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Across the last few weeks, we've run a mini-series of excerpts of from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving.

In the first feature in the series, we looked at how when it comes to communications, Customers Want It Their Way . In the second instalment, we explored how Complexity Is a Distraction to Delivering your Target Customer Experience.

Now in the third and final excerpt in this series we discuss "How to Reverse the ‘It’s Getting More Complex and Expensive’ Trap" that so many field service companies can fall into...

Are improving your communication channels a key issue for you?! The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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So far we have explored two points of view: the customer and the advisor. The customer’s adoption of technologies that enables an always connected, real-time responsive lifestyle has set an incredibly high bar for organisations to match. In particular, smartphones simplify the business of getting things done. An obsessive design focus on ‘one-click access has set expectations for simple, immediate engagement.

"Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices..."

However, organisations are yet to match this sophistication. Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices.

A similar fragmentation has also occurred with enterprise CRM deployments. These have an enduring reputation for being hard to deliver. Scaled down ambitions then tend to target a more pragmatic focus on the individual needs of functional teams. This makes personalised service a much more complex task for advisors who are still expected to be knowledgeable about any event across a customer’s lifecycle.

Organising customer data by functional priorities has meant CRM is failing to keep pace with expectations for informed, low effort customer service engagement. Operationally it is just too hard for advisors to locate and assess the context of a customer’s situation on the fly. Both customer and organisation suffer in terms of poor customer experience and ROI.

Instead, this is how customer data should be used.

At the point of initial customer contact, a rich mix of relevant data is used for automated decision making. The aim is to direct customers to their ‘best’ resource. In an omni-channel context, this could be live assistance, self-service or proactive service. The triggers for selecting the ‘best’ resource will depend on the demands of each customer journey and how each customer reacts during that journey.

As a rule of thumb:

• Repeatable customer needs at definable points of a journey can be anticipated and therefore offered as a proactive service.
• Whenever things typically become complex, emotional or require some form of relationship nurture, live assistance is best.
• Anything else is a candidate for 24x7, instant self-service.

As far as live assistance is concerned, the ‘best’ advisor experience is that data and workflow is proactively pushed to them at the right points during each customer journey. The function of an effective unified desktop is to make the complex look simple. As a result, advisors are less distracted and can remain in full rapport with each customer and their needs.

This simplification demands a single screen of information that will adapt as the conversation flows. What previously required toggling across multiple screens is now condensed into a single overview - with duplicated and inconsistent data entry a thing of the past.

Some of this design intent is achieved through visual layout: for instance just one inbox for all voice and text enquiries, one view of interaction and transaction history etc. All of which makes for the kind of intuitive user experience that advisors already expect from their mobile technologies.

However, there is also some clever stuff that happens before any customer information is brought to the advisor’s attention. In the design quest of presenting only the most simple and relevant view, an advanced unified desktop will combine many data sources into a single stream.

As previously mentioned, holistic customer insight is seldom held in one system of record or offered by a functional view. And hard-won experience tells us that the ‘rip and replace’ strategy of turning many legacy systems into a single consolidated version seldom works out as planned.

"Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need..."

Instead, there are less risky ways of achieving the same goal. Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need.

Sometimes an even greater focus is needed around how customer information is organised and displayed. What about those instances when first-time resolution does not happen within a single session? Maybe the process that supports a customer journey inevitably takes time, such as making an application or a claim or trying to recover lost property. Maybe the customer or organisation has to find more information or do something else to reach a decision. All of which takes more time.

This is where case management comes into its own. It draws boundaries around this type of customer situation and attributes the relevant data, interactions, transactions and workflow for easy ongoing reference. This is especially important when there are multiple points of customer contact, which are progressed by different employees, who need to easily reference previous steps in the customer journey without expecting customers to provide the narrative.

This form of grouping is enabled by one of the defining functions of an omni-channel framework. So-called ‘universal queuing’ will organise all voice, text and workflow items into a single management system instead of treating them as separate queues. As a result, integrated views of activities over time are automatically generated and presented to the advisor, saving time and effort for all concerned. This ability is however untypical in a CRM centric approach.

Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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As part of a new mini-series of excerpts of from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving. In the first feature in the series we looked at how when it comes to communications, Customers Want It Their Way .At the end of that article we asserted that in truth, we live in a world of five generations of consumers and employees. The choice of communication channel is ours. We pick whichever works for us. And by the way, if you think letter writing is dead just ask any complaints team!

