Winning in the age of the customer - Netcall

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Winning in the age of the customer The age of the customer and the impact it has on every contact centre.

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INTRODUCTION Historically the best supplier won the contract. Thereafter control of competitiveness moved to the best product distributor who would win the race for customers, loyalty and profit. In the 1990s organisations controlled information, however mobile and social forces have resulted in a transfer of this control to empowered buyers. Customers lead and the race to differentiate competitiveness is increasingly challenging. This report considers the age of the customer and the impact it has on every contact centre.

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WHAT IS THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER? Forrester defines the age of the customer as a 20-year business cycle beginning 2010. To succeed enterprises have to understand and serve increasingly powerful customers. Customers are in control and service has become the only differentiator.

90% say buying decisions are influenced by

online reviews - they believe peers over advertising (Dimensional Research)

120% higher customer retention rate when business is aligned around the customer (Aberdeen)

94% of customers who have a low-effort service experience will buy from that same company again (CEB)

consumers shared bad experiences 54% of with more than 5 people … and then move on to a supplier who can give them what they want. Do you understand your customer service delivery gap? CEOs believe that they offer a superior 80% of customer service. Only 8% of their customers agree! (Bain & Co)

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU? It is increasing important that you make it easy for customers to buy from you: • Listen to their feedback • Coordinate multichannel activities and information using workflows and processes • Ensure that you deliver a consistent and personalised customer experience. Is investing in a good customer experience worthwhile? The results are compelling. Bain showed that a 5% increase in retention can lead to a 90% increase in profitability. Aberdeen state that top performing companies achieve a 51% higher customer retention, and 1000% times greater improvement in customer satisfaction – compared to the norm.

The cost of acquisition is 3 to 10 times more than the cost of retention (CIM)

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EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF MULTICHANNEL ON YOUR CUSTOMER’S JOURNEY Consider, evaluate and then use only the most appropriate channel to resolve client needs. Analyse customer demographics and match media use. Top performing contact centres motivate and equip agents; they analyse and identify success, distil best practice and train other agents. Supported agents have consistent objective performance, analysis highlights their training needs and they can rapidly gain remedial support.

You will make the decision over specialist or blended agents based on your team profile, and customer demand. Studies however show that top performers are twice as likely to use specialist agents. Spotlight a focus on skills based routing across all channels. Rapidly deliver the customer to the required solution in the most productive way. Interrogate and gain data to effectively route contacts before they reach an agent. Maximise the use of ‘in queue’ or ‘process’ time. Work intelligently with the information to place the agent in control, eliminate wasted steps, shorten time to resolution and reduce customer effort.

72% of organisations say #1 priority is to drive operational efficiency and cost savings (Netcall)

89% of customers frustrated with inconsistent treatment when using different channels (Accenture)

74% of customers say prior conversations are forgotten (Orange)

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UNDERSTAND HOW PROCESSES IMPACT AGENT PRODUCTIVITY Do you have the balance right? Is putting the customer at the centre of everything making work increasingly complex for agents? Gain 15%* of agent time when you integrate systems and provide a unified desktop and deliver 60% improvement in first contact resolution, customer satisfaction, reduced training time and happier agents. Revisiting ineffective current processes is unlikely to revolutionise your customer’s experience. The use of improvement and ‘lean’ methodologies is useful only when your processes deliver value.

Netcall contact centre specialists typically find it is necessary to take a fresh look, and focus on the immediate purpose. Map an overview including the start, end, any compelling events and customer pain points. Innovation then delivers a culturally pleasing process that delivers a superior customer experience. With your new processes develop customisable workflows to support agents and back office colleagues step-by-step. Triggers and alerts ensure tasks are accomplished at the right time and in the most streamlined way, improving right first time resolution. Proactively contact customers to keep them informed and reduce unnecessary inbound contact.

“A bad system will beat a good person every time” W. Edwards Deming

60% improvement in first contact resolution when using a unified agent desktop (UAD) (Aberdeen 3)

*(Aberdeen3)

eGuide series Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% increases profits by 25% to 95% (Bain & Co)

84% of contact centre professionals say deliving a seamless experience is important (CCW)

Only 42% of contact centres asked their customers if their query was resolved (Netcall)

ENSURE YOUR TEAM HAS A CUSTOMER VISION Support agent performance excellence. When faced with a poor experience customers tell others and they take business elsewhere. Grow service excellence using performance management tools and offer rapid relevant development support. Engage your agents with a compelling customer vision giving them a clear line of sight to the customer in everything they do. Motivate agents by using single view real-time reporting, enabling them to see their contribution to improving productivity and profitability.

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“The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%” (Marketing Metrics)

DISCOVER IF YOU ARE WINNING Track your success and measure. Experts agree that balanced metrics consider the customer journey as a function of first contact resolution (FCR), customer effort (CE) and customer lifetime value (CLV). Best practice suggests FCR is an essential measure, as it shines light on both process and outcome. Make it easier for your customers to interact and for your agents to deliver service and improve both productivity and customer satisfaction. Flexibly adapting to changing customer demands requires that you analyse your customer’s needs by channel and the level of transaction reassurance, then understand the transaction value and the associated cost. Differentiation based on service necessitates that you manage the end-to-end customer journey.

85% of organisations will focus on proactive customer engagement (CCW)

Get in touch Maximise your productivity and competitiveness and win in the age of the customer. Liberty, Netcall’s integrated customer experience platform, helps you manage customer interactions using its advanced feature sets. Customer updates are then delivered from Liberty and the customer’s enquiry is handled effectively and quickly, transforming customer engagement. Find out more visit www.netcall.com/liberty or get in touch and speak to a specialist on 0330 333 6100 and ask for “transforming customer engagement”.

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