Mothercare Case Study We don t need to train our agents to know that, only where to find that...i don t think it s anything we can imagine taking away from the business Sharon Millard Customer Contact Manager, Mothercare
Fast Facts Customer Mothercare Challenge Improve customer services across Mothercare s key three sales channels the web, contact centre and in store. A particular focus was reducing the time taken to fulfil customer queries and allow customers to serve themselves where possible. Information Solution Three solutions aimed at each of the channels based on Transversal s core web self service technology. Benefits Used by thousands of customers every day Contact centre call volumes dramatically reduced as more customers serve themselves via the web Breaking news delivered instantly across contact centre staff and to the customers via the website Consistent up to date information available to agents Insights into what questions customers are actually asking online Transversal took the time to support us and really understood our needs. We held workshops where Transversal educated us on how natural language search works and how we needed to structure and capture the information we wanted to share with customers. And it wasn t just about listening to our management Transversal sat down with our contact centre agents and shop staff to learn about their jobs. The result was that new systems were taken up enthusiastically as staff felt a great sense of ownership. Customer Background Founded nearly 50 years ago, Mothercare is one of the UK s most iconic retail brands. Synonymous with children and parenting, the company has a reputation for specialism, quality, safety and innovation. Mothercare has over 1,000 stores around the world and its 2009 group sales were 723.6 million. The Mothercare Group also encompasses leading toy retailer, Early Learning Centre (ELC). The company is passionate about offering customers a multi-channel shopping environment through retail stores, catalogues and the internet. Delivering the highest level of customer service is at the heart of this. Sharon Millard, Customer Contact Manager, Mothercare
The Challenge The retail market is amongst the most competitive in the world. The advent of new competition via the internet and other direct channels has increased pressure on traditional retailers to respond to changing customer needs. Mothercare Group believes its major business challenges are the need to differentiate in a crowded market across both online and traditional retail channels. Mothercare faced a number of challenges with its web channel, contact centre and access to appropriate information to serve customers in store. Feedback on its website, both directly and via focus groups, demonstrated that it wasn t providing access to the right answers for queries, so customers were forced to call or email its contact centre. This was a source of frustration since the information was on the website but difficult to access quickly or easily. This put additional strain on agents, meaning that they were answering basic questions rather than providing answers to more complex customer service queries. Mothercare identified that it needed to reduce the lower value customer service calls and emails in order to support multi-channel expansion without impacting customer service. This was especially acute when it came to peaks in demand around Christmas, which are difficult to predict. An additional challenge was revealed in feedback from 100 Mothercare contact centre agents which showed they had to access too many systems to carry out their day to day jobs. Analysis showed they had to log onto ten internal web systems, plus an HTML content management system, which was reducing productivity, causing frustration and ultimately slowing response rates, as measured by contact centre key performance indicators (KPIs). Providing access to information in Mothercare s third channel its shops was driven by business imperatives. The multi-channel push led to the launch of the major Collect in Store initiative, where customers could order via web or telephone and pick up at their local Mothercare. The business case was built on ensuring that shop staff had immediate access to customer order tracking where they were and other relevant information. Mothercare identified that its staff were having to call the contact centre for updates and this was slowing down the process and was impacting on customer service as the customer had to wait for information. Implementation The Transversal solution was implemented on time and to budget in the following stages:
The Solution Mothercare turned to self-service technology specialist Transversal to address all three channels; the web, contact centre and in store. The company had already worked with Mothercare s colleagues at the Early Learning Centre on a separate web project and earned rave reviews, both for the strength of its natural language search technology and its knowledge in tailoring it to individual needs. Transversal addressed each of the channels sequentially, as follows: For consumers Mothercare launched a major refresh of its website in October 2008. This gave it the opportunity to introduce self-service. To match the tone of the site and to appeal to its target markets, Mothercare worked with Transversal to develop Ask Carrie, an online persona with a complex and intelligent knowledgebase sitting behind her. Research showed that Carrie was an image that customers identified with, making her a trusted ambassador for Mothercare and a guide to the information they needed. Ask Carrie provides fast answers to customer questions based on natural language search it understands the context of the question to deliver the right information. For contact centre staff The Transversal solution was then extended to the contact centre and Ask Mothercare, a web-enabled solution was created to provide access to all systems from a consistent