1. A contact center manager's guide<br />to integrating self-service<br />Today's contact centers are under ever-increasing pressure to provide<br />great service while keeping costs down. Self-service technology<br />promises a host of benefits, enabling customers to resolve their own<br />service questions without gobbling up agent resources. But deploying<br />self-service technology can also introduce many questions. What type<br />of technology will best integrate into your existing contact center<br />environment? What best practices will help ensure that the self service<br />platform will be usable and useful for customers, and achieve the goal<br />of reducing costs? And what's the best way to calculate the ROI and<br />estimate the impact of deploying self-service technology? This eBook,<br />appropriate for contact center managers with either an IT or business<br />focus, get answers to these and other questions about self service.<br />Read best practices and expert advice to help build a solid business<br />case and implementation plan for deploying self-service successfully.<br />A contact center manager's guide to<br />integrating self-service<br />Table of Contents<br />Finding the ROI in contact center self-service initiatives<br />Thorough contact center training improves customer satisfaction<br />Building a multichannel contact center<br />Best practices to ensure the success of contact center self-service<br />Resources from inContact<br />Finding the ROI in contact center self-service<br />initiatives<br />By Chris Maxcer, Contributor<br />For years, contact center self-service initiatives were launched simply as a way to cut call<br />center and agent engagement costs. Many have since languished under years of neglect. A<br />recent Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) benchmark study indicates a<br />number on the face of this trend: Successful self-service engagements have dropped from<br />48% in 2003 to just 39% in 2011.<br />How can a beleaguered contact center manager turn this trend around for better ROI?<br />The answers, of course, start with a firm grasp of key call center metrics your organization<br />can use to assess the value of self-service initiatives. Also important is knowing how to<br />propose smarter integration of self-service initiatives to business stakeholders to get those<br />efforts on a path to success.<br />Two key metrics<br />There are two basic, core self-service contact center metrics that most companies should<br />pay attention to, noted John Ragsdale, vice president of research for TSIA. quot;
The first is selfservice<br />success, for example, the percent of customers that attempt self-service and<br />successfully find what they need,quot;
he said. Companies can use this metric to determine how<br />effective their self-service endeavors are.<br />quot;
The second is what percentage of total incident volume is being answered -- or deflected --<br />via self-service channels,quot;
Ragsdale explained. If a company has 10,000 calls a month but<br />can deflect 1,000 calls to a self-service application, those costs associated with the<br />deflections could result in the need for fewer call center staffers or resources<br />Measuring customer satisfaction<br />quot;
The best metrics are customer satisfaction and contact resolution,quot;
said Layne Holley,<br />director of community services for International Customer Management Institute (ICMI).<br />quot;
Tracking call resolution, however, seems to be a bit trickier for many call centers.”<br />Calls fielded by interactive voice response (IVR) are just as tricky. Citing the ICMI 2010<br />Self-Service and the Multichannel Contact Center Report, Holley said “more than one-fifth of<br />our survey respondents said they do not measure completion rates for IVR-only calls. Sixtyfour<br />percent of respondents don‟t know if or when a customer has tried to self-serve but<br />then opted for a live rep.”<br />Overall, recent ICMI research finds that 43.6% of organizations don't measure customer<br />feedback on centers' self-service channels.<br />quot;
When you don‟t measure completion and transfer-out rates, you also can‟t measure the<br />ROI of your self-service technologies,quot;
Holley said.<br />quot;
Customers often transfer out of a self-service transaction because they‟re not easily able to<br />get what they need. You‟re not likely to understand why customers are transferring out or<br />abandoning until you track what‟s happening,quot;
Holley said.<br />Computer telephony integration (CTI) systems can enable transactional analysis for selfservice<br />channels so that contact centers can know when customers have tried self-service<br />and then opted for a live agent, Holley said. They can also pass customer transaction data<br />from self-service channels back to the agent, reducing customer frustration that can occur<br />when they have to repeat what they‟ve already said to a live agent.<br />Packaging for stakeholder approval<br />To win stakeholder buy-in, contact center managers should start with ROI, followed by the<br />more nebulous customer satisfaction metrics<br />quot;
