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Brad Nichols

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Chief Operating Officer, Clientometry

90 points

A Senior Customer Service/Experience and Operational management executive with broad and deep direct international leadership experience across all aspects of B2B Customer Service and financial information delivery. An inspirational change agent with diverse capabilities, an empowerment based style, and results driven approach.

March 16, 2011

Brad Nichols is now following Lynn Hunsaker and 1 other person

March 16, 2011

Brad Nichols and 10 other people answered this question

What is the best way to train sales people to better understand their customers needs?

Good points all.
In addition, I'm a big believer in creating win-win situations and making staff accountable for their actions. In short, make it in the best interests of Sales people themselves to ensure they are in touch with the customer needs.
One way this can be ... more

Sales Development

Sales Management

March 13, 2011

Brad Nichols and 4 other people answered this question

What are your tips for transitioning to an outsourced help desk solution?

Michael,
Having been accountable for this transition a few times - both to an outsourced solution and an offshore (but still in-house) organization, there is far more best practice to share than can be included in a post like this. That said, the core elements to ... more

Customer Service

General Management

Information Technology

March 12, 2011

Brad Nichols and 2 other people answered this question

Why would you argue that reducing customer effort increases customer loyalty?

I think the core dimension that drives loyalty and satisfaction from the 'Effort' side revolves around ease of doing business.
If your organization minimizes the amount of personal effort a customer has to put in to buy, upgrade, return, or exchange your produce, get answers ... more

Customer Service

Customer Effort

Customer Experience

Customer Loyalty

Feb. 7, 2011

Brad Nichols and 1 other person answered this question

how can customer service staff motivate themselves?

Hi Hellen,
I agree with Stephen - I think the more appropriate question to ask would be - What is de-motivating them?
Self-motivation is neither limited nor defined by one's industry, and it's absence across a large number of staff is most likely an environmental factor... because ... more

Customer Service

Jan. 26, 2011

Brad Nichols and 3 other people answered this question

How does Social CRM change how you determine 'high value' customers?

I think there is also another dimension. Social media, if leveraged properly can be turned into an asset that helps collect a wealth of timely, rich information about your customers. No longer is a firm restricted to the specific interaction they have had with clients ... more

Customer Service

Jan. 26, 2011

Brad Nichols and 5 other people answered this question

How can you maximize a good customer experience?

HI Alan,
Frankly, you're only as good as your last interaction unfortunately, so I believe this is a very important line of thinking that is regularly overlooked.
Too often, those of us in the Customer service/experience world are busy patting ourselves on the back for delivering a ... more

Customer Service

Customer Satisfaction

Jan. 26, 2011

Brad Nichols and 3 other people answered this question

What is 'churn management'?

Hi Caty,
It is simply the identification of those customers who are likely to churn - or take their business elsewhere - and proactively taking action to prevent those deemed to be the most valuable from doing so.
Those likely to churn are usually identified from ... more

Customer Service

Churn Management

Jan. 10, 2011

Brad Nichols and 15 other people answered this question

Top Customer Service Thought Leaders and Influencers to Track in 2011?

One name that I don't see above that should definitely be mentioned as a key influencer for 2011 is Bruce Temkin - http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/
Admittedly he's a bit more Customer Experience than Customer Service but I find he is constantly challenging the thinking in the space and ... more

Customer Service

Customer Experience Management

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols is now following

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols is now following

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols is now following

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols is now following

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols asked a question

How to make Marketing departments accountable for their performance - best practice suggestions?

Jan. 4, 2011

Brad Nichols and 3 other people answered this question

What is the recommended turn-around time for email inquiries by customer service departments?

Hi David,
I think it depends entirely on the industry you're in and the nature of the support you're providing. For example, in the real-time financial services industry, in a B2B capacity where money is involved and we wanted the customers to choose the email channel ... more

Customer Service

Customer Service Best Practices

Customer Service Feedback

Email Management

Dec. 21, 2010

Brad Nichols and 6 other people answered this question

Customer Service Trends: What are the top trends to watch for in 2011?

There are a few things that I believe will shape 2011 in the Customer Service space:
1) Customer Experience becomes profitable – integration of customer service data and experiences into corporate marketing strategies. Companies are starting to realize that Customer Experience is an investment, and what ... more

Customer Service

Customer Experience

Dec. 15, 2010

Brad Nichols and 1 other person answered this question

Customer experience survey questions?

Hey Sam,
I think, in general, you want to:
a) Formulate the questions around mutually exclusive elements of the experience - ie don't confuse the customer with a question that tries to cover both agent knowledge and timeliness for example. This way you can ensure that what ... more

Customer Service

Customer Experience Journey

Customer Experience Mapping

Customer Service Feedback

Dec. 15, 2010

Brad Nichols and 3 other people answered this question

Contact Center Best Practices: What are your tips for improving performance in your contact center?

Hi Michael,
If by 'performance' you mean customer experience or satisfaction, then I think the three top tips I would provide are:
1) Actively recruit for behavioral competencies - create and use a structured competency driven interview program to ensure you're hiring folks with the right behavioral ... more

Customer Service

General Management

Dec. 14, 2010

Brad Nichols and 4 other people answered this question

What is your primary purpose for using social media?

Goods points both - I think there is also a maturity of 'social media savvy' for lack of a better term that will affect how successfully an organization can effectively capitalize on this new medium. If you're company is not yet geared culturally to put ... more

Customer Service

Dec. 13, 2010

Brad Nichols and 1 other person answered this question

What is the role of analytics today and where is it headed?

If you're referring to marketing analytics, then I think the future is much more about the clientometry (actionable customer insight) that is derived from analytic results than the results themselves. As technology advances and access to integrated behavioral data across systems becomes more readily available, ... more

Information Technology

Analytical Tools

Hosting and Bandwidth

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