So what does this mean? Does it condemn organisations that want to do the right thing by their customers to every increasing cost? The answer depends on what generation of infrastructure you are using...

Are improving your communication channels a key issue for you?! The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

 Sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

While a choice of voice and text has been available to all current generations, their accessibility and immediacy has been transformed over the last forty years: from landline to smartphone, from letter to instant messaging. Our preferences tend to be based on the dominant channel(s) within our peer group.

But before we start to look at that, there is another stakeholder’s point of view that needs to be included beyond that of the customer. No prizes for guessing that the advisors’ experience matters in equal measure. Once routing and triage business rules have matched customer need with the best qualified, available person, your advisors assume prime responsibility for the quality of outcome and the customer’s retained memory of the service experience.

That’s a lot to get right, especially with five generations of customers and personas to take into consideration. In fact, it requires single-minded concentration and attention on the unique needs and expectations of each customer to nail those deliverables consistently.

While we might imagine that multi-tasking is the obvious way through a busy day, it has a price. Our attention span is finite. Split it too far amongst competing tasks and something has to suffer. More often than not it’s the nuances of each individual customer need that is missed when advisors find their focus and listening power distracted by the logistics of helping the customer towards their outcome.

"There are many triggers for losing focus on the customer experience. For instance, desktops can rapidly become a mosaic of overlapping application windows as information and workflow is requested and generated..."

There are many triggers for losing focus on the customer experience. For instance, desktops can rapidly become a mosaic of overlapping application windows as information and workflow is requested and generated.

Moreover, these are not consistent interfaces. They can range from mainframe style green screens to back-office ERP systems and cloud CRM interfaces. Legacy organisations typically expect advisors to toggle between half a dozen screens for certain customer jobs. There are even some sectors with double-digit complexity when additional third-party applications are used, such as customer eligibility checks.

Navigating all this is a daunting challenge for anyone just arriving at a new contact centre. They have the challenge of live engagement layered with the unfamiliarity of multiple systems and their idiosyncrasies. No wonder that much contact centre induction time is soaked up in systems familiarisation and training at the expense of customer experience skills.

On top of all that, it is not uncommon for larger contact centres to endure 20%+ annual attrition rates. Given the learning curve just described, a continual drag on performance and service reputation is created that is hard to overcome.

Finally, one of the most common complaints against the contact centre versus a typical online experience is that organisations never remember customers’ profile and history, despite asking for it multiple times. ‘Know me’ is a key mantra in digital economies.

But within the fast moving dynamics of a live engagement, advisors cannot be expected to hunt down relevant customer information in order to personalise an interaction. Even when captured in CRM, that information can remain hidden from view nestled behind multiple tabs and menus. No wonder we still hear the ‘system is slow today’ apology as the search for relevant details continues in the background.

There are multiple negatives from this way of working.

More time has to be spent on each customer, which inflates headcount costs. It then gets worse if the outcome is failure to find the right answer or get something done

immediately. Handoffs to other teams generate more work, inflate inbound queues with progress checking customers and put a big dent in the quality of customer experience for those who suffer.

Advisor motivation takes a hit too, as the pressure mounts on working harder. Command and control culture is reinforced to meet targets and the chemistry of an empowered employee culture driving positive customer experience starts to dissolve as a result. The ongoing stress of being underequipped and unable to do your best can hollow out the enthusiasm of even the most dedicated advisor.

But the good news is that it is possible to work smarter as opposed to expecting the team just to work harder. Advisors have the same right as customers to expect low effort engagement. This happens when a great desktop experience is enabling the right customer experience.

Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

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As humans, we communicate as readily as we breathe and eat. Whichever generation we are born into the desire to relate to the peer group we grow up with remains a constant. The difference lies in the communication technology at our disposal. in this the first part of a new series of excerpts from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving.

Are improving your communication channels a key issue for you?! The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

Sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

While a choice of voice and text has been available to all current generations, their accessibility and immediacy has been transformed over the last forty years: from landline to smartphone, from letter to instant messaging. Our preferences tend to be based on the dominant channel(s) within our peer group

Source: Global Mobile Messaging Consumer Report 2016 Twilio

Generation Z parents famously wonder why voice has become such an alien channel to their children. Millennials can still manage a weekend catch up call to parents but typically revert to texting amongst friends, even though workdays become all about email. Meanwhile, silver surfers boast an expanded repertoire of being natively comfortable with live voice and increasingly up to speed with family group messaging.