For the most part, it still comes back to the basics of decreasing agent handle time and<br />operational costs, along with improving customer satisfaction by giving self-service to those<br />who want it,quot;
noted Drew Kraus, research vice president for enterprise communications at<br />Gartner Inc.<br />Although call deflection rates and reducing agent handle time can lead to hard-cost savings,<br />some customers are increasingly looking at self-service as an expected benefit. For<br />example, some customers prefer Web self-service options over live agents when they are<br />sitting in coffee shops or are up late at night and don't want to wake sleeping family<br />members.<br />quot;
For a lot of companies, part of the justification for IVR is to extend the hours they can<br />support their customers without having to extend agent staffing … but there is a downside:<br />Surveys show that most customers just think they're trying to reduce costs. So even if the<br />rationale is altruistic, the customer impression is, 'Ah, they're just still trying to be cheap,'quot;
<br />Kraus said.<br />Good knowledge management (KM) has the power to mitigate those pessimistic impressions<br />as long as customers can find answers to their needs. quot;
KM is one of the few areas that<br />investment almost always creates strong ROI. Even a poor KM implementation will pay for<br />itself in a year -- a really good implementation pays for itself in as little as six months,quot;
<br />TSIA's Ragsdale noted.<br />Consider this: quot;
Interaction volumes are increasing year over year by 20% or more for most<br />companies. Since no one wants to fund doubling or tripling the size of support over the next<br />few years, self-service is an easy sell,” Ragsdale explained.<br />VMware, a provider of virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies recently updated<br />its self-service efforts. It not only kept customers satisfied with instant access to answers<br />but also managed to deflect calls from its call center, said Kate Leggett, senior analyst for<br />Forrester Research Inc. In 2008, 2.5 million customers accessed Web-based content; in<br />2010, more than 10 million customers accessed conten<br />And the results? Since the update, which includes links to a company support blog and a<br />YouTube channel for self-service videos, calls to VMware‟s contact center have steadily<br />decreased. The rate is now below 4%, saving VMware more than $10 million a year.<br />Drawbacks and pitfalls<br />quot;
The biggest drawback is that a poorly designed application can end up with customer<br />alienation,quot;
Gartner's Kraus noted. quot;
The classic is that you spend five minutes in the IVR,<br />get transferred to an agent and then you have to repeat everything.quot;
<br />That's irritating enough, but it becomes far worse when speech-based applications go<br />wrong, he said.<br />quot;
A poorly developed speech application [alienates more] customers than a poorly developed<br />IVR touch-tone application because now I'm not just pressing the buttons harder, I'm<br />yelling at my phone,quot;
Kraus explained. quot;
And the poor agent who gets me after this … I'm<br />sure it increases agent churn, plus it increases average handle time because your customer<br />is whining about the application. A lot of companies don't realize the investment and nuance<br />that's required for speech-type testing and tuning.quot;
<br />There are risks with Web-based self-service, too.<br />quot;
A poor self-service implementation frustrates customers, who after two-to-three<br />unsuccessful attempts will likely never go back to your self-service site again. For customers<br />who prefer self-service -- and that is becoming a large percentage of customers as younger<br />demographics age into the primary target markets -- having a bad self-service site means<br />they will take their business elsewhere -- it is that important,quot;
Ragsdale stressed.<br />One last common pitfall is risking the relevance of Web knowledge management effort <br />quot;
KM solutions often don't get adequately staffed because companies don't see it as a longterm<br />engagement. They see it as a project to execute so you get executive sponsorship and<br />funding for that project, but there's no funding for the bodies that's needed to maintain it,quot;
<br />she explained. quot;
As soon as someone accesses information that doesn't answer their<br />question because it's stale, they're going to pick up the phone<br />Thorough contact center training improves<br />customer satisfaction<br />By Sue Hildreth, Contributor<br />Customer service today involves much more than the call center. Today's multichannel<br />contact center may have phone, Web chat, fax, Twitter, text chat, email and self-service<br />options such as user forums and knowledge bases. Customers may use one, two or all of<br />them at one time or another. To manage all these elements, consistent contact center<br />training is vital.<br />quot;
Not all interactions are a candidate for every technology,quot;
said Lyn Kramer, managing<br />director for Kramer & Associates, a contact center consulting firm. quot;
