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Evan Hamilton

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Community Manager, UserVoice

370 points

I love helping people understand their customers, because it means success for the company and happiness for the customers. Win-win FTW.

Currently I do this for UserVoice, a customer service tool that makes it really easy and sometimes even fun ...

I love helping people understand their customers, because it means success for the company and happiness for the customers. Win-win FTW.

Currently I do this for UserVoice, a customer service tool that makes it really easy and sometimes even fun to delight your customers. Neat, huh?

I also like to sing rock'n'roll sometimes as Kicking Tuesday.

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WEB: Kicking Tuesday

March 7, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 4 other people answered this question

How many companies cross train their customer service reps with sales?

When I spoke to Wildfire Interactive, they said this was a very successful strategy. A lot of crossover between the two, and a good way for sales to learn to be a little more empathetic and customer service to learn to sell a little. :) ... more

Customer Service

Customer Service Representative

Feb. 14, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 8 other people answered this question

What skills/talents do you look for when hiring sales reps?

Empathy and a thick hide (a tricky combination) are the most key. You can teach most other skills (though it's nice if they can troubleshoot). But don't bother hiring someone who's going to get frustrated easily or not be able to understand what the customer ... more

Employee Evaluations

Sales Management

Sales Performance

Feb. 14, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 8 other people answered this question

When is a company policy bad for the Customer Experience?

Policies are only there to cover YOUR ass, not the customer's...so they often get in the way.
While sometimes you simply must have a policy (such as a legal situation), it's much more effective to have guidelines, and empower your customer service representatives to make ... more

Feb. 14, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 1 other person answered this question

What do you think the future holds for customer service?

We recently held a Focus.com roundtable about customer service in 2012. Our panel heavily felt that the future was mobile, getting customers to help each other, social, better triaging/prioritizing, and making customer service a 1st class member of the organization. We start in on this ... more

Customer Service

Customer Satisfaction

Customer Service Strategies

Customer Service Trends

Jan. 31, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 28 other people answered this question

Should customer service be taught?

I think empathy and resiliance are crucial customer service skills that can't be taught (see my rant on hiring: http://ar.gy/vKy). That said, there's plenty of skills that can be taught: troubleshooting, handling stress, talking to difficult customers, grammar, useful language, etc. I wouldn't make training ... more

Customer Service

Human Resources

Corporate Learning

Jan. 31, 2012

Evan Hamilton and 6 other people answered this question

What's an MBA good for?

Well, one did help us name our company!
Our CEO, Richard White, met with a potential MBA hire. He said the first thing he'd do is rename the company (this was before Justin Timberlake made that hip). When asked what he'd name it, he said ... more

Jan. 26, 2012

Evan Hamilton commented on a roundtable

Understanding Customer Service in 2012

@Jaquan: The page will transform when the event starts and you'll be able to stream audio and participate in the conversation, so you're fine being right here! more

Customer Service

Customer Experience

Customer Service Development

Jan. 26, 2012

Evan Hamilton asked a question at this roundtable

Understanding Customer Service in 2012 [1/26 @ 1 pm]

What do you do about people working in customer service who think the customer is the problem? Is there anything you can do?

Customer Service

Customer Experience

Customer Service Development

Dec. 30, 2011

Evan Hamilton is speaking at this roundtable

Community Management 101: Startup Edition

Customer Service

Community Management

Dec. 20, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 10 other people answered this question

What hiring approaches can improve customer service long term?

My top three customer service hiring prerequisites:
1. Must actually want the job. Lots of people just want *a* job, or a stepping stone. Make sure this person thinks customer service is neat.
2. Must have huge levels of empathy. Customer service burns you out, and you ... more

Human Resources

Customer Experience Management

Customer Loyalty

Dec. 20, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 1 other person answered this question

What do you use for an escalation process?

We leave it in the hands of our customer service reps, but we also give them:
1. A lot of knowledge. They shouldn't be escalating questions, they should be escalating real, critical issues.
2. A lot of freedom. If it's going to help the customer at minimal ... more

Dec. 20, 2011

Evan Hamilton recommends this answer by Niek Bosch

What have you done to reduce escalations?

Tips:
1. Make First Call Resolution the main driver for agent's bonuses instead of Average Handling Time. This will force them to work "harder and smarter" for the customer.
2. Empower Agents to make actual decisions without consulting their supervisor/team leader for every minor issue. It increases ... more

Customer Service

Call Center Agents

Contact Centers

Dec. 20, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 1 other person answered this question

How do you manage the escalation of a non-paid customer?

