Whitepaper Omni-Channel Strategy in Contact Centers Status 08/2017
1 Market requirements What customers expect Today s customers are flexible, well-informed and have become more demanding than ever by deploying mobile technologies and social networks. Before every purchase, they actively inform themselves about various sources, share their experiences and expect excellent customer service as a matter of course. Companies can be reached via multiple channels thus enabling customers to select their preferred method of contact. Customers may change channels at any time, and they expect this change to occur seamlessly without needing to repeat previous interactions. Moreover, they demand consistent service quality across all channels. Channels deployed Channels used by customers often vary. During the selection process, digital channels are typically deployed by customers to search for suitable products before initiating more concrete interactions via chat or e-mail. If customers call contact centers, they are often well-informed or dissatisfied because they could not make progress via other channels. Therefore, demands on agents are growing enormously. need to re-explain their requests. This dichotomy increases frustration and leads to a rapid decline in customer satisfaction, not to mention missed cross-selling and upselling opportunities. In the worst-case scenario, the customer may end up migrating to a competitor. An integrated Omni-Channel approach The disadvantages of a simple Multi-Channel contact center are eliminated by implementing an Omni-Channel approach. The Omni-Channel approach unifies and synchronizes individual contact channels instead of treating them as isolated separate entities. It facilitates the same service across all channels without any disadvantages for the customer. Customer histories and information already exchanged in previous channels are processed seamlessly to optimize service quality. Implementing an Omni-Channel approach requires changes to a company s structure including technical adjustments, altered employee expectations and innovations to overlapping business processes. 3 Benefits of an Omni-Channel Strategy Implementing an Omni-Channel approach results in significant advantages. The spread of smartphones has led to a growing deployment of text-based channels. E-mails and text messages are more easily and rapidly sent, especially if customers do not need or want personal contact. Since many users spend a large part of their time on social media, many concerns can be easily addressed and followed up via social networks on a 24/7 basis. According to the Aberdeen Group, an Omni-Channel strategy: Growing demands for contact centers Reduces transfers by agents by 4 % per conversation; and Customers expect companies to know about their former purchases and interactions and demand personalized service. Companies frequently differentiate themselves from the competition through excellent customer service alone. Decreases agent costs by 3.3 % Increases customer loyalty by 7.1 % per year Boosts positive mentions on social media by 5.5 % Improves Customer Lifetime Value by 4 % compared to an annual loss of 23.3 % in companies without an OmniChannel strategy! Moreover, contact centers with an integrated OmniChannel strategy: Increase the IVR-completion rate by 10.6 % Improve customer loyalty by 9 % 2 Multi-Channel versus Omni-Channel Bolster Customer Lifetime Value by 5.8 % Every man for himself: Multi-Channel Lift agent utilization rates by 3.5 %; and The term Multi-Channel describes the availability of multiple methods of contact for customers to communicate with a company. Several channels are often established sequentially and operate independently without being integrated with other channels. Each channel may employ unique strategies and separate staff. Reduce supervisor time for agent support by 7.8 % Omni-Channel strategy offers tangible benefits, but it must be carefully planned in terms of organizational restructuring, technical adjustments and employee involvement. If customers shift from one contact channel to another, they often experience a different selling approach and the
6.0 % -4.0 % -3.3 % Supervisor time for agents 3.5 % Customer Lifetime Value Agent utilization rates IVR-completion rate 10.6 % Agent costs 5.5 % Transfers per conversation 9.0 % Positive mentions on social media Customer loyalty Integrating the Contact Center within the Omni-Channel Strategy -7.8 % Study by the Aberdeen Group (2014): The Business Value of Integrating the Contact Center within your Omni-Channel Strategy 4 First step towards an Omni-Channel Approach among multiple departments and the management of their After deciding to implement an Omni-Channel strategy, management typically starts by thinking about technical adjustments. However, they will save a great deal of time by considering organizational adaptations first to guarantee a smooth transition. The Omni-Channel approach targets company-wide customer communications to foster a uniform picture of the enterprise on any channel. For proper implementation, intra-company and uniform communications must take place at a corporate level. Various departments processing on separate channels must integrate with each other, and joint objectives must be created through effective collaboration. Only by doing so can a company convey a holistic picture to the outside world. Established structures must be reconsidered and transformed through a uniform strategy. corresponding resources. Existing reporting must be adjusted as well. Due to interdivisional cooperation, the need for new reports arises because the focus transcends the specific objectives of an individual department. Moreover, conflicting reporting solutions within the same company must be standardized. Finally, reorganizing customer data management must become a new priority. An Omni-Channel strategy means the customers full history must be known regardless of the channels they choose. Therefore, the customers data from all channels must be made available to every employee. An independent, secure, yet easy-to-use authorization process must connect various departments and their employees to access customer data. A continuing conversation with customers must occur without the need for them to repeat their histories. This overarching cooperation must be technically supported, e.g., via the use of an ERP system to facilitate interconnection
5 Changing Technology A strict separation among individual channels must be abolished to create an integrated whole. In doing so, various technical aspects should be considered: How does data enter the communications channel? How is data managed? How is data evaluated? Routing: All interactions should be intelligently routed in an automated manner to assign the right customer to the right agent at the right time. The employee should possess sufficient technical and professional competencies. If a customer is communicating via chat, the agent needs familiarity with the chat channel as well as professional customer service skills. Channel change: If a customer chooses to change the channel, a uniform customer approach must be employed as well as the technical means to incorporate this change in a seamless manner. Documentation of customer interactions: To fully understand the Customer Journey, it must be documented across all communications channels to make all interactions available on demand at all times. In short, customers interactions on various channels must be linked. Central data applications: Central applications must enable access to all available data from the Customer Journey to convey a consolidated, holistic approach to customers requests. Agents will be unable to quickly find the right information if they need to use too many applications. Thus, the introduction of a streamlined Unified Agent Desktop will facilitate this process. Cloud technology: At the same time, the infrastructure should be installed via network instead of locally. Doing so decreases the need for costly investments and improves scalability so the company can respond flexibly and actively, and adapt to ongoing progress. 