5 Proven Strategies to Drive ROI for Chat Panel insights from TELUS International, Dell & SPOT Consulting Webinar Summary - Guide Sponsored by: TELUS International Moderated by: Customer Management IQ / IQPC Overview: Online chat continues to develop as both a convenient customer service channel and a cost effective sales delivery method. But even with its growing consumer preference, impressive ROI and high CSAT, online chat is still regarded as an immature channel. As more consumers go to the web for support and online shopping, there remain tremendous opportunities for companies to deliver better customer service online and drive more sales in real time. Convening a panel of industry experts from TELUS International, Dell and SPOT Consulting, this webinar reviews industry-proven strategies for: Adopting and integrating online chat for customer service & sales How customer service leader & chat pioneer, Dell, uses chat to drive CSAT & sales ROI How best practices can impact chat effectiveness How chat system features help drive the ideal chat customer experience Webinar available on demand view now. TELUS International
Purpose This document is intended to accompany the TELUS-sponsored webinar 5 Proven Strategies to Drive ROI for Chat originally recorded August 16, 2011. The webinar is available for on-demand viewing at Customer Management IQ a division of IQPC. Taking a panel approach, the webinar captures insights from chat leaders including TELUS International, Dell and SPOT Consulting. Introductions Speakers: Webinar Slides 1 & 2, Minute 1 Emily Millar is VP Client Relations at TELUS International, a provider of contact center and customer care solutions. TELUS International is the global business process outsourcing arm of TELUS one of Canada s largest telecommunications companies. Having worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies and as a former policy board chair of the Customer Operations Performance Center, Emily helps clients succeed in managing their multi-channel programs, including chat for customer service and sales. Jeffrey Hutchings is Sales Director of Chat for North America Consumer and Small Business at Dell. He is responsible for the profitability, growth, operating expenses, customer experience and employee experience of the chat channel. Prior to chat, Jeffrey managed Dell consumer phone sales. Kim Keating is VP Client Services with SPOT Consulting where she leads SPOT s contact center optimization practice focused on competitive analysis and business intelligence. She has worked with companies including TELUS, DIRECTV, Microsoft and Dell. Kim is Six Sigma certified (green and black belt) and a certified consultant for the Vested Outsourcing Process. Objectives of this Webinar Webinar Slide 3, Minute 2 Why every company should consider chat for care and sales Why effective online chat is important Five proven best practices to drive ROI from chat What the ideal chat session might look like How Dell, a customer service leader and chat pioneer, uses best practices to drive CSAT and sales ROI 2
Why is Chat important? Webinar Slides 4 & 5, Minute 3 Chat has many well-known benefits: Serve customers in their preferred communications channel (the influence of chat will continue to grow especially in younger demographics whose preference is online) Address customer issues in real-time in the online environment Attract a hyper-digital generation that will not phone or visit a store Reduce shopping cart abandonment by assisting with order forms Take social interactions into a more private and secure online setting Reduce expensive calls into the call center (chat can cost 1/10 th that of a voice transaction) Achieve higher customer satisfaction scores over other channels Statistics of Online Support Webinar Slide 5, Minute 5 Growing expectation for instant online support; chat gets good reviews: Once a shopper has used live chat, more than 2/3rds will actively look for sites that provide it Bold Software survey, 2010 77% of chatters agree that the technology positively influenced their attitude about the online retailer Bold Software survey, 2010 63% of survey respondents said that they were more likely to return to the website where they had originally experienced live chat e.marketer.com, 2009 Reactive chat (or click-to-chat options) earned a 15% ROI whereas proactive chat (or chat by invitation) earned an impressive 105% ROI Forrester, 2008 Live chat was the best way to reduce shopping cart abandonment e-tailing group, 2011 Background for the Study Webinar Slide 6, Minute 6 TELUS International has been working with its clients to develop the chat channel since 2005 but we found that relatively no actionable data existed to help us improve our clients performance. In 2010 we commissioned a benchmarking study with SPOT Consulting to identify the ideal chat session and an associated set of best practices, with a focus on sales chat. Here is some background going into the TELUS International study: 3