I may use IVR<br />[interactive voice response] now, because I don't have access to the Web, but the Web later<br />in the day, and give them a phone call tomorrow. It's one face to the customer over<br />different channels, which can be a huge problem for some organizations, especially if<br />separate groups own different parts of it.quot;
<br />A key area that may be overlooked in contact center management is the hand-off of a<br />customer from one channel to another, said Lori Bocklund, president of Strategic Contact<br />Inc. When a customer moves from email to IVR or Facebook to a call center representative,<br />the tone of the exchange may change as well, particularly if different departments handle<br />them.<br />Worse, all the information about that customer may fall between the cracks, meaning<br />customers are forced to repeat their stories and order numbers, increasing frustration.<br />“It‟s pretty jarring when you spend an hour doing research online and you call the support<br />line for help only to have them take you through another hour of the same research,” she<br />said.<br />A major part of the problem is lack of integration among the technologies. “Unfortunately,<br />there are still siloed implementations out there,” said John Ragsdale, vice president of<br />technology research for the Technology Services Industry Association. “Social media, for<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 10 of 22<br />instance, is totally separate from the knowledge base, and there‟s no integration between<br />the two, and no search that encompasses both.”<br />A second problem is lack of consistent policies and procedures for all employees to follow<br />when dealing with customers. The same support agent who answers the phone is unlikely to<br />also maintain the Facebook page, but if both are following the same rule book for tone,<br />language and support goals, then customers at least know they are dealing with the same<br />company.<br />One support representative doesn't fit all<br />Not all support employees are suited for all channels. While many contact center managers<br />have dreamed of having one team handle everything, in reality that isn't practical because<br />of the disconnect among applications and routing and workflow, and the different skill levels<br />of customer reps, Bocklund said.<br />Staff assigned to social media such as Facebook or Twitter should be good at written<br />communication and comfortable with the idea of social media. They should know the<br />company‟s etiquette for providing support that thousands of customers will request. An<br />accidental slip is more damaging on Twitter than on a one-to-one phone call.<br />Additionally, the cut-and-paste style of answering questions, which is common with email<br />support, does not work well in a social media forum where everyone can see different<br />questions receiving the same answers. Social media is a more manual form of support, at<br />least when it comes to interaction between customers and company.<br />quot;
Many of the people using social media are customers who are unhappy. Companies need to<br />get the necessary policies together [for providing support over social media] and also decide<br />if that is the right place to have a customer support contact,quot;
Kramer said.<br />Cross-channel contact center training is key<br />Although support agents may specialize in one type of support channel, they may still be<br />asked to help out areas that receive a high volume of queries. For example, when a<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 11 of 22<br />customer calls about trouble downloading a knowledge base article, the contact center<br />employees have to know how to help.<br />Unfortunately, call center staffers aren‟t always educated on their company‟s other support<br />options. In fact, often a completely different department has responsibility over the selfservice<br />website or the mobile support application, and nobody thought to train customer<br />support on these technologies. What you wind up with is a contact center that appears<br />clueless, Bocklund said.<br />“Say I‟m walking my dog at 5:30 am and doing some online banking on my iPhone, but I hit<br />a snafu and need to call the bank. What may happen is the call center management has not<br />educated the staff on what goes on with the IVR, mobile apps or website, and instead of<br />helping me, the call center says, „Oh, we have a mobile app?‟ We really need to make sure<br />that the call center people have a clue about things the customer is using,” Bocklund said.<br />One approach that some organizations are taking to provide better coordination of customer<br />service policies and people is to create a new C-level position for it. The position of chief<br />contact officer is emerging, Kramer said. quot;
It takes a concerted effort to put everything into<br />a single voice. We see a lot of organizations going to a chief contact officer to help pull<br />things together.quot;
