Chat and Cobrowse. Wow and Win Online Customers with Realtime Service and Support. egain Best Practice Series. An egain white paper

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1 An egain white paper egain Best Practice Series Chat and Cobrowse Wow and Win Online Customers with Realtime Service and Support 2013 egain Corporation. All rights reserved.

2 With more and more customer interactions moving online, it is hardly surprising that some businesses are no longer content with using the web for self-service alone. These companies, early adopters of web collaboration technology, are harnessing the power of the web to offer realtime service and support to online customers. Referred to as web collaboration because of the uniquely collaborative nature of the interactions it enables, this technology set includes chat and cobrowse tools. Although a comparatively recent phenomenon, web collaboration is already delivering strategic and operational benefits to organizations in the form of improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and increased revenues. In this paper, we discuss the pain points that are driving the demand for web collaboration, the benefits of this set of technologies, and some success stories. The paper also includes a checklist to help you select the right chat and cobrowse solution.

3 The need for web collaboration With web-based interactions representing sizeable customer traffic for global organizations, realtime support and service through web collaboration is clearly becoming an essential part of their customer service strategy. Using web collaboration, enterprises can provide chat-based assistance to customers, help them with online purchases and filling in webforms, guide them around the website, and even show them where to get self-service. Studies indicate that customers are more satisfied with chat than with phone (62% versus 46%, according to emarketer). As a customer service channel, chat has some unique advantages over phone. It tempers emotions and reduces the likelihood of miscommunication due to accent and cultural differences. Also, the complete interaction is recorded and the transcript is ed to the customer. In fact, organizations are beginning to use web collaboration also to increase the efficiency of their phone-based customer service. Cobrowsing speeds up problem resolution over the phone and makes for enriched customer experience and reduced service costs. The cost advantage of web-based customer service has provided a strong reason to enterprises to opt for web collaboration versus assisted service through the phone or site visits. A customer service interaction through the phone typically costs $33 as compared to $10 for a chat session (Source: Forrester Research). Site visits are even more expensive than phone calls. Figure 2: Low cost and high efficiency characterize chat As the graphic shows, web collaboration is the most cost-effective way to deliver assisted service, which is often needed when self-service does not solve the customer s problem. Let s look at the benefits of web collaboration in more detail. Page 3

4 CURBING COST Enhanced phone agent productivity: Not only are chat and other realtime web-based interactions less expensive than phone interactions, they also increase the efficiency of phone resolutions by allowing the agent to leverage web collaboration in conjunction with the phone. Enhanced chat agent productivity: Best-in-class collaboration solutions facilitate multiple, simultaneous customer interactions. In some organizations, agents handle three or four chat sessions simultaneously. MINIMIZING REVENUE LOSS Lack of real-time customer service often leads to shopping cart abandonment. More than two-thirds of online shoppers abandon ecommerce sites midpurchase simply because they cannot get answers to a question they may have. Web collaboration ensures that there is realtime help available so customers can complete their purchase transactions. Moreover, consumers with single phone lines will have to disconnect from the Internet to get phone-based customer service. Web collaboration allows these consumers to get online help without having to disconnect and possibly abort the purchase. Thus web collaboration minimizes revenue loss while creating satisfied customers that bring in repeat business. ENHANCING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Web collaboration can deliver high quality service and sales assistance that can compare with and even surpass face-to-face interaction. It enables enterprises to provide realtime assistance that is: Consistent: A common knowledge base enables agents to use wellscripted answers at every interaction point. Personalized: The web collaboration session is tailored according to information available in the customer s profile and interaction history. Immediate: Customers get help exactly when they need it. Flexible: Agents have at their disposal a range of technologies to assist customers such as chat, files-sharing, and cobrowsing. Well-recorded: A complete transcript is ed to the customer, which includes information shared during the interaction. Integrated: It works with other service channels such as phone and . It can also be used to handle self-service escalations. The end result: rich interaction and high levels of customer satisfaction. Page 4

