Providing a Unique Customer Experience via a Multi-Channel Contact Center

Providing a Unique Customer Experience via a Multi-Channel Contact Center

Agenda

• Introductions

• Recommendations for Effective Customer Support– Elizabeth Herrell, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

• Contact Center Innovations Drive Better Customer Experience– Joe Gallagher, Enterprise Program Director, SoundBite

Communications

• Question & Answer

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3Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Effective customer support reaches customers

anywhere over any device


Agenda

• Changing customer expectations

• New models for customer support

–Social media

–Mobile devices

–Proactive communications

• Business value for proactive reach

• Short term steps for moving forward


Disconnect between companies and customers

Today’s customers want

• Personal engagement

• Responsive behavior

• Relevant information

• Timely information

• Recognition

…but companies deliver

• Impersonal support

• Long wait for agent

• Information overload

• Too little to late

• Indifferent support


Customer expectations continue to evolve

Last 5 years

Current

Next 5 years


Customer service needs to focus on positive customer experience

• Delivers more value across all channels

• Improves workflow for business process

• Increases emphasis on customer analytics

• Reaches out to customers proactively

• Contacts customers before they place a call

• Offers business benefits

─Improved customer satisfaction

─Faster response time for sales and service issues


Delivering positive customer experience means reaching customers over channel of choice

• Expecting to find customers at home on landline phone is not realistic and increasingly difficult

• Huge rise in cell phone usage indicates most want to contacted directly any where they are

• Acknowledge customer preference to communicate ─ send and receive ─ via SMS or text messages

• Realize voice communications is just one channel, not the only channel

• Achieve a positive customer experience by

─Aligning with customers’ expectations

─Supporting cross channels for interactions


Customers engage multiple channels based on nature of interaction• Customers often choose non-voice channels for getting information

and basic transactions

• Text messaging replaces email as preferred channel for supporting data interactions

• Seamless support required across all channels— phone, email, Web, SMS, text messaging, IVR, fax, chat, and social networking

• Providing agents with transaction history on non-voice channels, promotes use of lower cost channels


Social media explodes as outlet for customers

• Customers increasingly using social media for contact with companies and their customers

• Social networking sites used for multiple activities: sales, service, support

• Common interest groups may challenge traditional sources of communications

• Companies need to respond and support these channels for customers and business partners

• Social media sites allow companies to reach broader market


Reaching out to customers promotes intimacy

• Supports relationship based services that improve the customer’s experience

• Emphasis placed on what customer is saying and doing across all modes

• Customer satisfaction becomes key indicator of success

• Leverages real time customer information for self-service, assisted service, and proactive outreach

• Supports targeted up sell / cross-sell interactions based on preferences

• Provides value added support such as reminders, alerts, and notifications


Alerting customers yields positive response

• Engages with customers over their channel of choice: cell phones, SMS, email, or landline phone

• Provides convenient way to add new level of support

• Proactive notification and alert systems used for

─Customer care

─Collections

─Emergency notification

• Supports alerts on matters of importance to customers

• Uses advance speech technology for automated interactions and supports transfer to agent


Proactive notification lowers operation costs

• Timely receipt of information reduces need to make a call

• Alerts customers to take action on matters that could cause future delays or payment penalties

• Encourages customers to use self-service sites to retrieve more information

• Promotes usage of self-service channels

• If customer follows up with live call, it often results in shorter call

• Bottom line: Fewer incoming calls results in lower operational costs


…and expands revenue opportunities

• Selectively sends relevant information on promotional offers

• Alerts customers to special values for products previously purchased

• Improves collection rates for delinquent payments

• Encourages customers to take action when it is more likely they will make a purchase

• Supports customer satisfaction by informing them of errors or recalls

• Notifies customers if current contract or policy will expire to promote renewals


ROI for self-service activities

• ROI dependent on percent of increase in automation

• Number of interactions that are partially or fully automated determines savings

• Intuitive interface increases adoption rate

• Many companies realize payback in one year

Type of transaction Approx. cost

Fully assisted services $6

Technical support $12 and up

Chat, collaboration $2 - $5

Email auto response $0.10 - $0.20

Email assisted $3.00

IVR without speech $.0,20 - $0.30

IVR with speech $.0.20 - $.0.50

Proactive notification 0.15 - $0.20

Quantifiable saving per contact lowers operational costs for contactSelf service averages less than $0.30 per contact compared to $6/call


How to move forward with proactive communications• Identify areas that trigger a high number of incoming calls for basic

information:

─Schedules

─Payments

─Account information

─Plan changes

• Update customer information regarding preferred outreach channel

• Sync up with marketing for current account information

• Manage customer’s account proactively — expiration dates, travel info, service contracts, schedules, policies, renewals, etc.

