Web and Mobile Self Service:

Transcription

1 Web and Mobile Self Service: A Critical Element to Enhancing Customer Experience astutesolutions.com

2 Customers are increasingly demanding that companies provide effective digital self-service. In fact, Gartner has identified web and mobile self-service as one of the top three investments companies will make in 2016 to enhance customer experience. Consumers are demanding web and mobile self-service Consumers increasingly demand the ability to get answers and resolve issues without interacting with a customer service agent. The consumer appetite for self-service is driven by several dynamics: 1 Speed of service is critical to consumers. In a Forrester study, 3 out 4 consumers agreed with the statement, Valuing my time is the most important thing a company can do to provide me with good customer service. Self-reliant consumers see virtual agents and other self-service tools as the fastest way to get their questions answered. Your customer knows what information she wants and what she is trying to do, enabling fast resolution if the right self-service tools are available. 2 Consumers no longer recognize the concept of normal business hours. The lines between work time and leisure time have blurred. As consumers themselves are working throughout the day and night, they expect to be able to do business with companies on the timing of their choosing. Clearly this is a challenge for companies, because it is often difficult to justify the cost of staffing contact centers 24/7. Self-service technology enables companies to meet the need for service whenever the consumer demands it. Virtual agents don t sleep. In this whitepaper, we ll explore: 1. The growing demand for mobile and web self-service 2. Where many fall short in providing digital self-service 3. The key elements to delivering self-service that delights customers

3 3 Web Sales and web-influenced sales continue to grow. It s well known that online sales have surged in recent years. What is less recognized is the increasing importance of web research in influencing offline sales. Forrester estimates that in 2015, web-influenced offline sales were more than 4X higher than online sales. With consumers either buying online or researching online before an offline purchase, retailers must provide consumers with effective self-service to protect and grow share. an accelerating rate. Your customers expectations for are not just determined by what you and your direct competitors are doing. Customer expectations are leaking over from entirely different industries in a trend Accenture has dubbed liquid expectations. Companies like Amazon, Intuit and Uber are delivering highly effective self-service, raising the bar for every company. 5 Mobile technologies have introduced consumers to the concept of virtual agents. 4 Liquid expectations are raising the bar for service quality, regardless of industry. Thanks to Apple s Siri and Google Now, consumers are enthusiastically embracing virtual agents to get answers in the moment. Your consumers have high expectations and their expectations are increasing at In a Forrester study, 3 out 4 consumers agreed with the statement, Valuing my time is the most important thing a company can do to provide me with good customer service.

4 Many companies are failing to meet the demand for effective web and mobile self-service Delivery of effective digital self-service currently lags the consumer demand for it. Too many companies rely on a Frequently Asked Questions page. These pages frequently fail to deliver the desired customer experience in three key ways. First, consumers find it tedious to scroll through a long list of questions to find the answer they need. Second, the number of questions included in the FAQ list is limited, so many consumer questions go unanswered. Third, it s difficult to collect information on which questions and issues are not adequately addressed by the current FAQs, making it hard to improve the customer experience. Many companies provide self-service via on-site keyword search. Search is a clear improvement over FAQs, but the customer experience can still be frustrating. To accurately answer questions and resolve service issues, a self-service tool must do two things: Truly understand the customer s question or need Traditional search tools may stumble on point 1. Because search results are driven by keywords rather than an understanding of the user s intent, search is highly effective for simple questions, but may prove inadequate for answering more complex queries. Onsite search tools may also struggle to return relevant responses. Much of the power of Google s highly sophisticated search algorithm derives from its analysis of the links between sites across the web to establish credibility, authority and relevance. When search is deployed on a single corporate site, the power of the algorithm is reduced, resulting in an increase in non-responsive search results. Virtual agents, also known as digital assistants, overcome many of the limitations of FAQs and search to deliver a better search experience. Analysts at Gartner and Forrester expect the prevalence of virtual agents to increase dramatically by As companies evaluate and implement virtual agents, it s critical to understand the ways in which virtual agents can improve digital self-service and enhance the customer experience. Return relevant responses based on that question or need