My litmus test: would I be angry if I had this experience and heard nothing from the company? If so, this needs to be escalated.
The thing is, word of mouth is much more lucrative than one paying customer. In fact, your non-paying customer may sing ... more

Dec. 13, 2011

Evan Hamilton recommends this answer by Remy Bergsma

How do community managers explain what they do to people not working in the social sphere?

I tell people that I'm sort of a chief listening officer. Not the kind they have on submarines, but the kind that keeps an eye on things: conversations, activities and more. Inviting and promoting here, guiding and guarding there. As a community manager you are ... more

Customer Service

Community Management

Social Business

Dec. 8, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 2 other people answered this question

Whats the future of Customer Service

Love it. Happiness is the focus here, not support or service or sales (those are all processes, not goals). Someone (in my mind, the evolution of the community manager) needs to watch over all of this and make sure these processes work together to serve ... more

Customer Service Trends

Dec. 8, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 14 other people answered this question

Should sales and marketing have SLA’s between the two organizations? Why/why not?

"We need corporate terrorists to blow up all of the silos" is the happiest thing I've read all day. more

Marketing Department

Sales Department

Dec. 8, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 5 other people answered this question

If you were starting a Contact Center today, what would you focus on?

At the risk of overlap with what other folks have said: people & culture would be the #1 focus for me.
Zappos has structure and tech in place, but their #1 advantages are dedicated people (they offer them money to leave during training, weeding out the ... more

Customer Service

Call Center Features

Call Center Management

Contact Center Setup

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 4 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Simplifying Social Business: Customer Centricity in a Social CRM World [10/5 @ 11 am]

Should marketers or customer service reps be in charge of social media complaints?

Hey Tom - I think we're actually quite in agreement. I don't see community management as a silo, I see it as a horizontal role. You're absolutely right that Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service can't clash with each other, and I think the Community Manager ... more

Customer Service

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 6 other people answered this question

What have you found to be the best approaches for web self-service?

Bring answers to your customers, rather than making them dig for answers. FAQs and Knowledge Bases are typically bad, so people just ignore them. But if you bring answers to them, they will read 'em. Our data has shown that documentation surfaced while a customer ... more

Customer Service

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 7 other people answered this question

What is the best approach to informing customers they will now pay a fee for a service that was free

I have to agree with John Green. If possible, DON'T.
These people made an agreement with you about a price ($0), and even if they do greatly value it, increasing the price feels unfair. Sure, if Whole Foods charged you $0.25 per paper bag it would ... more

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 2 other people answered this question

What are some ways to increase customer service satisfaction in my call center?

As folks have already said, there are a lot of ways to do this, and to a certain extent it depends on your organization. That said, we've pulled data from hundreds of UserVoice Helpdesk accounts, and it was pretty clear to us that answering quickly ... more

Customer Service

Contact Centers

Customer Satisfaction

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton and 1 other person answered this question

What are the benefits of a universal queue?

One huge benefit: there's one location to see if you're dropping the ball. Give one personal final bill-stops-here ownership, and at the end of the day it's easy for them to see if your company is hitting it's customer service goals. more

Customer Service

Call Center Features

Call Center Technology

Dec. 7, 2011

Evan Hamilton asked a question

How do you get your customer service/customer support staff to work well with your developers?

Customer Service

Customer Support

Employee Relations and Engagement

Following 3 Topics

Customer Feedback

Customer Feedback Management

Customer Service

Following 1 Person

Followed by 31 People

Knowledgeable in 37 Topics

Customer Service

#6 of 785

#155 of 2984

#128 of 2156

#31 of 636

#65 of 1429

Social Business

#15 of 386

Customer Experience

#8 of 160

Social Customer Care

#2 of 27

Public Relations

#19 of 155

Customer Loyalty

#8 of 120

Community Building

#5 of 23

#9 of 33

#20 of 108

#25 of 142

Simplifying Social Business

#16 of 55

Customer Experience Management

#22 of 103

Human Resources

#396 of 1481

Information Technology

#572 of 2263

Customer Service Development

#14 of 20

Customer Service Best Practices

#12 of 23

Contact Center Solutions

#11 of 24

Customer Service Trends

#25 of 30

Social Customer Service

#21 of 31

Customer Feedback

#23 of 36

Customer Satisfaction

#23 of 45

#29 of 46

Community Management

#48 of 63

#95 of 137

#99 of 194

#184 of 339

#232 of 356

Online Marketing

#229 of 360

Social Media Marketing

#184 of 366

#329 of 466

Talent Management

#252 of 470

#202 of 480

#929 of 1456