<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 12 of 22<br />Building a multichannel contact center<br />By Sue Hildreth, Contributor<br />Providing customer support over multiple communication channels -- known as multichannel<br />contact centers -- is standard operating procedure these days for contact center managers.<br />Customers are increasingly less inclined to pick up the phone and talk to an agent and more<br />inclined to email, post to a user forum or go on Twitter to get help with a problem.<br />By 2013, at least 35% of customer service centers will integrate community or social<br />capabilities as a part of the contact center solution, according to Gartner‟s Magic Quadrant<br />for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers 2010.<br />Others customers prefer to do their own research and expect companies to have a good<br />search engine and plenty of product information on their sites. Increasingly, customers also<br />assume they can receive this support over their smartphones while shopping or walking the<br />dog.<br />“There is much more emphasis on mobile devices, and we are seeing more vendors doing<br />iPhone apps or Blackberry apps,” said John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research<br />for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA).<br />While the interactive voice response (IVR) remains a core feature of almost all contact<br />centers, its use is gradually declining as other types of customer service become available,<br />according to Lyn Kramer, president of Kramer & Associates, a call center consulting firm.<br />quot;
We see the IVR declining, just a little, over the past few years, and more pervasive use of<br />email and Web chat integrated with email and co-browsing where an agent helps a person<br />with detailed things on a form or webpage,quot;
Kramer said.<br />Taming multichannel contact center chaos<br />For most companies, buying a new contact center system, or upgrading the old one every<br />time a new communications channel or capability is identified, is overly burdensome. Often<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 13 of 22<br />the next best thing for these companies is to purchase a new technology separately, usually<br />from a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider. Although that works as short-term solution, it<br />can lead to fragmentation of functionality and data and can make it impossible to route<br />queries among channels.<br />A better solution for the long term is to invest in a modular application suite or platform that<br />allows new modules to be added as needed and as the budget allows. Large CRM and<br />contact center vendors have contact center applications onto which companies can add<br />modules such as those for social media, self-service, virtual agents and monitoring.<br />Optimizing contact center ROI<br />The following are some of the key features call center software should have to optimize<br />contact center ROI and efficiency:<br />Routing and workflow: Effectively routing and handling customer phone calls, chats and<br />email is the primary driver of contact center productivity. Picking a good routing and<br />reporting platform enables contact centers to manage calls, emails, Web chat, Twitter feeds<br />and Facebook from the same interface.<br />“Even if it doesn‟t do dynamic contact to agent routing, it will at least let them say, look out<br />of Web chat and start taking phone calls,” said Lori Bocklund, president of Strategic Contact<br />Inc.<br />Workflow and business rules enable contact centers to handle more complex relationships<br />and transactions automatically based on a set of predetermined rules.<br />Skills-based routing: Manually routing inbound calls takes time and often leads to<br />dropped calls. Skills-based routing reduces the strain on the customer‟s patience and<br />increases staff efficiency. Typically found with multichannel routing, skills-based routing<br />automatically routes calls to the appropriate agent or group of agents based on their<br />expertise and input from the caller.<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 14 of 22<br />Pop-up screens: These screens display a customer‟s name and account information and<br />are perhaps the best contact center feature you can have, Bocklund said. They allow the<br />agents to view customers‟ information right before they get on the call with them. “That<br />pop screen isn‟t new but it‟s really the best use of customer information,” she said.<br />Search and knowledge management: Customers can find answers to technical questions<br />in documentation and frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the corporate website as well<br />as in posts to user forums, a consultant's blog or articles on external websites. An agent<br />should have access to the same information as the customer. A good search capability<br />ensures the agents can quickly pinpoint the right information.<br />“There is more emphasis on new intelligent search technologies to allow employees and<br />customers to access information in different locations, in real time, and allow them to<br />access in any format, filter results, work within search, iterative search, to work with the<br />data instead of old Google approach,” Ragsdale said.<br />Automatic callbacks: Companies can program callbacks to retrieve customers who hang<br />up before reaching a service representative. For example, this feature allows customers to<br />leave their phone numbers when they encounter long wait times. When an agent is<br />available, the system calls the customer back. This is particularly useful in contact centers<br />that take sales inquiries.