• Anticipate reasons for calls based on individual accounts

• Send proactive messages and track results


Best practices for deploying proactive notification

• Avoid a silo approach and integrate into overall customer support operations

• Make it easy and intuitive for users

• Limit contacts to matters of importance for customers

• Link to a live agent as needed for comprehensive support

• Ensure stringent security practices

• Start simply and expand

• Review and monitor to determine success


Recommendations

• Gain support from marketing, sales, and service organizations who will benefit from proactive notifications

• Keep customer data updated on their current contact information

• Receive customer’s permission to notify them on special promotions and savings

• Select POC for initial outreach program

• Monitor and refresh as needed to reach objective

• Evaluate savings from program with accurate reporting of success based on before and after scenarios


Elizabeth Herrell

617-613-6000

[email protected]

www.forrester.com

Thank you

Contact Center Innovations Drive Better Customer Experience

Agenda

• About SoundBite Communications

• Consumer Communications Preferences Vary: A Multi-channel Strategy is Required

• Creating an Interactive Customer Dialog Across All Channels

• Contact Center Innovations Drive Better Customer Experience

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Reactive Communications

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Paradigm Shift: Towards Proactive Communications

Proactive Communications

“Interactive multichannel communications provide several benefits… to build strong customer relationships while also reducing costs.”

Source: “Proactive Outbound Notification Saves Money”, Forrester Research, January 2009

Introduction to SoundBite Communications

Proactive Customer Communications Market Leader•Intelligent platform enables clients to design, execute, measure and optimize customer communications

•Multi-channel: voice, text, email

•Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

•Solutions span clients’ customer lifecycle

Over 200 clients•~50 Fortune 500 B2C companies

Strong financial position•$36M cash

•No debt

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Company Facts•Founded: 2000

•Headquarters: Bedford, MA

•NASDAQ Ticker: SDBT

•2009 Revenue: $40.2M

•2009 Messages: ~2B

7 of the top 10 global issuing

banks

7 of the top 10 U.S. telecom & media providers

5 of the top 20 U.S. retailers

12 of the top 20 U.S. utility providers

~90 collections firms

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SoundBite Users

More than 200 clients actively use SoundBite’s Proactive Customer Communications offering

Financial Services

Telecom& Media Retail

Energy & Utilities

Collection Agencies

Consumer Communications Preferences Vary: A Multi-channel Strategy is Required

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Paradigm Shift: Towards Mobile Communications

50

100

150

Text Messages(billions per month)

‘00

100

200

300

Telephones (millions)

‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09

Source: CTIA and FCC

Landline Numbers Mobile Numbers Text Messages

Breaking Through the Noise

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direct mailtext messaging

voiceemail

social media

To get desired results, communications must be proactive and...

Relevant Personal Timely Engaging

Consumer Communication Preferences Vary

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Source: Based on actual client data

Varied channel preferences indicate that a multi-channel strategy is required

A Multi-Channel Strategy is Required

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Blend voice, text, and email in a

single customer interaction

Escalate to other channels

based on recipient response

Measure customer

engagement across all channels

Create a personalized,

interactive dialog across all channels

Communicate through varying and multiple channels to drive higher response rates

SMS

Create a Personalized, Interactive Dialog

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Fully-automated customer interactions that deliver a highly personalized experience

Free Msg: Welcome to TelMobile! To get answers to FAQ reply FAQ or to send a text msg to a live agent reply AGENT

For help reply HELP

To end alerts reply STOP.

Reply Options

Hi, this is TelMobile calling for Jane Doe. We wanted to welcome you and let you know we're happy you joined us.

To get started, we’d like to provide answers to some frequently asked questions.

To hear more, please select from the following options: • To hear how to set up your voicemail, press 1.• For the details of your current plan, press 2.• To learn how your charges are determined, press 3.