5 How does web collaboration work? There are numerous service and support scenarios where web collaboration can help organizations serve their customers better and at significantly lower costs. A financial services customer, for instance, may need assistance while filling out a webform for starting a new account. The customer can initiate a chat session with a service agent, who, if necessary, can use cobrowse to look at the form concurrently with the customer and fill in some fields. Best-inclass cobrowse solutions provide built-in rules and security to prevent the agent from submitting the customer s form or viewing confidential customer information. Customers may also need help in completing online purchase transactions. With live chat or cobrowse, an agent can guide the customer to successful completion of the transaction. Realtime customer service over the web thus enables timely help at the point of purchase and reduces the number of abandoned shopping carts in B2C scenarios as well as the abandonment of the more complex B2B purchase transactions. Choosing the right web collaboration solution A state-of-the-art contact center fully equipped with web collaboration technologies enables differentiated pre-sales and post-sales service. Choosing the right solution however determines the success of the collaborative service initiative, and this can be a complicated affair. The following is a checklist of criteria that companies should use to evaluate web collaboration solutions. 1. Does the solution provide breadth and depth of functionality to address your business needs? Point products for web collaboration require lengthy and time-consuming integration. Does it provide core capabilities such as text chat, and cobrowse? 2. Is the solution mature? Was the solution just brought to market or has it been evolved over multiple releases thereby expanding product functionality and stability? 3. Does it integrate with your existing call center infrastructure and routing technologies? Can it blend phone and web interactions to enable multiple clients to be serviced simultaneously through one agent port? Page 5

6 4. Can the solution work for highly personalized websites? Another key factor to ensure is whether the solution can work for complex websites where personalization, user authentication and frame breaking codes exist. The solution must enable proxy based cobrowsing to avoid double form submission, cobrowse through personalized pages, deal with frame breaking restrictions, and enable assisted form filling. The system should also be flexible and provide granular management of agent access to user screen and user desktop. 5. Can the solution support heavy user loads? The technical architecture requires due consideration as the system should be able to scale under heavy loads that are common in large enterprises. 6. Is it capable of supporting multiple languages to serve global customers? 7. Does the solution support agent productivity and management features? Does the solution support multiple concurrent chat sessions? Does it have the ability to insert canned responses into the agent s answer? Does it allow managers to monitor chat sessions and whisper information to an agent to help resolve a problem? 8. Does it work in highly secure environments? Enterprise customer service systems are typically set up in a highly secure environment with multiple firewalls. Does the solution use industry-standard HTTP protocol to work properly across firewall protection? 9. Does the solution support seamless escalation? Another area that deserves careful study is the ability of the solution to easily integrate with traditional interaction channels. This is key to enabling seamless escalation to phone interaction or a site visit, when all else fails. 10. Can it leverage enterprise-wide customer information and knowledge? A wellarchitected solution should have the capability to interface with knowledge resources and customer information across the enterprise to ensure that enterprisewide knowledge and customer information are utilized to the fullest. This is another vital requirement to ensure unified customer service across channels and agents. 11. Can the vendor provide proof points? Carefully evaluate the endorsements and proof points that the vendor provides. Is the solution successfully used by large enterprises? Companies should ensure that the vendor not only has the right solution, but also possesses the expertise and background that can ensure successful implementations. Page 6

7 Success stories In this section, we present some examples of compelling ROI that customers have experienced with egain s suite of web collaboration solutions. BETTER SERVICE ABN AMRO has used egain solutions to gain competitive advantage by providing outstanding service to their customers. Says Milton Santiago, First One of the key differentiators offered by egain is the ability to handle true web collaboration, real co-navigation, not simply pagepushing... Our customers are amazed when they realize what we can do to help them. Milton Santiago ABN AMRO Vice President of Electronic Banking in North America, One of the key differentiators offered by egain is the ability to handle true web collaboration, real co-navigation, not simply page-pushing. AASC agents can actually see what a customer is doing in real time. We can see the screen they are on, or what the error message is. Our customers are amazed when they realize what we can do to help them. OPTIMIZED COST Legal and General, one of the UK s largest insurance companies attained optimized efficiencies, when they deployed egain LiveWeb for one of their call centers. Their agents were able to handle up to five chat sessions individually. Compare that to the normal output of any call center and the difference is apparent. Quick and Reilly, the nation s largest financial services firm with 115 brokerage centers nationwide uses egain solutions. egain LiveWeb is a permanent fixture in our site navigation, says Michael Quinn, Senior Vice President for Electronic Brokerage and Internet services, adding, On a yearly basis, egain LiveWeb, which we use on a hosted basis, reduces our call center costs about seven times our annual investment. That is quite an ROI in reduced call center costs. Page 7