<br />Automated alerts: Customers who have thresholds set for service levels or pricing can<br />receive automatic alerts via phone or email if the threshold is reached. If a customer<br />interested in purchasing a cruise if the price falls below $2,000, then the system can alert<br />the customer when that price is reached. Alternatively, if a company releases a new<br />software patch or upgrade, an alert is a good way to let customers know about it. Alerts are<br />also used for flight delays or when a bank account balance falls too low.<br />Virtual agents: These software services help customers find the right answer on company<br />websites. Using natural language capabilities and guided by internal rules, the virtual agents<br />provide more specific and accurate help faster than a customer simply browsing FAQs or<br />posting to a user forum. In addition, virtual agents potentially take some of the load off of<br />the call center if they are easy to use and accurate.<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 15 of 22<br />Operational and real-time analytics: To keep tabs on how successful the contact center<br />is, managers must track key metrics such as:<br />• Call volume<br />• Length of calls<br />• How long customers are on hold<br />• How long email turnaround is<br />• How many customers post questions or answers to the support forum<br />Real-time analytics is aimed at helping the service representative decide the best course of<br />action by, for example, looking at the customer's buying history or the company's refund<br />policy. Operational analytics is helpful in looking at things such as call scripts or customer<br />behavior patterns on a website.<br />The downside of Web 2.0<br />New features are unappealing if they wind up costing more without also increasing customer<br />satisfaction or up-sales. Bocklund noted that while Web chat is a popular feature, it's not<br />always beneficial to the bottom line.<br />“Why waste the money on someone like me who‟s used to doing self-service all the time?<br />Unless they can show it actually drives sales, it will increase the cost from pennies per<br />customer to dollars,” she said, adding that there are some industries, such as insurance,<br />where Web chat might be a valuable addition.<br />Another self-service capability that Bocklund would skip is FAQs made available over the<br />IVR. While some organizations have done that, it‟s not usually popular because few people<br />have the patience to listen to a great deal of information read to them over the phone.<br />Also, although several vendors offer multichannel platforms that include social media, most<br />companies are avoiding this route.<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 16 of 22<br />“I‟d say less than 20% of companies have gone this route,” Ragsdale said. “Channels are<br />added one at a time, usually as a side project, and done as cheaply as possible. Everyone<br />added Twitter as a lark, and less than 10% of member companies using Twitter have it<br />integrated to their CRM or customer history,” he said.<br />Contact center needs differ<br />Not all companies need the same features. Those with high volume and low sales per<br />customer may want more self-service, while those with high-end products or service may<br />want to invest in more high-touch services. Generally, the companies that are eager to<br />invest in new technologies are those with the greatest volume of call center traffic, Ragsdale<br />said. If a new feature works well for them, they can save a great deal of money in the call<br />center.<br />quot;
If you're AT&T, with an enormous call volume, it pays to try new things,quot;
he said.<br />Conversely, B2B firms and high-value, high-touch companies with fewer customers tend to<br />be the least interested in new technologies and services.<br />quot;
In B2B world, they're a bit more risk averse because they're dealing with long-term<br />customer relationships and not willing to try a brand-new unproven technology,” Ragsdale<br />said. quot;
A new technology may work really well, or it may leave them with egg on their face.”<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 17 of 22<br />Best practices to ensure the success of contact<br />center self-service<br />By Chris Maxcer, Contributor<br />When companies think about integrating contact center self-service, they tend to focus on<br />reducing costs and improving agent efficiency, which can lead to short-term gains. Without<br />a smart plan, self-service initiatives that launch with great expectations can often fizzle out,<br />leaving customers confused, angry and looking for new brands. Fortunately, companies that<br />launch with contact center best practices can ensure sustainable success.<br />The first thing to sort out is which tasks are best suited for live agents and which are best<br />handled through self-service. According to Layne Holley, director of community services for<br />International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), self-service is never going to take the<br />place of live agents.<br />quot;
