Chat, Social, Email… ...getting engagement right Paul White CEO
May 10, 2015
Chat, Social, Email…
...getting engagement right
Paul White
CEO
Agenda
• The Evolving Customer Landscape
• Reducing Multi- Channel complexity
• Multi Channel in Action
• Email – Making it work!
• Web Chat – Best Practice
• Social Customer Service Tips
• Smart Phone Apps and how to be prepared
The evolving customer landscape
• By 2016, 40% of customer service contact is predicted to
be through a combination of social sites and mobile apps -CCA
2013)
• 34% of consumers state email is their preferenceFifth Quadrant – Consumer Preference Report 2012
• Web Chat tipped as latest channel of choice
web chat usage is growing at 18% per year ContactBabel 2012
• 80% Consumers trust social recommendations
26% contact centres focussing on social, further 44% using social as
a minor channel ContactBabel 2012
• 50% of smart phone users prefer to use a mobile customer
service app, before calling a call centre (Speech Cycle and Echo
Research Study)
How do customers engage today?
“Which methods have you
used to contact customer
service centres over the
past 6 months?”
Based on consumer preference
surveys 2012
66% 74% 69%49%
40% 64% 70% 54%
65% 54% 40% 28%
48% 31% 14%
35% 22%
35% 20%
41% 36% 29%
51% of over 16s have a smart
phone. Half of these use a
MobileApp to resolve issues before
calling a call centre
Mobile Marketing News May 2012
Channels vs Demographics
Mobile
Contact centre
In person
Web chat
Social
Email a
service
agent
Navigate
IVR via a
smart
phone
Transfer to
a service
agent
Co-browse
company
website
Receive
information
by SMS
Browse
community
forum
Tweet
Join chat
session
Visit a local
store
Everything is connected
The Multi Channel Dilemma
• Too much plumbing for IT to integrate… Social media
Explosion of email
Mobile apps
Speech applications
Interactive web services
Live web chat
• …has created a fragmented approach to the customer (again) Inconsistent experience
Double keying
Inefficiency
Lack of service level visibility
Human errors
The Challenges of Multi-Channel
Broken Desktop
Intelligent Agent Desktop
CRM BIG DATA
“Grouping” Channels
The integrated desktop
Global Blue Desktop
Providing comprehensive front office support for all their
processes In 18 languages
Iceland
http://www.mplsystems.co.uk/
Multi-Channel: Improving Productivity and Quality
• Ford Retail:
– Agent Productivity up 25%
• Fitness First:
– Eliminated repeat calls
• Babcock International
– Sales Performance up 40%
• Balfour Beatty Workplace
– 18% improvement in response rates and more than £1/2M
cost savings
Email – making it work!
• Respond within 2 hours of receipt
But many people expect an almost immediate response
• Group intelligently
To set expectations and prepopulate using knowledge
management
offer self-service options
• Same or separate team?
49% of consumers want to email the same agent they speak to
• Provide agents with the tools to handle all channels
less monotony; take ownership of an Customer request
• Use intelligent routing
• Drive responses through the knowledge base
Web Chat - the Issues
• Web Chats take twice as long as phone calls, reduce impact:– Concurrent chat sessions, do not ignore quality - max 4
– Use knowledge base to provide automated responses from top templates
• Seamless Transition to other channels– Agents continue interaction with serious customer by phone
• Channel training is secondary to core skills and aptitude
– Typos are OK! – authenticity
• Multi- language spell checks response templates
• Incorporate Web Chat in Mobile Apps
Social Customer Service tips
• Set up your own Communities & Forums: let critics respond directly to
you
• Social is time driven: Respond within an a an hour
• Avoid canned responses - “Call the Call centre on ……” is still
commonplace
• Dedicated Social Agents????
– Euip social agents on multiple channels to simplify workforce optimisation
• Broadcast Updates: product failure/ extreme weather advice
• Encourage Advocacy: “Happy with your service today – tell us via Twitter”
• Use incentives to gain social contact details
• Apologise! Customers appreciate honesty don’t be afraid to say you were
wrong on Social
Web Chat & Mobile
• 50% of smart phone users prefer mobile apps to the call centre
Mobile apps increasingly integrate web chat function, cheap option to ask complex
questions in parallel to app
• Three-way chat and chat conferencing Can involve remote/field based experts to solve status and complex issues
Smartphone revolution
• 50% of smart phone users prefer mobile apps to the call centre
• Smartphone availability and features improve the experience
• Linked in usage grown from 8% in 2012 to 30% in 2013
Implementing a Multimedia Team
• Consider agents skill set: email vs. social vs. chat– Limit some agents to calls and chat only etc.
• Single agent Interface for all Channels– Consistent screen design and process rules
• Group activations
• Incorporate elements of predictive text
• Alternate between channels based on time Vs. Fully blended– 1 hour social, 1 hour chat, 1 hour email
– Vs. Full blended queue
• Consider Impact on Work Force Management– email and calls have different optimisation factors
5 Steps to making Multi-Chanel Work
1. Equip agents to handle Multiple Channels
2. Know your Customer– Single Customer view and avoid repetition
3. Intuitive, integrated Agent Interface
4. Build in Knowledge and context
5. Consider Metrics carefully– No longer about call response times
– Consider Performance and Quality carefully
In summary…
• Customers want to communicate with an expert
– who will resolve their request quickly
– on the channel of their choice
• Enable customers to hop from one channel to another
• Simplify it all on the agent desktop
• Consider the Mobile Customer