A Business White Paper. Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center

Transcription

1 A Business White Paper Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center

2 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 1 Value of Multimedia Interactions 3 Matching the channel to the interaction to improve customer satisfaction 8 Proactive notification reduces call volume 11 Appropriate, context-specific help reduces shopping cart abandonment 13 Challenges of Multimedia Contact Centers 14 Selecting Customer Interaction Components for Multimedia Support 15 Integrating and Web Forms in the Contact Center 16 Supporting Real-Time, Online Interactions with Web Chat 17 Dynamic Co-browsing with Collaboration 18 Managing Other Non-Voice Interactions with Genesys Open Media 19 The Future of Multimedia 20 Summary 21 About Genesys

3 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 1 of 12 Executive Summary The writing is on the wall and in the or instant message for voice-centric customer contact centers.you must be able to interact effectively with customers over multiple communications channels beyond voice alone. Customers increasingly expect to communicate with companies over multiple channels of their choice not only voice, but also , web chat, or even faxes and SMS interactions.and most businesses do well to support those channels, making it easier for customers to get the answers they need in the format they desire. Customers are more likely to abandon those companies that thwart these expectations. In fact, Dimension Data s 2006 Merchants Global Contact Center Report found that 70% of all interactions were from inbound calls and that one in 10 contact center interactions were via . By 2008, the Yankee Group predicts that more than 25 percent of customer contacts will come via the internet in the form of , chat and web self-service. So the question is not if you will support additional customer interaction channels, but how. How efficiently do you support these channels do they add to or reduce your total costs? How effectively do you support customers over these channels? Do customers experience the same level of support and responses, regardless of how they communicate with you, or are they frustrated by inconsistent responses and experiences? This paper describes the benefits and challenges of supporting multiple media channels for customer interactions. It also introduces the Genesys solution for internet applications and multimedia contact centers, which provides unified routing, management and supervision for customer interactions over a wide range of channels. Value of Internet and Multimedia Interactions Today s increasingly networked world offers many means of communications, including mobile telephony, text messaging, online chat, and s delivered to computers or mobile phones. Many of these technologies are now mainstream in specific demographic groups. Customers expect to be able to use these channels to communicate with their vendors and manage online services.

4 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 2 of 12 Effectively and efficiently supporting multiple channels to the contact center benefits both the company and the customer. Potential benefits include: Matching the channel to the interaction to improve customer satisfaction If the customer has the choice of multiple means of contact (calling, sending an , initiating a chat session), they will generally choose the channel appropriate to their circumstance and the question.this means that the contact is likely to be handled in the most efficient or effective way for the customer and the company. For example, a medical office may offer several means for scheduling checkups including phone, , or submitting a request from a web page. Imagine a busy mother of three wanting to schedule appointments for all three children. She chooses a web form, requesting three consecutive appointments for her children and selecting available days from a pop-up calendar. She then requests an appointment confirmation by and SMS. The doctor s office finds that they have two consecutive appointments, but the third will be earlier in the day.the agent sends an offering the three non-consecutive appointments, or three consecutive appointments two weeks later.the mother receives the SMS, checks her calendar, and selects the appointments that she wants.the office schedules the appointments and sends the confirmation . In this example, the contact center was saved the time and expense of multiple calls to schedule or reschedule appointments.the mother received the response in the form most useful to her, and could think about her responses (checking her schedule) before confirming the selected appointments.the arrangement was successful for both parties. Proactive notification reduces call volume Multimedia contact centers can also implement proactive notification using channels such as or text messaging to reduce the volume of incoming requests for information. For example, consider a customer that uses a self-service brokerage/banking firm, making trades as well as doing banking. He frequently deposits checks to the brokerage account from other income sources, and calls the service to verify that the checks have cleared. The brokerage decides to offer its customers automated notification options when deposits and trades occur such as or SMS messaging. Implementing proactive, automated notification eliminates the customer s calls to inquire if checks are received or cleared.the customer receives the information promptly, without having to call the contact center.

