Go BackReturning the Personal Approach to Customer Service through the Intelligent Customer Front Door
Most of us have had a great customer experience somewhere. It may or may not have been with a contact centre, but everyone has had a good experience at some point - at a restaurant, a pub or your local butchers. You are welcomed by name and the person welcoming you knows something about you - even if it's something as simple as "did you watch the football match last night Keith?".
They also remember your favourite choices and will offer them to you as a matter of course. This kind of dream experience is good because we are being helped to choose on the basis of our previous decisions and preferences - and we are made to feel special from the second we walk through the door.
This is the kind of service we should be striving for in the contact centre industry - the challenge is finding a way to replicate this experience. The key is to mix the approach which can deliver this experience with the need to operate within the confines of often limited resources. The good news is that the technology element of the argument takes care of itself - the systems to achieve this approach are already available.
Introducing the Intelligent Customer Front Door
There is a "Customer Front Door" in the contact centre in exactly the same way as there is in a pub or local shop. The contact centre front door is often the front door to the whole enterprise, not just the customer service desk. If getting in is difficult or frustrating for the customer, they will turn round and leave. If they get through the door and are stopped from doing what they want by a seemingly pointless task, an unnecessary queue or an unhelpful employee, they are unlikely to come back.
The Intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD) concept is what is needed for businesses to succeed with the necessary personal approach.
An Intelligent Customer Front Door helps ensure that the customer's entrance to the business is as efficient as possible. The contact centre is able to gather information from across the company and use it to both resolve the customer's enquiry and personalise the experience - even offering something extra in the form of an up-sale. The whole interaction, from start to finish, is based on the customer's previous activities with the organisation.
The iCFD is an enterprise-wide strategy. Information should be pooled from a range of sources and then executed through a specific technology application in the contact centre.
The iCFD is essentially a call routing application that welcomes the caller, discovers their intent or need and then determines the best way to treat the call. This requires preparatory and real-time interaction between different systems - looking at customer history, adding any information taken from the caller at the front end and then assessing the availability of agents in the contact centre who are able to resolve the call. The iCFD proactively determines where the caller should be routed to and the service they should receive when they get there.
There are a number of different stages that a business should go through to establish an effective front door to their enterprise - some of which are process-led, some are staffing issues and others are technology-focussed.
Just have one front door
Many organisations will have many telephone numbers - some even have hundreds. The first essential element of the front door is that it must be easy to get through - if there are 100 different ways to get through it, the vast choice may put customers off. Having a single point of contact makes it very easy for the customer to interact with you as a business - it is your responsibility to make sure the customer reaches the right agent, not theirs.
A leading international airline recently consolidated its 11 different numbers into one simple 4-digit number. The new service has been a huge success: on the 7.8 million automated calls, misrouted calls are down by 40 per cent and call time has been cut by 40 seconds.
Understand the customer - speech recognition is essential
The value of an IVR to a business is both significant and well-documented. Unfortunately some poorly designed and legacy systems have given automated service a poor reputation because they were constructed in a confusing way and did not allow the customer to communicate their needs.
Speech recognition technology can turn around these negative perceptions. The customer is more in control of the direction in which the system moves. It has a range of open commands, rather than the closed instructions of a DTMF 'touch-tone' system. The new wave of speech recognition systems are highly accurate and can help a business to automatically determine where to route the customer.
Despite the progress of the technology, the organisations offering speech recognition are still very much in the minority. A large part of this reluctance is based on the perception that a lack of customer acceptance will limit its effect. In fact, research has shown that consumers are far more accepting of speech: 56% of consumers prefer speech to touchtone - incidentally only 10% want to use touchtone. Speech is now seen as speeding up the process and so customers are happy to use it.
Recognise the customer
A big part of a satisfying experience is not needing to explain who you are to somebody who should recognise you. Line recognition technology shows the number that the customer is calling from, which can easily be cross-referenced with the customer database to find the customer's profile. Identity can then be verified simply by being prompted for a name or keyword. This gives the customer a seamless experience.
In addition, the accuracy of speech recognition technology means that these systems can be used to recognise the customer. The rapid development of comprehensive voice biometrics tools means that an automated system can not only recognise customers based on where they're calling from and then verify that assertion - they can also authorise a secure transaction by analysing the voice of the person calling. It is a tool that will benefit the financial sector most, but it can be effectively deployed to any vertical sector to significantly speed up a customer call - improving customer satisfaction and cutting running costs.
Swift Resolution of any customer query
Identification and verification is only a useful process if that information is used effectively. The Intelligent Customer Front Door takes the customer ID and then pulls up all the information on the customer that is sitting in back-office databases.
This enables the system to firstly identify any outstanding issues that need to be resolved. It may be the case that a customer is calling for the third time in the space of a week about a billing issue. The customer should not only be put straight through to the billing department, but more importantly to a supervisor - this is a high priority call!
Other information, such as recent purchases, upgrades or complaints can all factor into an effective routing decision that helps to ensure that the customer is easily and accurately routed. All that is required is a simple question: "Are you calling about the new phone you upgraded to last week?". The customer realises you have recognised them and understood why they may be calling; even if they say "no", you have at least demonstrated knowledge of that customer.
The business benefits of the iCFD
Other than the obvious customer service improvements - which increase customer retention, loyalty and long-term profitability - there are immediate bottom line benefits that can be realised.
Customers are on the phone for a shorter time resolving their query, which means they are not anxious to hang up the second their call is resolved. This gives the agent an opportunity to build a better relationship with the customer - they are happy and not in a rush to hang up. Utilising the customer information within the back-office databases for sales opportunities is a practice that becomes more effective within an iCFD environment. Customers are happy, willing to stay on the phone a little longer and then are presented with a relevant and enticing cross- or up-sale opportunity. Chances for converting that sale are much higher because it is presented in a more positive environment, conducive to sales.
Returning to the Personalisation of Customer Service
The Intelligent Customer Front Door can significantly improve a caller's experience, reduce customer frustration and cut operating costs. The tailored user experience also helps open up opportunities for cross- and up-sales. The iCFD brings personalised service back to the customer experience.
A genuine Intelligent Customer Front Door requires top management leadership to promote a customer-
driven corporate philosophy and co-operation across the enterprise. The customer is still king and companies must take the necessary actions to keep ahead of their competitors in the race to improve the customer experience. It is often a step-change for many organisations, but a highly worthwhile one - as we can see from some industry examples.