5 Delivering a self-service experience that delights consumers Digital self-service is an important investment to improve customer experience; follow these steps to get it right: 1 Augment simple search with an intelligent virtual agent. It s critical that your virtual agent be smart enough to replicate the service experience delivered by your best, most experienced customer service representatives. Intelligent virtual agent software utilizes natural language processing to understand the intent and the sentiment of the question being asked. Your virtual agent should also be capable of conducting multi-step automated conversations : asking clarifying questions and obtaining additional information in order to provide the best possible answers. Your virtual agent should also leverage context awareness to return tailored, relevant responses. For example, a virtual agent on an airline website should tailor the response to a traveler s question based on their frequent flyer status and their recent activity on the airline s website. An intelligent virtual agent must be linked to key systems such as your loyalty database and your order management system. 2 Deploy the virtual agent widget on every page of your website. It s critical that your virtual agent be available throughout your site, not just on a contact 3 4 us page. Customers want answers and information in the moment and in the immediate context of their transaction; they don t want to pause and hunt for the page where they can enter a question. Provide self-service as a core mobile app feature. Providing self-service via a virtual agent may be even more critical in your mobile app. Effective mobile apps are simple and use the limited, precious real estate on a mobile screen in highly efficient ways. A wellexecuted mobile virtual agent enables you to provide access to a wealth of information while using very little real estate. Before burying functionality underneath the menu icon, consider whether a virtual agent could be a more effective way to help your customers discover the information or functionality they need on your mobile app. Underpin the virtual agent with a knowledgebase that is right-sized, customer-query driven and easy to update. The quality of the self-service experience you deliver depends on the breadth and quality of your knowledgebase. Developing this knowledgebase can be daunting, so it s important to select a knowledge management system that facilitates the creation and ongoing maintenance of the knowledgebase

6 in multiple ways. First, choose a tool monitors success rates and then identifies and prioritizes questions asked by customers but not adequately answered by the current knowledgebase. This will enable you to focus your efforts on augmenting the knowledgebase for maximum impact on the customer experience. Second, select a tool that can scour existing documentation across your company and suggest relevant content to fill the gaps. Curating content is easier than authoring it from scratch. Third, choose a knowledge management system with easy authoring and workflow management. Developing the knowledgebase is much easier when the authoring effort can be distributed throughout your organization. Continual improvement of the knowledgebase is critical; you can t launch it and leave it. A knowledgebase that atrophies over time will not deliver the experience your customers demand. You will enhance the customer experience by ensuring that customers receive the same answer regardless of whether they ask online, in your app or on the phone with a service representative Leverage a single knowledgebase to power self-service and empower your customer service agents. Once you have developed a knowledgebase to power web and mobile self-service, you can realize a number of benefits by deploying this knowledgebase to the agents within your contact center. You will enhance the customer experience by ensuring that customers receive the same answer regardless of whether they ask online, in your app or on the phone with a service representative. Leveraging the knowledgebase should enable you to dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer service agents, cutting call handling time, improving first call resolution and reducing supervisor escalations. These tangible, predictable gains can be an important justification for making the investment in a knowledgebase. Mine consumer interactions to uncover insights to further enhance customer experience. Self-service interactions will generate a significant amount of both qualitative and quantitative voice-of-the-customer data. Analyzing this data can generate insights about your products, the service experience you provide and much more. Enable seamless and intelligent escalation. Even the best virtual agent will not be able to answer every customer question or resolve every issue. So it s important to enable customers to escalate the interaction to

7 a live customer service agent for a chat, voice or video conversation. To deliver a great customer experience, this escalation has to be smart and seamless. Customers should be able to escalate without switching communication channels. For example, you can utilize a webrtc application to enable consumers to initiate a text, voice or video chat directly from their browser. When this escalation occurs, your technology must pass the consumer context to the agent. Your live agent should immediately see what questions your customer posed to the virtual agent and what the customer was doing on the site or in the app when she first needed assistance. If the customer has been identified during the session (e.g., if she logged in), key elements of the consumer profile should be presented to the contact center agent to ensure personalization and relevance. The Bottom Line Implementing mobile and web self-service can enhance your customer experience and meet the need for fast, always on service. To maximize impact, select smart self-service technology, deploy it broadly across your digital platforms and implement a knowledgebase you can easily maintain. With the right approach, you can delight your customers today and glean insights to drive future enhancements to the customer experience. About Astute Solutions Astute Solutions builds the world s smartest consumer engagement software. Leading consumer brands like British Airways, McDonald s, Kroger, L Oreal and Ford partner with Astute to increase efficiency, drive revenue, and be more loved by their customers. Learn more at astutesolutions.com. Contact Us Today astutesolutions.com