5 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 3 of 12 Appropriate, context-specific help reduces shopping cart abandonment Prompt, context-specific helps reduce customer frustration and can prevent the abandonment of shopping carts on online sites. In fact, sixty percent of online shopping carts are abandoned during the purchase process. For example, consider the customer using the web to order a luxury automobile, a sales channel gaining popularity for those unwilling to invest the time and effort to visit dealer lots. A customer assembling the car of their dreams may be confused by the available option packages. She might choose to abandon the process, potentially delay the purchase, visit a showroom, or even research other competitive cars. However, if a pop-up web chat link is available, the customer can begin an online discussion with an informed agent who guides her through the option selection. If the transaction is too complex for online chat, the agent could ask permission to call the customer to discuss the process and guide the transaction. In this situation, the online auto site avoided the loss of a valuable customer by providing a channel for rapid access to information. Companies are now leveraging chat to convert browsers into buyers. Consider the following real-life example: In the first quarter of 2006, live chat helped increase Bank of America s online mortgage sales by 800 percent. * The channels you decide to offer will depend on your business and customers. And your required channels may change as technology or customer needs change. But in today s increasingly networked and online world, it is clear that phone contact alone will not be sufficient for many companies. Challenges of Multimedia Contact Centers Your objectives in implementing a multimedia contact center should be to improve customer satisfaction and, ideally, reduce costs. It takes careful planning to meet these objectives. Simply giving your agents chat sessions and interactions is not sufficient, and is likely to decrease agent efficiency and customer satisfaction. In fact, supporting blended communication channels in the contact center poses many significant challenges, which you must address up front: * Source, Washington Times (07/27/06) Ramstack, Tom.

6 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 4 of 12 Communication silos lead to inconsistent user experiences. The customer should receive the same information and overall level of service from any communication channel. Inconsistency across channels can produce customer frustration. For example, when customers are unhappy with one channel they are likely to try another (such as a phone call). If your customer interactions are not integrated, this could potentially create two open records for the same problem or issue. Agent skill requirements Providing effective customer-service using different channels may require new skills sets from your agents. For example, communicating effectively through chat or requires a different set of skills than quickly resolving an issue on the phone. Agents need support to perform effectively across channels. Often, predefined or chat responses and instructions are provided to assist agents with common inquiries. Supervision and management When interactions are segregated by channels, the contact center manager is often challenged to supervise and evaluate agent effectiveness or define and apply standards for each channel. Every channel must have its own unique set of measurements and criteria, such as the proper response time for s, the length of chat sessions, and acceptable hold times for phone calls. Costs Using multiple channels does not necessarily reduce contact center costs.you need to invest in creating an efficient multimedia contact center. But there are ways to optimize the return on this investment, including: Reducing non-revenue-producing calls (such as order confirmations or queries) by implementing proactive notifications. Routing low-priority or informational queries to self-service resources the first time, regardless of the channel by which they arrive. Improving the call-to-order ratio by providing the right information promptly. Reducing shopping cart abandonment with click-to-chat capabilities. Leveraging web self-service for common requests and questions.

7 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 5 of 12 Cost per Type transaction interaction Best use in contact centers Technical support $12 and higher Complex problem resolutions that require technical skills CSRs $6 and higher Higher-value customer transations, sales and custom account activities Web chat or Web call-back $5 and higher Online users require real time assistance while on Web site response $2.50 to $5 response from partially automated to non-automated management system and higher Automated speech response $0.50 or less Assists callers with automated speech to deliver information or process requests via the telephone IVR touchtone response $0.30 or less Directing callers with touchtone responses for basic call handling activities Web self-service $0.25 or less Customer account inquiries, research information or sales (unassisted) transactions Source: Forrester Research, Inc. According to Forrester Research, Web-based transactions through , chat and web self-service can vary dramatically. (see figure 1). Figure 1: Cost of web-based transactions In short, companies require a strategy and infrastructure that integrates multiple channels ( , web chat, messaging) with the voice-based contact center, providing the customer with consistent information and experience across channels, and optimizing the effectiveness and efficiency of the contact center as a whole.the Genesys Customer Interaction Management Platform meets these needs. An Integrated Solution for Multimedia Customer Interactions Genesys offers an open, standards-based platform that integrates voice and multimedia support with centralized management, tracking and reporting. Customer experience is consistent, whether using self- or assisted-service and regardless of channel.the centralized management of all channels improves efficiency for the contact center. The Genesys real-time Customer Interaction Management platform provides an integrated suite of products that create an open, modular, and unified platform for customer interactions. Open: the Genesys software suite is hardware-independent.the platform supports the most heterogeneous communications infrastructures, working with both TDM and IP PBX hardware, different telecom networks, and a wide range of customer interaction databases, desktop applications, and and web servers.this allows you to expand

