Boosting Customer Loyalty and Bottom Line Results Putting Customer Experience First in Your Contact Center TABLE OF CONTENTS Meeting Today s Customer Expectations...1 Customer Service is an Ongoing Experience...2 The CX Evolution...2 Assessing CX...2 Why CX in the Cloud?...3 CX is About Data...3 Optimizing Multi-channel Customer Support...4 Conclusion...5 Meeting Today s Customer Expectations Customers increasingly expect businesses to better anticipate their individual needs and provide more personalized, on-demand services across every channel, no matter what device they choose. In order to meet expectations in this competitive environment, organizations need to build stronger brand loyalty by improving customer experiences (CX) and Customer Experience Management (CEM), to track, oversee, and organize interactions across all touchpoints and channels between each customer and the organization. CX includes not only interactions through traditional channels, such as dialing into a contact center, but also through digital channels such as mobile, web chat, and social media. Organizations that continue to treat digital channels as independent interaction points are increasingly at a significant competitive disadvantage. To manage customer experiences, organizations of all sizes and industries must develop a strategy to encompass all customer touchpoints. A 2012 Genesys survey 1 of 650 marketing industry executives underscored a few key CX trends, including: A Shift in Platforms While 51 percent of survey respondents named landline telephone customer support as the most preferred customer service channel five years ago, 34 percent cited email as the top resource today, followed by landline telephone (19 percent) and mobile devices (16 percent). Mobile Customer Support on the Rise In the next five years, 24 percent expect mobile devices to be the leading customer service channel, while 41 percent confirmed they have downloaded a mobile application to better connect to customer service. Online Self-Service Tools are Critical More than 60 percent of survey respondents said they turn to the company website as their first channel to resolve an issue before calling customer service. These customers often use chat services to interact, ask questions, and resolve issues. 1 Genesys survey Dreamforce event November 2012
Boosting Customer Loyalty and Bottom Line Results / page 2 Organizations can achieve a better, more efficient customer experience (CX) while improving operational effectiveness - converting customers into advocates and repeat buyers - while driving costs out of their business. CLOUD-BASED CX ADVANTAGES The primary advantages to using a cloud-based/ SaaS CX service include: No upfront hardware and software costs Rapid deployment No ongoing hardware or software maintenance fees Automatic technology upgrades at no additional cost Quick, easy scalability No in-house expertise (IT or helpdesk support) required Reduced overall total cost of ownership (TCO) A speedy return on investment (ROI) Customer Service is an Ongoing Experience Approximately 26 percent said they are likely to tell their friends about their experience, 21 percent said they would ask for the same representative next time, and 14 percent said they would share their experiences online. Organizations need to learn to better understand and anticipate how customers interact with the organization across multiple channels, leverage cloud-based platforms to enable greater flexibility, and provide customers with the tools and resources to help boost their loyalty. This is why it s important to examine the implications of CX and CEM. This white paper explains key CX components and how organizations can achieve a better, more efficient customer experience while improving operational effectiveness - converting customers into advocates and repeat buyers - while driving costs out of their business. The CX Evolution The concepts that form the basis of CX or CEM are rooted in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which is used to manage a company s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects, and dates back to the early 1980s. Early on, organizations purchased CRM hardware and software platforms designed to organize, automate, and synchronize processes, primarily related to sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. By the 1990s, access to customers was still largely limited to landline telephones. Customers typically requested information, by voice, or by telephone touchpad in response to self-service Integrated Voice Response (IVR) systems. For the most part, customers then still only trusted a live agent to resolve problems or answer questions. Several contact center solutions available today are still rooted to telephony technology that has evolved from decades of investment in software and infrastructure to support customer service. As customers leverage a wider array of communications channels, organizations and most industry suppliers have been forced to adjust to include support for customers who wish to use email, the Web, mobile technologies, social media and text messaging to access support services. In order to provide customers with real-time information and excellent support, organizations are moving to a cloud-based service, to keep pace with customers who now regularly use mobile technologies, smart phones and social media networks. Interest is surging in CX, based largely on the realization that the tools and platforms used to optimize customer experiences are best delivered in a cloud service or SaaS (software as a service) model. Organizations can quickly implement this model and leverage it to gain better insights and deliver new and better services to delight their customers around the globe. Assessing CX A foundational first step to taking customer experience to the next level is a CX assessment that properly analyzes how an organization interacts with its customers. Solving customer challenges, thereby accelerating an analytics-driven solution with actionable recommendations, includes a full understanding of the following elements: The channels customers currently use to access information and services The level of consistency across every customer touchpoint The cost implications and business impact to automate vs. maintaining live agents The quality and consistency of brand messaging delivered via each channel
Boosting Customer Loyalty and Bottom Line Results / page 3 Cloud solutions enable an organization to quickly build a more efficient CX engagement, allowing organizations to alter messaging or adjust specific features, such as automation prompts, then quickly implement. The time required to resolve customer issues The ability to communicate across channels including text messaging, social media, and mobile During the CX assessment phase, enterprise leaders gain insights into how well the organization interacts, or touches its customers. This visibility into customer interactions can bring any organization enormous benefits, including: Far greater control over the information delivered to customers More transparent visibility into customer service operations A better understanding of what the customer experience is like A measureable understanding of how well brand messaging is working, and How to make that messaging better, stronger and more consistent in the future Voice User Interface design and assessment Following a comprehensive CX Assessment, an internet satellite industry organization effectively transformed their customer service by implementing a cloud-based CX solution that incorporated speech-recognition in its IVR platform, along with enhanced database integration. The cloud self-service solution delivered a 300 percent increase in contact center automation and reduced the average customer s call time by 43 seconds per call. Customers have gone from cursing to complimenting the provider s IVR-based customer service. Why CX in the