The chat channel is immature despite benefits, ROI and consumer preference for it. Sales chat, specifically, is not widely available. Lots of opportunity exists to interact with customers online. At the time TELUS evaluated companies for the study in mid-2010, some of the biggest leading brands, including e-tailers, (chart of companies appears in Slide 6, Minute 7), did not offer sales chat services. Because the features of many chat platforms remove chat as an option when agents aren t available and companies have differing strategies on when to offer proactive and reactive chat, it s difficult to assess if the landscape has changed significantly in the last year. Bottom line, lots of opportunity exists for companies to enhance their online interactions with customers, especially with more consumers going to the web today for customer support and online shopping. Benchmark Study Methodology & Results Webinar Slide 7, Minute 8 When TELUS International and SPOT defined the benchmarking study, we developed two primary objectives: 1. The first objective was to examine chat programs of industry leaders to understand how they achieve excellence in customer service. 2. The second objective was to apply these findings about business processes and technology to develop a list of actionable recommendations for TELUS to improve their chat programs. To conduct the research, SPOT did the following: Assembled a team of subject matter experts Conducted 60 in-depth chat sessions with the six Fortune 500 customer service leaders Analyzed a further 150 chat transcripts SPOT s assessment framework measured the customer experience through 20 objective variables that fell into three main categories: Agent skills Chat system features Communications style The two top performers were retailers that are particularly focused on customer service, and it was evident that they train chat-specific skills. The lowest performing company had issues in all three of our major categories. The research team saw failures in the chat platform and interactions with agents that didn t respond quickly or accurately. 4
Common Situations in Customer Experiences in Chat Webinar Slide 8, Minute 10 During the research phase, the research team experienced many informative, well-conducted chat sessions. However, SPOT did find a lot of variability in chat experiences, even within a company. For example, the top-performing company in the study would have a series of great chat sessions, and then there would be another that failed most of the objective criteria. Common situations that led to a disappointing experience for the chat customer include: Disappointing responses Platform failures Flawed writing How do we make Chat Better? Webinar Slide 9, Minute 11 From the study, several best practices emerged to improve the chat channel and create an ideal customer experience. We ve grouped them into the top five best practices that you can do to improve ROI. Best Practice #1: Agent Training Webinar Slide 10, Minute 11 The first best practice is having highly skilled agents who ensure low customer effort. Studies show that when organizations force customers to work harder, customer experience suffers. In fact, about 80% of customers with low-effort interactions are likely to continue doing business with the company and would recommend it to others. At the other end of the spectrum, those customers who are forced into higheffort situations not only give poor customer satisfaction ratings, but they often leave the company. Some training steps companies can take are: 1. Make the chat feel like a phone call. Strive to have agents respond in 60 seconds or less. 2. Use up-to-date training material & be sure sales agents know the differences between up-sells. 3. Train agents to effectively move the conversation to a sale or issue resolution providing a message map for agents is very helpful. 5
Chat training curriculum should cover: How to ensure accurate answers (access to knowledge bases) How to up-sell/cross-sell and uncover needs How to personalize as appropriate When to use canned vs. free-form responses How to use chat system features to benefit customer experience How to write for chat; construct a conversation flow How to best represent the brand online Tip: Strong Agent Skills Can Reduce Effort [Slide 11, Minute 13] Here are some proven ways to reduce customer effort: Skip a wordy greeting. Offer help right away. Avoid transferring customers to different departments. (If an agent has to transfer someone, make it a warm transfer.) Stick to the point. Provide short, relevant answers. (Keep ratio of free-form vs. canned responses to around 50 %.) Set the right tone and support the overall company brand. Best Practice #2: Improved Chat Writing = Better CRM Webinar Slide 12, Minute 14 Strong writing skills are critical to conveying an accurate message and upholding the company brand. Well-written agent responses reduce customer effort by making it easy for customers to quickly find answers. When writing, agents should focus on: Brevity and staying on point Grammar, spelling and sentence structure Voice and tone Terminology Personalization While conducting the study, SPOT developed a list of 10 grammar rules that all chat agents should follow. We found that applying these rules 90% of the time would increase clarity and readability significantly. We suggest each company determine what s important to their voice and tone and make a list of grammar rules to incorporate in a writing skills workshop. 6