Naturally, this personal use cascades into our lives as consumers and employees. Retaining our choices is expected. We still want to communicate in ways that suit us. Adoption of these expectations is as common in B2B as in B2C markets. The technology has become ubiquitous.

The problem, of course, is that brands and employers keep finding themselves behind the curve as new channels pop up.

Take messaging for example. The absolute dominance of Tencent’s

WeChat within Chinese daily life is such that cash and credit cards are already in rapid decline. We now see the same payment system being offered to Western brands that recognise revenue growth from Chinese tourists requires a trusted and familiar payment interface.

In terms of ‘messaging as a platform’, enabling users to get most things done in their lives, from booking doctor’s appointments to paying bills, the West lags the critical mass of functionality that WeChat has already gained. As of 2018, we are still at the very beginning of monetising messaging as a trusted channel between customers and organisations.

Although business case logic makes us hope that the latest channels will replace existing ones, the evidence says otherwise...

From a customer service leadership perspective, this must seem like a never-ending road. Although old as an industry topic, web chat remains the next new channel for many organisations. Even those already up and running are still sourcing the best practices required to engage effectively. Besides chat, many have also had to deal with social media and now find themselves being told that messaging is the next iteration.

However, the story gets worse.

Although business case logic makes us hope that the latest channels will replace existing ones, the evidence says otherwise. It is an expanding, rather than declining set that most organisations deal with. As such, it is hard to imagine that a single channel will ever emerge as the ‘silver bullet’.

Email is often written off as a legacy channel yet OFCOM’s 2017 communications report shows it remained the single most popular channel for 16+ adults in the UK. What does that imply if you want to be a customer-centric organisation?

Voice might be declining as is often reported, and yes, there are those millennial orientated brands that don’t do voice because their customers don’t, but it remains the dominant live channel of choice by some margin. For many customers, it has unique qualities. It’s faster than text as a form of communication. It’s richer in terms of emotion. Text channels have to augment with emojis.

As the dominant channel, it also attracts negative press for the lack of sophisticated routing many organisations still subject their customers too. First contact resolution without bumps is not as common as it should be. Customers expect low effort outcomes. Even so, once the right person is found, live voice still fulfils many of the expectations customers have for what a service experience should be.

In truth, we live in a world of five generations of consumers and employees. The choice of communication channel is ours. We pick whichever works for us. And by the way, if you think letter writing is dead just ask any complaints team!

So what does this mean? Does it condemn organisations that want to do the right thing by their customers to every increasing cost? The answer depends on what generation of infrastructure you are using.

Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

 Sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

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Avaya has recently announced advancements in delivering and integrating artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into contact centres to improve the customer experience...

Avaya Ava™, a new AI architecture including natural language processing, machine learning and innovative analytics, enables effortless customer engagement through social media and messaging platforms.

Avaya Ava is a cloud, messaging-agnostic solution that offers new AI capabilities for social messaging integration and automation of digital interactions. Avaya Ava was originally introduced as part of Avaya’s online support community, helping customers and partners get their questions answered about Avaya solutions without human intervention. Ava has now evolved to include AI capabilities, complementing Avaya’s Customer Experience portfolio and is the ideal solution for any contact centre to modernise their infrastructure with AI.

When handing off to agents, Ava transfers the full context of the upfront automated experience, eliminating the need for customers to repeat information and steps already taken.Avaya Ava can engage with customers using social media, chat and messaging channels, and provide immediate self-service support as well as deliver the customer to agent-based customer care.  When handing off to agents, Ava transfers the full context of the upfront automated experience, eliminating the need for customers to repeat information and steps already taken.

Capable of AI mining via multi-lingual, natural language identification, contextual and sentiment analysis, Avaya Ava extends scale and efficiency to customer care operations. Ava can support 34 languages and Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and LINE, with more to be added as the solution evolves. The open API approach enables integration with third-party AI solutions from the Avaya A.I.Connect initiative.

The announcement of Avaya Ava comes on the heels of Avaya’s announcement of a definitive agreement to acquire Spoken, a leading innovator in Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions for enterprise customers and a provider of transformative real-time customer experience management applications built on conversational artificial intelligence. Spoken’s specialised agent quality software applications and services, as well as IntelligentWire solutions, use artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies on live voice conversations to reduce after-call work, drive more intelligent responses and gain deeper insight into customer sentiment and experience.

Avaya also announced today an expansion of the A.I.Connect initiative with three new members, and new solutions and services focused on the user experience, including Avaya Equinox Experience and the Avaya Desktop Experience.

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