Cloud? There are many advantages to a cloud-based CX solution. Cloud solutions enable an organization to quickly build a more efficient CX engagement, allowing it to alter messaging or adjust specific features, such as automation prompts, then quickly implement. The ability to accelerate the delivery of changes can generate significant cost and time savings. There s no need to invest in expensive hardware and software, and no waiting to push changes out to the organization, as is usual for traditional physical hardware and on-premises systems that require changes to be rolled out overnight, or during less busy time periods. Consider these highlights from one organization that specializes in credit card payment services. This organization decided to go from an on-premises contact center, to a cloud-based service. Gross profits tripled, which translated to $4 million between March and December 2012. The cloud-based IVR service protects personal information and with the inherent elastic scalability that cloud offers, the company could manage any surges in customer demand. This ultimately led to expansion efforts that boosted bottom line growth. CX is About Data Leveraging a cloud-based CX solution, organizations can readily pull information from internal CRM systems. Utilizing important data, such as each customer s communications preferences, can improve both responsiveness and experience. This information, in turn, can be used for a range of marketing, upsell and cross-sell purposes. This is why the right cloud-based CX solution should incorporate the use of iterative data analytics to help organizations of all sizes and industries continuously improve their customer interactions and overall experience. Organizations want to know why customers are reaching out, whether those customers do so by phone, email, social media, web chat, or text message. The organization should greet each customer by name, and ask pertinent questions, such as, whether he or she is following up on the status of a recent order. Personalization is a crucial competitive edge for most
Boosting Customer Loyalty and Bottom Line Results / page 4 Personalized customer experience is ultimately what differentiates an organization from its competitors. organizations today, forming the cornerstone of an effective, modernized CEM initiative. Personalized customer experience is ultimately what differentiates an organization from its competitors. Currently, many organizations are struggling to derive value from the big data flowing into the enterprise every day. Organizational leaders need the right tools to capture and organize the variety of data types flowing in from multiple channels. Only with the help of the right solution can organizations analyze big data, and personalize marketing in response to this flow of information, to meet crucial bottom-line business goals. To capitalize on customer data, organizations must develop an effective strategy for acquiring, organizing and analyzing data to generate new insights, and ultimately apply those insights to personalize its experience for customers in each interaction. Consider these highlights from a publishing industry giant featuring multiple publications, products and services. This organization has millions of customers who reach out to the firm regarding various brands supported by the publisher. A thorough data analysis of the publisher s millions of customer interactions revealed requirements for a high level of sophistication in the IVR. The organization s prior IVR system was well designed but lacked the ability to drive innovation or handle complex transactions. By implementing a sophisticated cloud-based CX service, the publisher increased automation by 10 percent over what was previously considered an optimized IVR platform. Plus, the scalability of the service available now enables the publisher to process transactions at a breakneck pace (in the millions of transactions per minute, and growing) to keep pace with customer demands. Multi-channel support enables organizations to fully embrace each customer s personal preferences for interacting with the organization, which is often referred to as Preference Management. Optimizing Multi-channel Customer Support A great customer experience at one touchpoint over one channel at a specific point in time is important, but carrying that experience and associated context across multiple channels and touchpoints is the key to a cohesive customer journey. It s crucial for organizations to support every customer touchpoint, no matter which channel the customer uses to reach the organization, whether by text messaging, social media, mobile tablet device and/or smart phone. Multi-channel support underscores how CX is evolving from caller first to customer experience first or CX First, as more customers use mobile apps, tablets, or engage organizations through social media networks. Multi-channel support enables organizations to fully embrace each customer s personal preferences for interacting with the organization, which is often referred to as Preference Management. Creating a consistent brand experience across multiple channels such as voice, mobile apps, website and face-to-face interactions is critical when trying to understand the customer experience from their viewpoint. Many organizations see this as a complex challenge requiring huge investment in new technologies and a new customer platform but it doesn t have to be. The difficulty in creating a single view of the customer across multiple locations, channels, products and the different times in which they interact can be solved in part by automation, integration and the adoption of open standards. Genesys allows organizations to manage and carry context across multiple channels and holistically understand the customer journey, helping to provide an outstanding, efficient and cohesive service to meet the customer need. A leading pharmaceutical industry giant recently realized $1 million a year in annual savings, and an 80 percent drop in contact center calls that must be transferred to live agents. This company achieved these impressive results by expanding contact center operations to include next generation chat, click to call and mobile apps. The cloud-based multi-channel CX solution facilitated a migration away from disparate, physical IVR platforms and the company no longer
Boosting Customer Loyalty and Bottom Line Results / page 5 dealt with high maintenance costs and long lead times for updates and/or changes to any customer communication channel. Conclusion Companies that consistently deliver a great customer experience have realized measurable business benefits far beyond improving customer loyalty and profit. Companies focusing on end-to-end customer journeys across multiple touchpoints and channels can build significant competitive advantage, reduce customer churn and differentiate their brand from competitors. Genesys delivers a full range of cloud-based customer experience and contact center solutions that allow companies to focus on the end-to-end customer journey. About Genesys Genesys is a leading provider of multi-channel customer experience and contact center solutions. With over 3,500 customers in 80 countries, Genesys orchestrates more than 100 million customer interactions every day across the contact center and back office. Genesys helps customers power optimal customer experiences that deliver consistent, seamless and personalized experiences across all touchpoints, channels and interactions. For more information visit: www.genesys.com, or call +1 888 GENESYS. Cororate Headquarters 2001 Junipero Serra Blvd., Daly City, CA 94014 USA Tel: +1 650 466 1100 Fax: +1 650 466 1260 www.genesys.com Genesys and the Genesys logo are registered trademarks of Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. All other company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 2014 Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved.