Support is a Marketing Function

Transcription

1 Support is a Marketing Function An NPS based approach to contact center operations Over the past few years rapid innovations in customer relationship management systems have not resulted in corresponding increases in ROI from these systems. An explosion in communication methods and technologies used by customers has resulted in changes in how customers interact with a brand. Instances of dissatisfaction that could be previously ignored now carry the risk of a snowball effect via social media. By the same token, an enhanced customer experience can also lead to brand evangelism by individual customers.

2 Is there a correlation between happy customers and revenue growth? In 2006, Fred Reichheld through his seminal book advanced the notion of Net Promoter Score as the most critical metric a company needs to improve in order to achieve business success. This metric is measured by collecting results from a single question on a customer survey requesting a self-assessment on the likelihood of the customer recommending the product or service to another customer. Happy customers tell their friends about your brand seems obvious and forms the bedrock of all customer loyalty programs but few if any business process automation systems that service customer support requests make achieving customer delight an integral part of processes across the board. Rather it is seen in a function of single silo or marketing department that is devoted to customer retention. An NPS based approach to contact center operations deeply entrenches practices that promote a higher level of satisfaction for a customer by streamlining data and adopting practices to that effect. Customer satisfaction is most likely to be achieved through a frictionless and personalized experience. Friction and the Customer Experience Friction is not always entirely avoidable and may often go hand in hand with an increase in time or instances the customer spends on the phone with the contact center agents. Friction is also often accompanied by an information gap between the person requesting assistance and the person being asked to service the request. A typical support agent goes through a cycle of verifying entitlement, engaging in discovery and then offering a remedy to the customer. All three of these steps present opportunities for friction to creep in from the inability of the customer to supply

3 required information accurately or the inability of the agent to verify entitlement in a timely manner. Additionally, in multi-instance customer experiences, inconsistency in the support experience stemming from differences in levels of agent skill also contributes to customer angst. Improving the Customer Experience The Digital Service Cloud seeks to mitigate friction in customer interactions by a data driven, customer focused approach. Various components of the Data Services Cloud aggregate information at various levels and present the agent up to date, potent and actionable information that aids towards swift remediation of the support requester's issue. For example, the telephony integration to the customer relationship system, advises the agent of customer details before the interaction begins. The same interface advises the agent of the customer's entitlements. This effectively mitigates the first and second sources of friction that stem from the customer identification and entitlement verification process. Since customer identification and verification has been automated, the next step is personalizing the customer experience. Based on the existing customer profile mashed with the customer asset profile, the call can be routed to a pool of resources dedicated to specialized support for that particular skill matrix. Hence the kind of customer centricity often seen in marketing activities can be extended to the support experience through the Digital Service Cloud. Driving NPS Leveraging real time information to reduce friction solves the first and the more fundamental part of the customer delight equation. In order to complete the picture, information from the service cloud can also be utilized to prompt the support agent, if serendipitously an opportunity to nurture customer delight presents itself. Through the service cloud the device profile could forewarn about an adverse situation that has not fully manifest itself yet, giving the agent an opportunity to offer preventative support or part replacement. E.g. a hard drive that is on the verge of failure or disk space that is swiftly heading towards maximum utilization. An explosion in communication methods and technologies used by customers has resulted in changes in how customers interact with a brand. Instances of dissatisfaction that could be previously ignored now carry the risk of a snowball effect via social media. By the same token, an enhanced customer experience can also lead to brand evangelism by individual customers. This has magnified the importance of NPS improvement being tied to customer interaction management and other processes within an organization. Over the past few years rapid innovations in customer relationship management systems have not resulted in corresponding increases in ROI from the same systems. The Digital Services Cloud, offer an innovative NPS improvement centric approach to contact center management to help focus on customer satisfaction and repeat revenues from sustained customer relationships.

4 About Digital Service Cloud Digital Service Cloud is a made-in-the-real-world platform from iyogi, a global leader in tech support. It is built on the experience of millions of users and deployed across multiple geographies powered by thousands of support agents for OEMs, retailers, telcos, and global services companies. Authors Key Contacts Vishal Dhar vishal@iyogi.com Rohit Challu rohit.challu@iyogi.com Vishal Dhar President and Co-Founder vishal@iyogi.com Rohit Challu AVP Product Marketing rohit.challu@iyogi.com The Digital Service Cloud is the result of more than 5 years of intense experience, knowledge and refinement baked into a platform that can help contact centers scale up and drive more revenue while striving for customer experience consistency.

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