8 IMPROVED CUSTOMER RELATIONS US based VIPDesk has used egain to ensure a competitive edge thereby enabling busy people to get things done through real time, web-based coordination of personal and convenience services. egain has boosted customer retention capability and increased repeat sales for this company. The software has helped improve customer loyalty and thus, cross-sales. We ve increased our rate of repeat users from 5% to 30% since we started using egain in November Those repeat users keep driving more revenue, said Mary Naylor, CEO, VIPDesk. Vodafone, the largest mobile phone provider in the world with 92 million customers, used egain solutions for their 800 call center agents at Birmingham, UK. Their first time resolution rate increased from 93% to 98% while there was a 33% reduction in training time, from three weeks down to two weeks. The egain difference egain delivers web collaboration capabilities as part of egain Service suite of products and services. egain s web collaboration product, egain LiveWeb, includes the following modules: Chat for chat and simple cobrowse CoBrowse for more powerful, proxybased cobrowse If chat is an important channel for your support or call center, look beyond low-cost or free chat tools and consider enterprise level chat products designed specifically for high volume call centers, such as the chat tools included in egain s suite of products for realtime customer service and support. David Alger and John Ragsdale Forrester Research Page 8

9 UNMATCHED BREADTH AND DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY egain s web collaboration solution is the industry s most complete suite of applications for realtime customer service and support that includes text chat and cobrowse, advanced co-navigation. They are integrated out-of-the-box with one another, and with leading call center infrastructure technologies. David Alger and John Ragsdale of Forrester Research advise, If chat is an important channel for your support or call center, look beyond low-cost or free chat tools and consider enterprise level chat products designed specifically for high volume call centers, such as the chat tools included in egain s suite of products for real-time customer service and support. MATURE SEVENTH GENERATION SOLUTION The most important differentiator between a new solution and a mature one lies in the customer experience and insight that the solution incorporates, in addition to product reliability. egain s solution is in its seventh generation of evolution while most other vendors are new to this space. SEAMLESS INTEGRATION WITH ACDS egain CTI Adapters provide seamless integration of live web interactions with call center ACDs, simplifying multichannel administration and management. Available as a low-overhead deployment in a call center, the adapters can integrate very easily with existing ACD infrastructure. This enables Internet contacts to be centrally queued, routed, logged, and monitored. INTEGRAL PART OF EGAIN SERVICE SUITE egain LiveWeb is an integral part of the egain Service suite. The solution integrates seamlessly with egain s knowledge, management and call center routing capabilities, so companies can offer fully integrated, knowledge-powered multichannel customer service. EGAIN S TRACK RECORD OF INNOVATION Award-winning solutions, 850+ global customers, and over 50 partners have helped establish the company as a leader in knowledge-powered, multichannel customer service. Page 9

10 Related white papers in the egain library egain is a pioneer in the area of knowledge management and eservice, and has been delivering trusted solutions since 1990s. Our white papers reflect the expertise we have gained from helping hundreds of innovative companies set up their contact center and customer service systems. You can download our best practice white papers from our website at best_practices/library.asp A final word Enterprises across the world have realized the potential of realtime customer service and support over the web and are using it to deliver superior service and customer experience and thereby differentiating themselves from competitors. This has also added to their top-line revenues and bottom-line cost savings. Maturity, functionality, multi-language support, integrated view of enterprise knowledge, and capability to support multiple modes of online, realtime service are some critical factors requiring close scrutiny in the selection of a web collaboration solution for enterprises. egain provides the most complete, proven solutions for realtime, web-based customer service and support. A safe choice used by leading companies, it enables best-in-class web-based collaborative service. Also available as a hosted service, egain LiveWeb is a proven solution used by industry leaders such as ABN AMRO, Fidelity, and LLBean. Page 10

11 About egain egain (OTC: EGAN.OB) is a leading provider of customer service and contact center software for in-house or on-demand deployment. Trusted by prominent enterprises and growing mid-sized companies worldwide, egain has been helping organizations achieve and sustain customer service excellence for more than a decade. 24 of the 50 largest global companies and growing medium-sized businesses rely on egain to transform their traditional call centers, help desks and web customer service operations into multichannel customer interaction hubs, and to extend their service-based competitive advantage. egain Service, the company s software suite includes integrated, best-inclass applications for web self-service, management, knowledge management, live web collaboration through chat and cobrowse, automation of fax and paper-based service interactions, case management, and service fulfillment. These robust applications are built on the egain Service Management Platform (egain SMP ), a scalable nextgeneration framework that includes end-to-end service process management, multichannel, multisite contact center management, and certified out-of-the-box integrations with leading call center, content, and business systems. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, egain has an operating presence in 18 countries and serves over 800 enterprise customers worldwide. To find out more about egain, visit or call the company s offices: United States: ; London: Contact Information egain Communications Corporation 345 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA Telephone: US: UK: Fax: US: info@egain.com 2013 egain Corporation. All rights reserved. Page 11