8 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 6 of 12 support for multiple channels, while leveraging your current hardware and software investment. Modular:With the modular nature of the Genesys solution, customers can implement software components as they need them. For example, you can start with voice and ( and add web support as you expand interaction channels or redesign the web site.this modular design gives you the ability to respond to changing technology and business requirements. Unified: Using the Genesys solution, you have centralized control over and management of all customer interactions, no matter what the channel. Real-time and historical reporting supports all interactions to provide insight into contact center operations and business results. The Genesys Suite consists of an integrated set of products and resources that support any customer interaction Figure 2: The Customer Interaction Management Platform is at the heart of the modular Genesys solution suite. Interaction, integration and analysis components may be added as required. At the core of the Genesys solution is the Customer Interaction Management platform a single, proven platform for deploying and managing inbound and outbound interactions of any type.the platform automatically captures, processes, routes and reports on interactions and related activities, based on specific business criteria.traditional and emerging interaction channels are routed through the Customer Interaction Management platform, which handles interactions according to company-defined policies, providing an integrated view of each customer interaction. Genesys offers the industry s most powerful, flexible and scalable engine for processing customer interactions, capable of routing nearly one million calls and more than 40,000 s per hour. Integration components include an agent-friendly desktop application for multimedia applications and adapters for popular CRM applications.

9 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 7 of 12 Insight components include forecasting, planning and supervision of agent resources as well as real-time and historical views into the contact center. Interaction components include modules for inbound and outbound voice, self-service voice, , web chat, and other non-voice channels. Selecting Customer Interaction Components for Multimedia Support The first challenge when implementing multimedia contact centers is deciding which channels to support. Do you need web chat or instant messaging? Push button to talk to live agent? Do customers want to fax information to you? You will need to select the appropriate channels based on your business needs and customer expectations. For example: Web sites that support complex sales may need web-based support, with the ability to initiate a real-time, online chat session from within the web page. Complex customer interactions often work well with channels, in which customers can explain or illustrate at length their situation. You may not know exactly which channels you will need one or two years from now, because your business, customers, and technology will change. Genesys offers a flexible platform that lets you plug in the support you need, as you need it, preserving your existing investment. Specific customer interaction modules for multimedia include Genesys , Genesys Web Media and Genesys 3rd Party Media.These modules leverage the intelligent routing and workflow capabilities of the Genesys Customer Interaction Management platform, providing consistent customer service across all communication media while enhancing agent productivity. Integrating and Web Forms in the Contact Center and web forms are powerful and effective ways for your customers to communicate with your agents. Although these communication vehicles do not offer real-time interactions, customers do expect prompt and accurate responses, and these channels should be integrated and managed as part of the overall customer experience. Genesys manages high volumes of inbound and web form queries using the Customer Interaction Management platform, which supports a wide range of servers. Incoming s or web forms are routed through a business-specific process that identifies the message content, evaluates the business requirements and determines the best means to han-

10 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 8 of 12 dle the interaction.the message content can be determined through key word searches ( reset password or new account ) or using advanced natural language processing. Once the content is identified, the message can be forwarded to an agent or queued for additional processing. Genesys can also generate and send automated responses or acknowledgements based on the message content. Agents can collaborate with other agents and supervisors to improve the successful resolution of an issue on the first contact. Figure 3: Supervisors have a real-time view of agent queues and statistics for contacts. The Advanced Content Analysis option for Genesys helps contact centers optimize the effectiveness of responses. It analyzes the accuracy of both automated and agent-based replies based on the contact center s response history. The fact that and voice interactions are tightly integrated is extremely valuable. A customer might initiate a complex interaction by a phone call. If the problem cannot be resolved immediately, resolution may continue by . For example: The customer calls with a problem and the agent requests more information. The customer s an error log. The agent researches the problem and s instructions that the customer uses to address the problem. The customer tries to fix the problem the following day and sends an announcing that the problem was resolved. The Genesys solution tracks and manages the entire history of the interaction, from initiating call to final resolution, regardless of channel.

11 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 9 of 12 Supporting Real-Time, Online Interactions with Web Chat A new generation of customers is increasingly comfortable with real-time messaging or chat sessions.this channel is particularly useful for customers interacting with online services or web pages, who may seek to resolve a question at the moment of confusion. Like voice, online chat is a real-time interaction. Some of the challenges of managing these interactions include routing the session to the appropriate agent, tracking and monitoring the online interactions, ensuring consistency of responses, and optimizing agent productivity. Genesys Web Media addresses these challenges by integrating online chat with the Customer Interaction Management Platform. Using Genesys Web Media, a company can add a link to a web page inviting the customer to click for a live chat session.the Genesys Customer Interaction Management Platform determines how best to handle the session according to predefined business rules and pushes the contact to an agent who can handle it in real-time. Agents can use the Knowledge Base within the Genesys Customer Interaction Platform to select predefine responses, ensuring that customers receive a consistent response every time. Transcripts of the chat sessions are saved in the customer history, and can be sent to the customer or analyzed after the fact for up-sell potential or other purposes. Figure 4: Agents can respond to multiple chat interactions simultaneously, view attached documentation, and interact with the knowledge base to find standard responses for common issues. The integrated Genesys solution is especially valuable for transient modes of communications such as web chat. For example, a customer might initiate an online web chat with an agent to seek help with a problem or question.the next day, the customer might have a follow-up question, or find that the solution offered is not what they need, and then call the contact center to