$2.5M/year in FTE saving

Top Ten Global Bank Drives Improved Collections

Situation• One of the world’s largest Financial Services

institutions sought improved card collections performance

Strategy• Selected SoundBite – first deploying voice

messaging then text messaging and email messaging across multiple segments of inventory

Results• Estimated savings of 90 FTE (~$2.5M/year)

• 2-10% improvement in cure rate

• Initial US deployment expanding to UK and other European locations

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Multi-channel messaging combines to optimize collections

“Overall, the performance has been extremely strong and much surpassed the initial business case”

– Client Executive

Contact Center Innovations Drive Better Customer Experience

Contact Center Solutions

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• Partner with SoundBite to differentiate your customer contact strategies

• Our solutions help optimize agent performance, reduce operating costs, and increase customer service levels

Contact Center Optimization

Contact Center Text Messaging

CTI ConnectAgent Portal

SoundBite Contact Center Text Messaging Solution

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Business Opportunities

•Empower contact center agents to support customers via text messaging channel

•Adopt a cost-effective channel while providing a positive customer experience

SoundBite Value•Offering text for customer support improves customer satisfaction

•Agents can handle multiple customer conversations

•Enables customer self-service resulting in cost-efficiencies

•Further expands the multi-channel experience in the Contact Center

Contact Center Text Messaging Solution

Dialog Engine enables automated, interactive text messaging

Agents respond to text messages via Agent Text Portal

Enhanced keyword search

Standard and FTEU rate text

Contact Center reporting

Optimization Solution

Retail Example: Agent Support

Dialog EngineCustomer

Agent Text

Portal

A printed marketing piece says, “Sign up for our Loyalty program! Text LOYALTY to 77053”

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LOYALTY

ALERT

ORDER

Welcome to Loyalty Rewards Plus. To check your balance at any time reply BALANCE. To sign up for new product alerts reply ALERT

New product is available next Friday. 20% off for early orders. For more info reply MORE. To order now reply ORDER. To opt out reply STOP.

Thanks for ordering New Product. To complete your order we need …”

Interactive Text Messaging Increases Collections

Situation• Wireless provider uses 1-way text alerts for

collecting on delinquent accounts

• Goal to increase auto-pay and self-cure rates while reducing agent costs

Strategy• Leverage SoundBite’s Contact Center Text

Messaging Solution for payment and past-due reminders

• Interactive Text Messaging enables subscribers to reply HELP or OPTIONS for more information

Results• 55% lift in same-day payments

• 46% lift in same-day cure rates over BAU

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Increasing payments while dramatically lowering costs

Contact Center Text Messaging more than

doubles same-day payments

SoundBite CTI Connect – Genesys Solution

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Business ChallengesOrganizations are under pressure to reduce costs and increase customer service.

•Balance contact center efficiency with great customer experiences

•Integrate proactive customer communications with contact center infrastructure

SoundBite Value•Up to 90% reduction in customer hold times and disconnects on hold

•Match calling levels to agent resources to optimize agent utilization

•Present agents with detailed information at time of call to deliver positive customer experience

Ready-built software plug-in to Genesys i-Server

Warm transfer with screen pops to agent desktop

Intelligent call routing

Dynamic call pacing

On-screen display of real-time agent availability and hold time

CTI Connect SolutionContact Center Solution

Situation• Multiple contact centers with varying levels of agent resources,

availability, and processes. • Required a solution flexible enough to accommodate call fluctuations

across multiple contact centers while also delivering a consistent customer experience.

Strategy• Integrate SoundBite CTI Connect module with Genesys to exchange

key customer data at the time of the call

• Collect real-time agent resource statistics to adjust and route calls to optimal contact center location

• Replace whisper functionality with integrated screen pops to deliver personalized and detailed customer information to agent screens

ResultsSegments customers based on days past due in order to intelligently route customers to available agents for immediate service

•Average customer on hold time reduced to 3 seconds

•Call abandon rate reduced by 83% leading to fewer callback attempts required to reach customers

Top Issuing Bank Provides Optimal Customer Experience

SoundBite CTI Connect Integrates with Bank’s Existing Genesys Technology

Connect

Average Hold Time Reduced to

3 Seconds

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Summary

Summary

• Proactive Customer Communications anticipate customer needs and reduce inbound calls

• Align your contact center to support varied communications channels to better service customers

• Create an interactive and personalized dialog across multiple channels to increase automation

• Provide agents with visibility into customer interactions across all channels for better service and agent performance

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Question & Answer

• For a copy of today’s presentation, or if you have additional questions, please contact SoundBite at 888-465-7632 or [email protected]

Thank You!

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