THE RISE OF THE DIGITAL FRONT LINE

Transcription

1 THE RISE OF THE DIGITAL FRONT LINE

2 DO MORE WITH LESS Do more with less. Four words that summarise the last 15 years of pressure board-level execs have put on service teams. Typically, the more part means keeping customers, while the less part refers to headcount. The reality has led to increased pressure on staff, more quantitative/speed-based KPIs (including time taken to use the toilet!), more overtime all resulting in lower-quality service. With this in mind, it s easy to see why contact centres have a reputation for being some of the most dehumanising places to work. In an attempt to take the strain off service teams, organisations then adopted a deflection strategy, which is a fancy term for making the phone number very hard to find if at all. Those tactics led to high-effort engagements and frustrated customers, many of whom fled to the competition. Persistent customers (increasingly frustrated after enduring wait times that no amount of cheery hold music would alleviate) were put through to the contact centre. More specifically, they were put through to the overworked, underpaid agent (still needing the toilet), who was measured on how quickly they could get customers off the phone. The agent, with no context of the customer s journey up to t hat point, then started from scratch trying to help the customer whilst navigating through 17 siloed contact-centre interfaces. IT WAS DOOM AND GLOOM WITH NO WINNERS.

3 THERE IS ANOTHER WAY Fast-forward to the modern day and the landscape has changed. The do more with less pressure remains, but changes in consumerism and advances in technology have created a different context for service. Fundamentally, three changes have occurred to alter the landscape: + + Customers are now highly connected, with internet access at home and on the go. + + They are more tech-savvy and willing to self-serve USE KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY TO EMPOWER CUSTOMERS + + They demand lower effort and faster interactions, which in turn should mean less effort and more speed for customer-service teams. How do you capitalise on this new customer landscape? The simple answer is that you use knowledge and technology to empower customers to help themselves with a Digital Front Line a rising trend that organisations are adopting to address the do more with less challenge.

4 INTRODUCING THE DIGITAL FRONT LINE THE DIGITAL FRONT LINE SHOULD BE SEEN AS A SMART, AUTOMATED MECHANISM Not to be mistaken for traditional self-service, the Digital Front Line has a number of key differences that enable a significant shift in customer engagement. As the diagram below shows, the Digital Front Line should be seen as a smart, automated mechanism for delivering the first-line function. The initial goal is to reduce customer-engagement effort the direct opposite to our past deflection tactics. If it is not simple and intuitive for customers to engage with your Digital Front Line, they will continue to reach for the phone. LOW-EFFORT ENGAGEMENT DIGITAL CONTACT CENTRE FLOW INITIAL CONTACT CATEGORIES & PRIORITIES FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION FUNCTIONAL ESCALATION/S SPECIALIST RESOLUTION Once engaged, the Digital Front Line handles the initial contact, identification and categorisation of customer issues. This is a critical step, giving us insight into the customer, enabling a more context-aware, personalised engagement that significantly increases the chances of First Contact Resolution. Should the issue require escalation to the contact centre, the customer can be immediately routed to the correct team with the right skills and experience to resolve the issue, as the Digital Front Line has already captured the details required to do this, passing the full details of the digital engagement to the agent to continue where the Digital First Line left off. THE RESULT? A SEAMLESS, LOW-EFFORT EXPERIENCE FOR THE CUSTOMER THAT REDUCES CALL VOLUMES AND BOUNCE RATE FOR THE CONTACT CENTRE. FINALLY, THE WIN WIN SITUATION WE VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!

5 WHAT DOES GOOD LOOK LIKE? THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET WHEN IT COMES TO GREAT DIGITAL SELF-SERVICE Getting it right requires multiple tactics to serve the right knowledge to the customer at their point of need. Providing customers with choices over how they can engage (from quick knowledge searches and context-aware FAQs to smart assistants that guide customers through the stages of resolution) will increase your chances of success. The initial revelation is that support doesn t start on your brand support pages, or your website, or your mobile app! Instead, the first port of call for customers is typically Google, meaning that even customer service needs to think about SEO! In-Process Knowledge AS THE DIAGRAM TO THE LEFT SHOWS, WE MUST THINK OUTSIDE-IN, STEPPING THROUGH CUSTOMER JOURNEYS. Contextually Dynamic FAQs Social Community Support Contextual Escalation Knowledge Interception Natural Language Search & Smart Assist Mobileoptimised Let s look at key capabilities and actions for the Digital Front Line + + Search Engine Optimisation More than half of customer journeys start on the web, with customers searching for support in their search engine of choice. ACTION: Make it easy for customers to get to the knowledge they need by optimising your self-service content for search engines to find and display.