12 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 10 of 12 resolve the issue.with the Genesys solution, the transcript of the previous day s web chat is available to the agent taking the call.the customer is spared the process of re-explaining the problem.the agent can see the history and be more effective in answering the question or resolving the problem. Dynamic Co-browsing with Web Collaboration In some situations, it s helpful for the customers and agents to interact dynamically on the web. Whether navigating a complex web site or filling out an on-line web form, an agent that helps navigate a web page can be the difference between a happy customer and one who clicks on a competitor s web site. Genesys Web Collaboration is a Web Media option that allows a customer and agent to truly collaborate or share the same web page between them. Examples where co-browsing can be effective include the following: Financial Services: Helping a customer navigate web pages when purchasing a financial instrument or simply transferring funds. Retail: Assisting customers when shopping for a product or service and providing alternate options. Technology: Helping online customers purchase and assemble a made-to-order computer with the required options. Managing Other Non-Voice Interactions with Genesys 3rd Party Media The world is a complex place, and agents often have to resolve customer interactions or requests originating outside voice or other standard channels.these might include faxed forms, applications, workflow systems, or third party or web chat applications. Genesys 3rd Party Media provides a way to integrate and manage any contact center interactions even those from other third party applications. Using Genesys 3rd Party Media, the Customer Interaction Management Platform can process, track and deliver both inbound and outbound interactions according to business rules. For example, a contact center agent for a telecommunications service provider might use an order management application to initiate service for a customer who calls the contact center. If the agent makes a mistake and the order management system sends the entry back to the agent, the customer s service is delayed. If the agent has left for the day or weekend, the order may sit unresolved for some time, delaying the customer s access to the service and potentially initiating new calls into the contact center.

13 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 11 of 12 Using Genesys 3rd Party Media, you can link the order entry system with the contact routing process. In that case, the rejected order would reemerge as a new request prioritized, and queued for delivery to an agent. If the originating agent is still available, the rejected order may become the agent s next order of business, depending on the priorities and business rules assigned. The Future of Net Applications and Multimedia With the rapid pace of changes in technology it is impossible to know all of the customer interaction channels you may want to support in the future. Depending on your market and products, you may eventually offer a rich array of support options, including: Video-based conversations or explanations Support presences on instant-messaging buddy lists for customers Automated avatars on online sites In addition, you may need to expand the analytic capabilities of your customer interaction to help determine which media channels to use in which situations. The Genesys Suite is an open, flexible solution that lets you integrate third party customer interaction channels in a powerful and efficient support infrastructure. Using the Genesys solution, you can build out the support you need today while retaining the flexibility to add innovative customer interaction capabilities in the future. Summary Multimedia and Internet application support is not a luxury but an essential for most contact centers. But it is not enough simply to offer new channels for customer interaction.to optimize efficiency and ensure effective responses, you need to integrate the multiple channels into a single, unified contact center management system.the Genesys platform and suite of products allows you to do just that.you can select the customer interaction modules you need today and extend the solution as your business needs change. All interactions are managed and tracked by the Genesys Customer Interaction Management Platform. Using the Genesys solution, you can support multiple customer interaction channels efficiently and effectively.

14 Integrating Web and Multimedia Interactions within the Contact Center 12 of 12 About Genesys Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is the #1 provider of contact center software and the leader in open standards voice platforms.the company s integrated, 100% software, self and agent-assisted service solutions empower contact centers to end customer frustration while driving operational efficiencies and accelerating business innovations. Over the past 15 years, Genesys has pioneered the evolution of open contact center and customer interaction management solutions.today Genesys is the world leader in setting standards and pioneering the evolution of self service for global enterprises. With more than 3000 customers in 80 countries, including Global 2000 enterprises, government agencies and many of the world s fastest-growing mid-sized businesses, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys has more than 300 technology, systems integration and value-added reseller partners worldwide.the company s impressive list of global partners, including Accenture, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, are leaders in their industries and enable Genesys customers to deploy tightly integrated solutions. For more information, visit our Web site at or call GENESYS ( ). How To Contact Us Genesys Corporate Headquarters 2001 Junipero Serra Blvd. Daly City, CA United States Additional Information Genesys Telecommunications, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.