Six Best Practices for Deploying Agile Channeling Platforms
24 Oct, 2011
By: Taylor AllisConsumer Behavior Demands Multichannel Solutions
The explosive growth of smartphones, texting and social media have forever changed the customer service landscape.
Consider that ownership of smartphones among consumers in G8 nations quadrupled from eight percent in 2009, to 32 percent in 2010 – one of the fastest uptake rates for a new technology in the history of consumer electronics. The messaging, chat, mobile browsing and app-based capabilities of smartphones can and should free customers from the impersonal, transactional environment they have become used to from the traditional customer service model.
Now, a customer can describe his or her needs in the medium of their choice - via text message, an interactive app, and robust online self-help or community applications, giving them real-time access to answers and information. Interactions are no longer one way and start with looking for a phone number to call. Instead, they are beginning with search engines and in online communities, often in a mobile environment that enables conversations, rather than one- way transactions.
Consumers will expect more personal, real-time interactions, and are tiring of outdated service models that require them to start over each time they come into contact with a company representative. The companies at the forefront of this revolution are implementing proactive, flexible systems, known as multichannel or “agile channeling.”
Agile channeling is an integrated business process and technology approach that enables organizations to maximize the value of each customer service interaction while optimizing the cost structure for every channel and each customer segment. New multichannel technologies – including dynamic engagement, intelligent self-service, virtual agents and live help – are rapidly becoming available to help organizations automatically assess the value and complexity of incoming inquiries before they are handled. A flexible framework – capable of following the customer throughout his or her day, across many channels – will enhance customer relationships and build brand loyalty. Companies that haven’t begun to apply this holistic approach to service will be at a significant competitive disadvantage.
When agile channeling is put into action, the results are impressive – in some instances, trimming support costs by an average of 21 percent over 12 months, according to Aberdeen Research. The following six best practices for deploying agile channeling programs will help organizations improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs and attain higher productivity levels:
1. Understand your customer interaction profile. In order to have best-in-class solutions that deliver world class experience within a multichannel environment, you must know how your customer prefers to interact, the complexity of each customer needs, the cost of these interactions and the overall value of the customer. Understanding these essential customer details will allow you to implement a multichannel strategy that effectively serves each customer via the right channel mix. Then, a multichannel service strategy continues with selecting and deploying technologies and agent tools within each channel. A surprising number of companies are using outdated voice, chat and email technologies, and an even larger proportion have not yet linked their social media, CRM or knowledge management strategies to their multichannel service environments. An integrated channel approach will create a single customer experience that can improve customer experience which will, in turn, drive brand recognition, advocates and revenue opportunities.
The alternative is agents hampered by obsolete technologies, and siloed applications that are unable to deliver prompt resolution – which will lead to agent attrition, poor customer experiences and will negatively impact your company’s brand and bottom line.
2. One size does not fit all: staff each channel with the appropriate front-line employees and skill sets. A key driver in customer satisfaction is the ability to recognize and accommodate customers from one channel to the next. In other words, know your customer and how they like to communicate. Ensuring that every channel in a multichannel service environment has the right staff – with the right training and support tools for that channel’s interaction type. Chat agents need to know how to personalize their chat sessions. An organization may be tempted to deploy canned and automated responses in order to reduce costs through concurrent chats – but customers want to interact with a chat agent that personalizes their integrations. Social media agents need to understand their medium, while being aware that their posts will be online indefinitely, and read by multiple customers or prospects. Providing seamless support across channels, while respecting the intricacies of an individual medium, drives significant improvement in the overall customer experience.
3. Integrate information from one channel to the next. The ideal multichannel experience enables any customer to enter the interaction environment from any point, confident that his or her identifying data and issue details will be shared with every agent and the end of the channel. A customer’s experience that begins with a self-help inquiry via the web or a social community, should be seamlessly shared with a chat or voice agents when their interaction is escalated to live channels. Forcing customers to re-enter their identifying information and re-explain their issues is one of the largest drivers of dissatisfaction – and unfortunately common industry practice. Integration must occur between back-office, CRM and knowledge systems to enable a consistent customer experience across channels.
4. Treat social media like a business program, not like a hobby. Not all channels in a multichannel strategy look alike – and it’s crucial to the success of a multichannel strategy to enable customer advocates. Social media can trigger just as many – and often more – value-creating customer interactions as “traditional” channels like voice, chat and email. Providing your customers with the right platforms to voice and share their concerns and ideas will allow customers to evangelize your brand. Properly implemented community programs can become the most cost-efficient and net promoter enabling channel of all. But social media programs need to be well thought out, implemented and measured. Too many companies start with no plan and tactical steps like a Facebook fan page and Twitter account – treating social media like a hobby and not like the business interaction platform it will become.
5. Apply market segmentation perspective to your multichannel strategy. Utilizing more segmentation data in both the routing engine and the agent work desk provides the opportunity to reward loyal customers and offer more targeted revenue generation opportunities at the same time. By moving high-value customers to the front of each live queue, and conveying that information early (“We’re expediting your request based on your exceptional account history, Mr. Jones.”), companies can clearly communicate the importance of customer loyalty, and the rewards for it. Provide your employees with the right information and training to help them care for customers’ concerns while intertwining sales opportunities at the right time, and turn your cost centers into revenue centers by serving and rewarding loyal customers.
6. Implement and evangelize right channel optimization and data analytics. Ensure the business intelligence captured during the course of each interaction is collected, analyzed and acted upon. Analytics will help you continuously drive performance and business outcomes that balance both the customers’ and the organization’s goals.
Maintaining a close watch over the performance of each channel, both within that channel and as customers migrate into and out of it, will ensure that your organization offers a seamless, high-quality customer interaction experience at every point of your multichannel interaction program.
Today’s customer is challenging the traditional balance of call center interaction technologies. Organizations that “listen” to their customers, provide the right technology to deliver one integrated experience, and deliver an empowered and educated workforce will create a superior brand experience, maximize every revenue touch point and do so in a manner that balances the cost of live help with robust self and community help solutions.