What you want is to identify the most repetitive, easily automated transaction types of<br />tasks to shift to self-service channels,quot;
she explained. “A good rule of thumb is that if you<br />can do it online in less time than it would take to pick up the phone and complete the<br />transaction with a live agent, it might be a candidate for self-service.quot;
<br />In addition, Holley said there are some common tasks that call center professionals tend to<br />rank highly for self-service solutions:<br />• Shopping carts for product and service orders<br />• Order confirmation<br />• Order tracking<br />• Appointment setting and rescheduling<br />• Bill pay and funds transfers<br />• Customer access to personal accounts and account setup and management<br />• Site search<br />• Frequently asked questions or help content<br />• Opening and checking tickets<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 18 of 22<br />Although some of these tasks can be completed efficiently over the phone, customers<br />increasingly expect Web-based self-service options, which represent a prime opportunity for<br />deflecting calls from a contact center. quot;
Basically, if your question can be answered as a selfcontained<br />answer -- and answered completely -- Web self-service is great,quot;
said Kate<br />Leggett, a senior analyst for Forrester Research Inc. She noted that 80% of questions can<br />usually easily be answered by a straightforward Web self-service offering.<br />Still, John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research for the Technology Services<br />Industry Association (TSIA), warned that customers will act in unexpected ways. quot;
Today‟s<br />customers use every channel for every problem, including reporting 'priority one' issues via<br />chat, email and self-service [applications]. Would they be better off picking up the phone<br />and calling you? Probably, but you can‟t mandate customer behavior,quot;
he explained.<br />The rise of video<br />Meanwhile, according to Drew Kraus, research vice president for Gartner's Technology &<br />Service Provider Research group, there's a lot of change in the contact center space over<br />what types of tasks are best suited for self-service. quot;
Self-service video -- corporate video<br />applications that let someone get a visual representation of how to do something -- is<br />changing things,quot;
he explained.<br />While video for self-service is still an emerging space, Kraus said the success of self-service<br />videos doesn't have to rely on customers finding them online. Agents can push a Web link<br />to the customer, saving precious time. quot;
With video, an agent wouldn't have to walk a<br />customer through a complex task,quot;
he noted.<br />There are challenges to connecting video with contact centers, though. quot;
In many cases, the<br />contact centers don't own the Web-based self-service activity, so it needs some level of<br />contact and cooperation between the IT Web center and the call center. It's not that they<br />are antagonistic; it's just that it's not standard for the two groups to work closely together,quot;
<br />he explained.<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 19 of 22<br />Of course, even video doesn't do a good job at everything. quot;
Live agents are better in places<br />where you need consultative service or cross-sell, up-sell efforts,quot;
Kraus said.<br />Arrows to escalation<br />Poorly implemented contact center self-service applications can come back to haunt a<br />company in multiple ways. Customers might take their business elsewhere, but they may<br />also attempt to immediately bypass self-service applications in favor of finding a live agent<br />immediately. Because much of the point behind self-service solutions is to limit direct agent<br />interaction, what are some of the best practices to handle escalation?<br />quot;
The best way to handle escalation is to avoid it … but it‟s bound to happen. With selfservice,<br />it‟s critical to have an escalation path,quot;
Holley said. quot;
It‟s inevitable that at least a<br />few customers will abandon a channel, but you don‟t want them to abandon your<br />organization.quot;
<br />Still, what about avoidance?<br />quot;
If you‟re looking to limit escalations, make sure your self-service channels are working<br />properly and that they‟re updated with all relevant information -- promotions, new products,<br />new service or product features -- just as you would make sure that live agents are armed<br />with the latest info,quot;
Holley said.<br />While traditional call centers have clear escalation paths built into their processes and<br />service-level commitments, Ragsdale said that many companies are missing ways to easily<br />escalate from unassisted to assisted support. To fix this, do not hide access to live agents so<br />that your customers have to spend 20 minutes searching for contact information, he said.<br />Next, look to Web chat options. quot;
Web chat is hugely popular in consumer support and now<br />has growing popularity for enterprise and B2B support,quot;
he explained. quot;