interface. Ask Mothercare shared the consistent knowledgebase of Ask Carrie but added more detailed information than was publically available, such as fluctuations in product prices, PDFs of product instructions and store information. This empowered Mothercare agents with the information they needed to excel at their jobs, right at their fingertips. For in store staff The final stage of the roll out saw Transversal create a tailored interface for the use of staff that enabled them to access the knowledgebase from tills through a simplified, low bandwidth interface focused on their needs. Before Transversal created the in store version, Mothercare was circulating by email a daily excel spreadsheet to all stores that was used to look up the status of all outstanding customer orders. Transversal developed a system that allows Mothercare s fulfilment team to upload this file and automatically convert it to searchable content. Through the In Store visitor site, employees can then search for any customer order by order number and/or customer surname. This brings up all the information that was found in the spreadsheet within the same interface. Because the answers are all there and they re so easy to find, I haven t had to go and ask anyone to give me the answer. I use it mainly for finding supplier details and when it s quiet I can catch up on the CSC news. Sarah Lewis 4 weeks service - 1st week solo on phones It s a one stop shop for all Mothercare queries and questions, a quick and simple support tool for all to use and enhances the customer experience. Gemma Purser Team Manager, 6 months service
Results The solution has been highly successful across all three channels. For consumers Customers are currently asking thousands of question s per day using Ask Carrie with only 3.5% needing to escalate queries. Since its launch it has answered over 600,000 questions. Emails and calls to the Mothercare contact centre have greatly reduced, allowing staff to concentrate on answering more complex queries. The solution also allows Mothercare to monitor for larger issues for example if 50% of questions are on a specific topic, such as delivery queries, there may be problems with a specific carrier that it needs to investigate. Ask Carrie has been an important contribution to the overall business. Of Mothercare s UK sales, 18.5% are now delivered through direct channels and overall direct sales increased by 25.5% in 2009. Direct sales make up 107.3m of 2009 s Group sales of 723.6 million. Given the transparent nature of Transversal s technology, Mothercare now has complete visibility into how customers use it. Consequently it can identify complaints or even smaller issues before they become larger. These are resolved through agent intervention and are flagged to ensure that any trends are picked up and action is taken. Mothercare does not view these as complaints, more as feedback that it can use to make customer service better. For the contact centre The implementation of Ask Mothercare has seen the retailer benefit in terms of productivity, morale and overall customer service. For example, 100% of emails are now answered within 24 hours. Ask Mothercare went live in July 2009 and agent satisfaction surveys and feedback were overwhelmingly positive. Agents have better first contact resolution, contacts per transaction have gone down and outbound calls have reduced. Call length has increased, as more complex queries are being dealt with, leading to a more rewarding working experience for staff. Inbound email volumes have decreased significantly, against a background of growing sales. This represents a workload reduction across the team, alongside other productivity gains that are difficult to quantify given the expanding nature of Mothercare s business. The time it takes to train new agents has also been reduced and enabled newer team members to gain confidence more quickly as they have a broad base of information at their fingertips. For in store staff In store, feedback has been equally impressive. Since its introduction, calls to the in store helpline have dropped in real terms as store staff are able to get fast, consistent answers through the system and improve the customer experience of Collect in Store. Future plans Transversal is viewed by Mothercare as an enabler for future opportunities. As part of its growth plans Mothercare is integrating customer service with its social media strategy. Mothercare is now on Facebook and Twitter and has its own blog whilst launching the Gurgle parenting community. Mothercare plans to refer comments from the blog and Gurgle through to Ask Carrie, ensuring consistent, fast answers. Given the real time, detailed nature of social media, it is also using this feedback to grow and tune its knowledgebase. International growth is another of Mothercare s key business objectives. Ask Carrie will support this as it can be easily translated into other languages, offering a consistent self help tool and helping international partners maximise customer service and revenues. Additionally, the use of Transversal also covers Mothercare s sister brand, Early Learning Centre. Since the acquisition of ELC in April 2007 the group strategy of two brands: one engine has been delivered in bringing together the knowledge management strategy using a single solution. It unifies the success of Mothercare and ELC s customer service with a single information engine underpinning the two distinct brands and operations. Thus best practice is shared between business units, and the benefits of Transversal s technology are applied across the group. Mothercare acquired maternity wear brand Blooming Marvellous in July 2010. It is expected that the benefits of the Transversal solution will be further extended across the latest addition to the Mothercare Group.
Transversal Ltd Betjeman House 104 Hills Road Cambridge, CB2 1LQ Tel: +44 (0)1223 488 700 Fax: +44 (0)1223 488 701 www.transversal.com