Dell Insight on Chat Etiquette [Slide 13, Minute 15] At Dell, etiquette is the word we use when we try to describe the guidelines by which we interact with our customers. In the real world we have different sorts of etiquette for different interactions; phone etiquette, office etiquette, even dinner table etiquette. With each different type of interaction, the guidelines change too. which is why it is important to define and train on exactly what chat etiquette should look like. Slide 13, Minute 16 outlines some of Dell s Golden Rules we utilize in chat to ensure that we are communicating politely, and in a fun, engaging way. We then measure how well we re doing on these things by asking our customers on post-chat surveys, as well as through quality audits on our agents transcripts. Establish a chat etiquette up-front and measure via transcripts: Agent is polite and speaks positively about the company, products and competitors Agent offers empathy when appropriate Agent is energetic, engaged and upbeat with the customer If needed, agent asks permission to put customer on hold (explains reason, sets timeframe, thanks customer) If needed, agent asks permission to push URLs to the customer When transferring a chat, agent explains where chat will be transferred and why Agent responds to customer within 2 minutes of customer/agent last response Agent checks in with customer within 2 minutes if customer is unresponsive Best Practice #3: Be Human! Webinar Slide 14, Minute 17 An online chat interaction should seem like a conversation. Agents need to know how, and be trained to construct a conversation flow within the chat environment. This includes sharing only one or two ideas per response and allowing for multiple back and forth exchanges. Agents should use the right amount of personalization. Some companies require a short form (or entitlement process) to collect customer information before a chat session begins. At a minimum, most companies collect the customer name. Using this customer-provided information, agents can choose to personalize responses. But you still need efficiency and this is where the balance between canned vs. free-form responses comes in. Client approaches vary, but a good rule of thumb is to keep canned responses to 50%. If done well, canned responses will read as if personalized with response times to the customer that reflect enough time taken for a thoughtful, personal response. To maintain the human element online: Know how to construct a conversation flow where: o The most important information is provided at the beginning of the response o Only one or two ideas are communicated per response During multiple back and forth exchanges: o Use the right balance between free-form vs. canned responses aim for 50% Personalize by using customer s name and other provided info 7
Best Practice #4: Optimize Customer-Facing Features Webinar Slide 15, Minute 19 Another key driver of the customer experience is the ability to optimize the customer-facing features of your chat platform. The goal is to leverage the chat platform to set customer expectations from the beginning of your customer exchange. Take advantage of features that set customer expectations, such as showing queue position and wait times before a chat session starts. Ensure there is a typing notification when the agent is preparing a response. In a sales queue, the chat platform can make customers feel secure if it automatically encrypts sensitive information. Another feature that can enhance the online interaction is co-browsing; in other words where an agent and customer can look at web pages together. Important customer-facing features: Hours of operation Entitlement process Queue position Wait times Typing notification Encryption of sensitive information Ability to change font size Post-chat transcripts available (usually via email) Added features: co-browsing, page pushing 8
Dell Insight on Chat Interface [Slide 16, Minute 20] A good chat program can make or break the online experience for our customers. The usability of the chat tool, both from the agent s perspective and the customer s perspective, plays a crucial role on both efficiency and customer satisfaction. User-friendly features, such as the ability to change font size or text color, could be the difference between a customer choosing to chat or not. At the same time, return on investment of those features also plays an important role on selecting the appropriate tool for your company s needs. An ideal chat interface has a couple of key features. For instance, the size and shape of the chat window is important. Customers are often multitasking with other projects while