings reinforcements!"
Humorous introduction of a speaker at "Erfolgreiches Contactcenter"
Competitive athletes know about the the challenge of finishing. This is true for projects and even more so for changes like our recipe for mitigating crises with proven concepts.
Cheer on
As spectators at sporting events, we cheer and cheer on our heroes frenetically during the final sprint.
This mobilises and releases energy. It prevents athletes from giving up prematurely.
Organisationally, we bring together the last activities for you
In project management, it is easy for us to finalise contact routes. Most of the time, we have to fine-tune systems and finalise self-service portal pages.
In this phase, it is crucial to accompany our colleagues to the finish line.
For this purpose, our expert Arne Eppers reaches deep into his box of tricks and motivations.
In this phase he ignites special impulses, visualises results and reminds them of goals. For this purpose we use all media including a presence accompaniment.
This 7th step is published in the month of 2023, the phase of the run-in for the German football championship.
Every coach of a Bundesliga team knows that after a long season he cannot now train new procedures and condition.
Every coach now works meticulously to achieve the season's goals and to optimally adjust his team in the final sprint.
What are your goals?
Relegation or playing at the top?
If you help your customers, you help yourself.
Get inspired right away and make a 45-minute appointment.
"The pitch is the truth." - Antonio Conte
Bild stammt von Clément Bucco-Lechat, abgedeckt durch CC BY-SA 3.0
Step 8: Evaluate
We have the world coach Antonio Conte to thank for this quote from Jar 2016.
"I prefer to be a great team not only on paper but also on the pitch. The pitch is the truth. The pitch speaks."
Or to put it simply,
"The truth is on the pitch!"
3-4 months dragged on since we started the project.
What is true for world coaches is equally true for eisq. For us, it is a basic principle of our work.
We would like to encourage you as our clients to evaluate the results together:
Stress levels for customer service staff reduced?
Contact rate remained stable?
Process costs reduced?
....
Let's evaluate the success of "Mitigating the crisis with proven concepts" together.
Those who help their customers help themselves.
Get inspired right away and make a 45-minute appointment.