6 Capturing the Customer Journey After enabling interactions via multiple channels in the contact center, all communications must be documented with a suitable recording solution. Typically, each channel is delivered in its own format so different recording solutions must be used. For example, telephony recording is based on an entirely different format than recording text-based channels such as e-mail or chat. However, an Omni-Channel approach links communications across multiple channels to understand the Customer Journey. The customers communications must therefore be thoroughly recorded and correlated for each interaction. The contact center s CRM tool merges information to create a Customer Journey and can be viewed and queried by agents at any time. Capturing the Customer Journey with ASC ASC offers systems documenting communications tailored to meet the demands of contact centers, security critical markets and the industrial sector. Recording of all channels: In addition to voice and screen data, other channels such as SMS, chat or video can also be recorded. Link to ERP and CRM systems: Open interfaces make it easy to connect existing contact center infrastructure with ASC s system. By doing so, a wide range of data can be preserved and exchanged. Search by specific criteria: Stored communications are tagged with index data such as the name of the agent, the customer number or a support ID. This information can be transferred manually or automated with ASC s system. Relevant information can be rapidly and easily found and compiled. Depiction of the Customer Journey: Data is played by ASC applications to convey individual interactions or the entire Customer Journey. ASC offers a visionary Cloud solution based on real multitenancy to ensure unlimited scalability, availability and flexibility. 7 Quality Management Today, agents are faced with ever-increasing demands: they must operate multiple channels, deal with an increasing number of applications and convey superior knowledge about a company s products and services. Especially via phone, many customers have already collected a lot of information through other channels and expect agents to know the same. Agents must understand the Customer Journey at a glance and detect any patterns from previously generated data to determine either next steps or cross- or up-selling opportunities. Similar to traditional telephony, where agents are regularly trained and evaluated, agents in a more complex OmniChannel environment require a detailed introduction to social media channels and e-mail, even if they use them privately. Certainly, some agents prefer certain channels, so, it makes sense to get an overview of their comfort levels for deployment planning. In addition, targeted training can be employed for unpopular channels to prevent negative tendencies during project implementation.
However, channel training must be supplemented to ensure adequate service quality. Thus, all interactions should be monitored regularly in a random manner. In addition to the agent s development and service level, new training requirements can be specifically determined. Ineffective training is avoided by the watering can principle, and each employee or team can be promoted in a customized manner. Complete analysis of all communications from multiple channels transcends traditional quantitative measures, such as the average call duration, to determine the service level. Instead, the causes for these statistics must be researched. The triggers within critical conversations must be found quickly and remedied, and the automated detection of new trends can proactively address customers needs. With the Omni-Channel approach, the actual evaluation process should be adapted to consider unique criteria for various channels as well as the entire Customer Journey from initial contact to conclusion. Only by doing so can management assess what customers have experienced on their journey and how contact center agents have accompanied them on their trip. In addition, detecting dissatisfied customers in real-time enables an immediate response to prevent customer defections. Agents behavior can be specifically filtered and analyzed in critical situations for customized training. If necessary, realtime support for agents can be provided through automated recommendations. Analytics solutions can even evaluate customers emotional state and their histories to determine whether they wish to buy or are in the mood for up-selling. Predictions about customers behavior and the corresponding adjustment of agent services are delivering impressive results in advanced research and development. ASC s quality management solution Comprehensive quality management for agent evaluation Individual evaluation templates for each channel or company-wide Evaluating customers individual steps or their entire journey ASC s analytics solutions Automated analysis of all recorded communications Trends recognition through automated categorization of all incoming calls Detailed determination of employees training requirements by channel Standard review of employees knowledge through customized quizzes Ensuring quality level by assigning personalized training packages Identification and alerts of critical conversations requiring immediate action Cause analysis for containment and problem resolution Pre-filtering of calls for efficient quality management Automated transcription of audio data for holistic analysis with existing BI solution Recorded sessions for on-the-job training Channel-specific or company-wide reporting Reports and dashboards to view the most critical information at a glance 8 Analytics With multiple contact channels, the number of customer interactions to be evaluated has increased exponentially. Manual evaluation is impossible with immense data sets, and an automated analytical solution must be used for representative results. Automated evaluations must include communications for an accurate portrayal level. When using analytics solutions in an environment, the evaluation of both audiochannels must be included. all customer of the service Omni-Channel and text-based
8 Summary Introducing an Omni-Channel approach facilitates excellent customer service to create loyal customers. At the same time, the transition must be carefully considered with thoughtful planning. In short, you should ask the following questions: What are the most important channels, and are they all recorded? Can information from all channels be collected, analyzed and processed appropriately? Can information from channels be combined with relevant information from other operational systems on one platform (QM, WFM, CRM, etc.)? Is the database scalable as new channels are added? Can the platform be implemented with minor adjustments and is it scalable? Is analysis across all channels possible? Is recording across all channels possible? Can the data be displayed in a customized dashboard? ASC Technologies AG Seibelstraße 2-4 Phone +49 6021 5001 0 63768 Hösbach Fax +49 6021 5001 310 Germany hq@asctechnologies.com Please follow us on asctechnologies.com