chatting. Making the chat window large enough to be accessible, but small enough to avoid intrusiveness will increase the number of people who want to talk with you. Likewise, allowing the customer the freedom to resize the window lets them choose their own preference. The customer should also have a clear indication on where they should be typing, which can be done through the windows color scheme or other visual clues like type here text. It is important to have an indicator to show a customer when the agent is typing, so they know we are engaged. Make it easy for the customer to keep a record of the conversation by having clear Copy and Print buttons. Other key features of chat interface: Personalize name Hyperlink to security/privacy statement Chat transcript easily obtainable Increase or decrease font size (change color, resize window) Best Practice #5: Right Metrics = Right Agent Behavior Webinar Slide 17, Minute 22 It is important to promote a balance between productivity and quality. Metrics like average handle time (AHT) or concurrent chat ratios need to be combined with quality metrics that the agent can control. This ensures that agents can be focused on delivering a positive customer experience without having to rush customers off the chat session to hit efficiency metrics. Dell Insight on the Use of Concurrency [Minute 23] In Dell s experience, properly balancing expectations on concurrency and quality scores will ultimately foster the right agent behaviors. The Dell Sales Chat model has agents typically on an average of two concurrent chats, though skilled to take a maximum of three concurrent chats to handle surges in the queue. Metrics such as average handle time (AHT) and chats per hour do play an important role, though are secondary to customer satisfaction. Best Practices: ROI Webinar Slide 18, Minute 24 ROI is a critical element, especially for an organization building a case for chat implementation. When these best practices are put into action, TELUS International (TI) has seen data supporting some very 9
impressive results. Just taking some statistics from TI s own contact center clients, the company sees improved efficiency resulting in a lower cost of service, an improved customer experience and less customer effort. The bottom line is chat provides a better return in several ways: Quick and convenient for customers Efficient: agents handle multiple chats at one time As little as 1/10 th the cost of voice Up to 10 to 15 points higher in CSAT over voice Up to 30% higher revenue margins vs. voice Dell Case Study Webinar Slide 19, Minute 25 Dell chat started just over six years ago. At its origin, it represented only a small fraction of the overall Dell contacts. Since that time, the chat program has expanded rapidly in both sales and technical support divisions. We have seen a sharp increase in the demand for chat from our customers. Dell has invested in the infrastructure and support for our chat program. As a result, key performance indicators such as total revenue, customer experience and handled chats per rep have climbed as much as 25%. Dell s Focus on Improving Chat Customer Experience Webinar Slide 20, Minute 27 Dell examined best practices and looked for ways to get better to improve the customer experience and improve Dell s financial return when it came to selling Dell products via chat. The first step started with a revitalized chat training program. This meant taking an inspired approach to soft-skills and less time spent purely on technical training. To augment that training, we layered in appropriate metrics, such as representative-level customer satisfaction scoring, that would foster the right agent behavior through recognition. Lastly, we re-engineered our curriculum to minimize the amount of customer effort it would take to purchase from Dell. Looking at best practices, three key areas emerged where Dell could improve the chat customer experience: 1. Improve chat training with a heavier focus on customer experience 2. Revise current metrics to foster the right agent behavior 3. Reduce customer effort in the chat channel 10
Improvement #1: Update Chat Training Curriculum Webinar Slide 21, Minute 28 By making adjustments to Dell s chat curriculum, we were able to make huge positive impacts on the overall feel of the chat conversations. The original curriculum relied more heavily on technical product training, the speeds and feeds of products, and how to use internal software applications to chat and process orders. We restructured some of that time to focus on salesmanship and overall customer experience. For chats to be valuable to the customer, we need not only agents who understand the products and tools, but agents who can also effectively communicate that knowledge to the customer. By repurposing the time, we were better able to anticipate a customer s needs, advise them on a recommendation, and ultimately complete their purchase with us. Improvement #2: Revise Metrics to Foster the Right Agent Behavior Webinar Slide 22, Minute 30 Dell s original