Chat is a great way<br />to offer customers a quick connection to an agent from the Web, and it preserves where<br />they are on the Web page so the agent has context.quot;
<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 20 of 22<br />Some smart companies know when it's time to initiate escalation themselves. quot;
You can<br />proactively reach out to customers who have been on your self-service site for a long time<br />or who have performed multiple searches and ask if they need help,quot;
Ragsdale<br />recommended. quot;
A great thing about proactive chat is you can choose to only offer it when<br />inbound volume is low, to keep your idle agents as productive as possible.quot;
<br />Of course, managing escalation remains a delicate balance for contact center managers.<br />quot;
Customers always want easy escalation paths but not all businesses want it,quot;
Kraus noted.<br />quot;
Sometimes they really want to encourage you to use self-service -- some businesses are<br />happy to lose a customer rather than have high call center costs.quot;
<br />Measuring self-service satisfaction<br />quot;
Unfortunately, nearly half -- 43.6% -- of the contact centers represented in our research<br />don't measure customer feedback on their centers' self-service channels,quot;
ICMI's Holley<br />said. quot;
So the first recommendation is measure, measure, measure!<br />quot;
The best way to measure customer satisfaction is to ask the customer to rate the<br />interaction they had with the channel they used. Were they able to find the information they<br />were looking for? Short, direct survey questions are best, and they should focus on the<br />service transaction and include channel-specific questions -- as opposed to general<br />questions about the company or its products and services,quot;
Holley explained.<br />In addition, ICMI recommends that organizations deliver customer surveys using the<br />channel the customer used. quot;
For example, if the customer comes to your organization via<br />your interactive voice response (IVR), offer them an IVR survey,quot;
she said.<br />Accurate measurement is not without challenges, though.<br />quot;
The response rates for [survey] prompts are often less than 3% -- sometimes less than 1%<br />-- so you don‟t gather enough information that way,quot;
Ragsdale noted. quot;
The next approach is<br />emailing a survey to everyone who uses self-service. In the B2B world this is easy -- users<br />typically have a logon or password for self-service in B2B. But for consumers, with no<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 21 of 22<br />authentication needed to access self-service, you don‟t know who they are to follow up to<br />with a survey.quot;
<br />One way to measure potential self-service success online is to look at search patterns,<br />Forrester‟s Leggett said. Many clicks or abandoned pages might point to a higher likelihood<br />of dissatisfaction in self-service engagements or potential problem areas to enhance.<br />Regardless of what a contact center manager measures, Leggett recommends that<br />companies find ways to put their survey and measurement information to use on an<br />ongoing basis. quot;
To have a continuous improvement cycle,quot;
she said, quot;
you need to route it<br />back to the right people to act on it.quot;
<br />SearchCRM.com E-Book<br />A contact center manager's guide to integrating self-service<br />Sponsored By: Page 22 of 22<br />ne proven technique for keeping customers happy is providing<br />them with great service – regardless of the channel they<br />choose to use. Some customers will gravitate to self-service channels<br />such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Web-based tools,<br />while others may lean toward agent-assisted support.<br />The opportunity for companies lies in determining<br />how to optimize their service channels in order<br />to provide great experiences to each customer<br />segment at the right cost.<br />Providing customers with differentiated support<br />is more important than ever. Global competition<br />has ushered in a steady stream of new and different<br />products that consumers can choose from, so<br />it’s become increasingly difficult for companies to<br />distinguish their products from other players. The<br />deal-clincher for many customers is whether a company can offer<br />them distinctive support, explains Zeynep Manco, Manager at Peppers<br />& Rogers Group.<br />Providing customers with a level of support based on the value<br />they bring to a company represents a change in mind-set for most<br />decision-makers.<br />“Historically, most organizations have viewed support as a onesize-<br />fits-all approach for their customers,” says Tim Harris, Director,<br />Professional Services, at inContact. “However, that type of generic<br />approach doesn’t provide companies with a way to match the appropriate<br />level of support to customers based on their value to the<br />company. It also doesn’t offer decision-makers opportunities to reduce<br />support costs through service segmentation,” he adds.