6 + + In-Process Knowledge Speed to answer is still relevant on the self-service channel, so try to resolve the customer s need at the point it was created. ACTION: Provide the right knowledge at the right time in the process for example, displaying how to calculate your average annual mileage during the process of applying for car insurance. + + Contextually Dynamic FAQs FAQs are a resource when customers need to find answers to common questions but what s common for one customer isn t necessarily common for another. ACTION: Ensure FAQs are context-aware and dynamically display FAQs relevant to the specific customer enquiry. This level of personalisation can be based on a number of factors: the product or service owned, length of ownership (new customers have different questions), customer country, and so on. + + Natural Language Search Historically, searching for answers has meant customers have to guess the keywords the website will use to find the most relevant knowledge. Natural search removes this complexity by translating human language into computer language so the relevant knowledge is provided to the customer every time. ACTION: Test the search function on your own support pages by entering questions in natural language how did it do, how does it compare with your competitors? + + Smart Assist Searching for knowledge is effective when the customer knows what to look for. However, many situations arise where customers don t know the problem they are trying to solve. This is where Smart Assist comes in. If your phone refuses to power on, or your internet service isn t connected (two very big first-world problems!), Smart Assist guides customers through a series of basic steps. ACTION: Ensure the self-service function can diagnose customer issues by asking a series of structured questions, and then pointing them to the suggested resolution or where appropriate, route the customer to the correct support team for human resolution.

7 + + Social Community Support With increasing social popularity, providing a place where your customers can help each other is often a very effective and low-cost support method particularly popular in high-tech industries. As a word of caution, if organisations choose not to provide this low-cost support option, customers will typically turn to other social channels, e.g. special interest forums. ACTION: Provide customers with a social support community so they can access the very best peer-to-peer support while ensuring you retain control of the channel and, ultimately, the customer experience (because you re able to review and moderate the content). + + Knowledge Interception Despite best efforts to serve customers on the web, there ll always be those who want to phone and speak to an agent. These customers are laser-focused on finding the support number with the fewest clicks. Knowledge interception is a great way to help these customers; before presenting them with the phone number, ask them to complete a simple form to outline their question. Couple this information with the context you already know about them (such as purchase history) and you can take a very good guess at the answer they re looking for. ACTION: Present relevant knowledge in a subtle we think this might help you way, and you ll convert these serial phone callers into intelligent self servers and improve their experience as a by-product! + + Contextual Escalation OK, it s fair to say that not all issues can be resolved by the Digital Front Line; there are times where human-to-human intervention is required. When this arises, the escalation to an agent should be seen as exactly that an escalation, not a new engagement in which the customer has to repeat their situation. In these circumstances, the agent is able to more effectively serve the customer because they understand the context of the initial customer journey. ACTION: Think of self-service as the Digital Front Line, and ensure it passes the context of the engagement to the human agent at the point of escalation. The Digital Front Line is not only able to route the customer to the most appropriate team, but also able to recommend the most effective channel. For example, a customer with questions about returning goods is best served over web chat, where the agent can easily co-browse on the customer s mobile device and show them where to click to start the returns process.

8 WIN WIN BENEFITS Establishing a successful Digital Front Line requires a multilayered strategy able to personalise the service experience for each customer, based on their context at that point in time. By getting it right, you re able to accomplish doing more with less and create that self-perpetuating value chain of better retention; increased loyalty; fewer frustrated customers; fewer complaints; and fewer repetitive, low-value activities in your contact centre, which means happier agents and reduced attrition! Of course, there are clear efficiency gains to be had from the Digital Front Line, and not just inbound demand reduction, but also channel shift and reduced bounce rates. However, once the Digital Front Line is in place, you will be able to demonstrate the value from enhanced customer experience retention, loyalty, reduced complaints, and so on. The likelihood of the board banking these savings is very slim. Instead, the productivity gains can be reinvested into service in other ways, like upskilling agents or looking at new channels enabling you to move to the next level. SO TAKE THE FIRST STEP IN BREAKING THE CYCLE: IMPLEMENT YOUR DIGITAL FRONT LINE TODAY! ORACLE.COM/SERVICE ABOUT THE AUTHOR As CX Strategy Director at Oracle, Matt Bateson s passion is helping organisations unlock value from CX in order to drive sustainable business growth. His own experience of leading large service teams provides him with a perspective very much entrenched in the realities of what it takes to run a critical business function. An appreciation of how service leaders must balance the day-to-day challenges with the pressure of delivering against larger, long-term business goals underpins Matt s ability to help organisations make practical decisions about their existing and future CX requirements. Connect with Matt on Twitter and LinkedIn.