chat program focused heavily on efficiency metrics, such as AHT and chats/hr. The team needed to increase emphasis on customer experience to drive the right agent behavior. Once the chat training curriculum was changed to teach agents to spend more time building rapport, uncovering needs, cross-selling and up-selling, the metrics needed to change too. Customer satisfaction scores took priority alongside traditional chat sales metrics of close rate, revenue per chat, margin per chat and transcript QA scores. Improvement #3: Reduce Customer Effort in Chat Webinar Slide 23, Minute 31 Dell focused on improving the conversation flow taught to new hires. The goal of the revised training was to make customers feel secure and allow agents more time to uncover needs/opportunities. The team developed chat flow diagrams to guide agents through typical conversations with customers. The flow diagrams contained pre-crafted scripts of important questions and answers. 11
Measuring the Impact of Chat Program Changes Webinar Slide 24, Minute 32 To gauge the effectiveness of our new training program, we measured the agents in three areas: Quality audits Post-chat survey results Impact on traditional efficiency & financial metrics For our quality audits, each rep was scored weekly on multiple chats using objective and easy-tounderstand criteria. Post-chat survey results allow for both an overall rating on how satisfied the customer was with the chat, as well as a free response section where the customer can elaborate and comment on Dell or the representative. Traditional call center and financial metrics would be things like average handle time, contacts per day or hour, total revenue, average order value, etc. Dell Chat Program Results Webinar Slide 25, Minute 33 Dell analyzed the differences between tenured agents serving Dell customers as per original training program and new hire agents who underwent the revised training curriculum before engaging their first customers. The new training program had outstanding results. The new agents significantly outperformed the tenured agents, so program changes were rolled out to all agents. Dell had across-the-board growth in all major key performance metrics, including: CSAT increase Close Rate increase Revenue per chat increase Margin per chat increase Tenured agents who were previously receiving Quality and CE scores in the 40 to 50 percent range were now hitting 80 to 90 percent. New agents had roughly a 5 percent delta over tenured agents right out of the gate. This shift in focus affected the financial metrics as well; close rates went up, average order size went up. As the culture changed, we also saw a growing share of customers who wanted to chat as their preferred method of communication. 12
Summary Comments from TELUS International Webinar Slide 27, Minute 35 We ve identified multiple benefits of chat, from helping customers in their channel of choice and improved efficiency and cost savings opportunity to data supporting material increases in customer satisfaction and sales performance. TELUS International s benchmarking data and Dell s guidance supports a measured approach to implementation and ongoing performance management: Hire and train for chat Consistently focus on the customer experience Leverage the technology platform to help customers feel secure in the chat environment Questions and Answers Webinar Slide 28, Minute 36 Below is a list of the questions asked and when they appear in the webinar: 1. Jeff, we mentioned you have great insight into comparing voice vs. chat channels. Can you expand? (Jeff) (Minute 36) 2. Why do you think chat is not widespread given its many benefits? (Jeff) (Minute 38) 3. Any comment about the rise of video chat and its impact in the call center? (Emily) (Minute 39) 4. How do you hire for chat? What attributes are needed? (Kim) (Minute 41) 5. What types of questions are most appropriate for canned responses? (Jeff) (Minute 43) 6. Are there transaction types or specific questions more appropriate for the voice channel, especially in a sales environment? (Jeff) (Minute 44) 7. You hear so much about social media these days and companies offering support via Twitter and Facebook so why not just go with that, and forget about chat? (Kim s comments, Minute 45; Jeff s comments, Minute 47) 8. In closing, what are the top ways to maximize efficiency in this channel? (Emily w/jeff additions) (Minute 47) 13
Learn More Chat & contact center outsourcing: Emily Millar, TELUS International emily.millar@telus.com telusinternational.com Chat research & strategy: Kim Keating, SPOT Consulting kim@spotconsulting.biz spotconsulting.biz View the webinar on demand: 5 Strategies to Drive ROI for Chat Related research / white papers: Best Practices for Chat Sales Reducing Customer Effort in Chat Request a copy of the presentation: webinars@telusinternational.com 2011 TELUS International. Other company and brand, product and service names are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Reproduction without permission is forbidden. 14