<br />In their efforts to capture and retain high-end customers, organizational<br />leaders must determine the most effective ways to deliver<br />consistent support to customers across all channels based on their<br />needs while providing premium service to their best customers according<br />to their value.<br />It’s challenging to strike a balance between providing<br />customers with great experiences across all<br />channels while ensuring that top-tier customers<br />receive premium service. One way is by applying<br />analytics to help determine the needs, behaviors,<br />and preferences of different customer groups and<br />then taking action to fulfill those requirements. By<br />determining the types of support sought by different<br />customer groups, decision-makers can also<br />better determine the cost structure for each channel based on their<br />preferences and usage, asserts Michel Naime, a Senior Consultant<br />at Peppers & Rogers Group.<br />It’s also important for decision-makers to remember that value<br />isn’t simply defined by how much money a customer spends on a<br />company’s products, either currently or on a projected basis, Harris<br />asserts. Executives also need to consider how influential a customer<br />is in referring or recommending a company’s products to friends<br />and colleagues. Here’s where analysis of social media data plays<br />a critical role. It’s critical for decision-makers to never lose sight of<br />the importance of understanding and meeting all customer needs.<br />Because ultimately that’s what customers care is about.<br />“ A one-size-fits-all approach<br />to customer service doesn’t<br />provide decision-makers<br />opportunities to reduce support<br />costs through service<br />segmentation.”<br />— Tim Harris,<br />Director, Professional<br />Services, inContact<br />ne proven technique for keeping customers happy is providing<br />them with great service – regardless of the channel they<br />choose to use. Some customers will gravitate to self-service channels<br />such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Web-based tools,<br />while others may lean toward agent-assisted support.<br />The opportunity for companies lies in determining<br />how to optimize their service channels in order<br />to provide great experiences to each customer<br />segment at the right cost.<br />Providing customers with differentiated support<br />is more important than ever. Global competition<br />has ushered in a steady stream of new and different<br />products that consumers can choose from, so<br />it’s become increasingly difficult for companies to<br />distinguish their products from other players. The<br />deal-clincher for many customers is whether a company can offer<br />them distinctive support, explains Zeynep Manco, Manager at Peppers<br />& Rogers Group.<br />Providing customers with a level of support based on the value<br />they bring to a company represents a change in mind-set for most<br />decision-makers.<br />“Historically, most organizations have viewed support as a onesize-<br />fits-all approach for their customers,” says Tim Harris, Director,<br />Professional Services, at inContact. “However, that type of generic<br />approach doesn’t provide companies with a way to match the appropriate<br />level of support to customers based on their value to the<br />company. It also doesn’t offer decision-makers opportunities to reduce<br />support costs through service segmentation,” he adds.<br />In their efforts to capture and retain high-end customers, organizational<br />leaders must determine the most effective ways to deliver<br />consistent support to customers across all channels based on their<br />needs while providing premium service to their best customers according<br />to their value.<br />It’s challenging to strike a balance between providing<br />customers with great experiences across all<br />channels while ensuring that top-tier customers<br />receive premium service. One way is by applying<br />analytics to help determine the needs, behaviors,<br />and preferences of different customer groups and<br />then taking action to fulfill those requirements. By<br />determining the types of support sought by different<br />customer groups, decision-makers can also<br />better determine the cost structure for each channel based on their<br />preferences and usage, asserts Michel Naime, a Senior Consultant<br />at Peppers & Rogers Group.<br />It’s also important for decision-makers to remember that value<br />isn’t simply defined by how much money a customer spends on a<br />company’s products, either currently or on a projected basis, Harris<br />asserts. Executives also need to consider how influential a customer<br />is in referring or recommending a company’s products to friends<br />and colleagues. Here’s where analysis of social media data plays<br />a critical role. It’s critical for decision-makers to never lose sight of<br />the importance of understanding and meeting all customer needs.<br />Because ultimately that’s what customers care is about.<br />“ A one-size-fits-all approach<br />to customer service doesn’t<br />provide decision-makers<br />opportunities to reduce support<br />costs through service<br />segmentation.”<br />— Tim Harris,<br />Director, Professional<br />Services, inContact<br />