Customer Experience

Transcription

Customer Experience

Customer Experience
EXECUTIVE REPORT ON THE
OMNI-CHANNEL CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE
By Brian Cantor
Customer Experience
Contents
Channel Engagement Strategy: The
Game Has Changed....................... 2
Contributors.................................. 3
Multi-Channel –
Even Losing Races Can Be
Challenging................................... 4
SPECIAL BRIEFING:
To Serve is to Provide....................13
Omni-Channel:
Defining a Revolution.................. 21
Omni-Channel:
Matters of Preference.................. 28
Omni-Channel:
Connecting the Dots................... 30
Omni-Channel:
People Serving People.......................32
Omni-Channel:
Are Solutions the Solution?..............35
Omni-Channel:
You Say You Want a
Revolution, But Do You
Want to Make One?.................... 36
Channel Engagement
Strategy: The Game
Has Changed
The disparity between mindset
and execution rears its head in all
realms of contact center strategy.
It explains why organizations can recognize
the efficiency and scalability of cloud solutions
but still primarily rely upon on-premise
infrastructure. It explains why organizations
can tout customer-facing metrics like CSAT
score, Net Promoter Score and Customer Effort
Score as true barometers of performance yet
continue to perform as if average handle time
and average speed of answer are the bigger
priorities. It explains why organizations can
publicly aspire to “be like Zappos” but continue
to overlook opportunities to improve culture
and drive greater employee engagement.
More than merely applicable to channel
engagement strategy, the seemingly
inescapable gap between thinking and doing
serves to uniquely complicate the matter for
those businesses aiming to stay ahead of the
curve and on the pulse of customer demand.
Per Call Center IQ’s annual survey on channel
strategy, only 4% of organizations believe
becoming an omni-channel business is an
improper, misguided or unnecessary objective.
The other 96%--an overwhelming majority—
accepts omni-channel as the appropriate
ambition, if not standard, for today’s businesses.
Whether the customer engagement hub
is known as a call center, contact center or
interaction center, today’s businesses believe it
must be an omni-channel one.
Unfortunately, many of those businesses find
themselves grappling with the preceding—and
less aspirational—requirements of a “multichannel” world.
Still working to introduce a substantive myriad
of web- and mobile-driven channels, let alone
with the same robustness and agility as media
like telephony and email, businesses are
essentially struggling to catch up to an idea that
is already dramatically behind the times.
Insofar as 96% aim to become “omni-channel,”
today’s businesses do not simply need to offer
comprehensive, customer-centric levels of
engagement in numerous channels. They need
to do so in a manner that creates a unified,
consistent, seamless experience for customers
who define their preferences and engagement
efforts not necessarily by channel but by objective.
If their action has not even risen to the
ambition of the lesser, simpler approach to
channel engagement strategy, can businesses
realistically attain the standard created by the
“omni-channel” revolution?
If they are barely at the back of the “multichannel” line, how can they possibly jump to
the front of the “omni-channel’ one?
The task is not easy. The solution is not obvious.
Businesses will not be able to plug in a system,
press the on switch and rapidly transform into
an omni-channel organization. Businesses
unable to call themselves multi-channel in the
status quo will not be able to dismiss all of their
existing limitations when pursuing the newer,
revolutionized standard.
But they can successfully pursue that standard.
This report, which draws upon insights from
Call Center IQ’s annual study and expertise
from seven experts with diverse backgrounds
and varying ideologies, uncovers a course of
action that will allow businesses to not only
patch the holes in their multi-channel template
but redraw the lines of their business to meet
the demands of the omni-channel marketplace –
and the omni-channel customer.
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Customer Experience
Contributors
Mike McShea
Contact Solutions
Richard Dumas
Five9
John Cray
Enghouse Interactive
Lonnie Mayne
InMoment
Henry Eakland
HP Autonomy
Ted Bray
Virtual Hold Technology
Ryan Hollenbeck
Verint
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Methodology and Demographics
In July and August of 2014, Call Center IQ
conducted this research with collaboration
from an audience of customer service, customer
experience and contact center professionals.
Representing buy-side organizations, vendor
organizations and independent consultancies,
respondents contributed insights via a web
survey and/or targeted, one-on-one interviews.
Requests to participate were issued irrespective
of company size, call center size or region,
assuring that the sample represented a global
customer management audience.
Participation did, however, skew slightly in favor
of large organizations. 33% of respondent
organizations employ at least 5,000 individuals.
A total of 57% tout workforces in excess of 500
employees.
Only 24% of the surveyed organizations operate
with less than 100 names on their payrolls.
That the majority of participants represent large
enterprises did not, however, notably skew
the data in favor of large contact centers and/
or customer service functions. While 36% of
businesses operate with more than 250 agents,
21% do so with less than 10.
Example respondent job titles included
“Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy,”
“Customer Contact Center Manager,” “Head of
Customer Service,” “Director, Customer Care,”
“Vice President, Sales,” “VP, Client Solutions,”
“Senior Vice President, Call Center Operations,”
“Operations Director,” “Director of Support,”
“Director of IT,” “Vice President of Business
Development,” “Director, Customer Care,”
“Head of Digital Customer Service,” “Senior Vice
President, Service Center Operations,” “Customer
Advocacy Manager,” “Vice President, Customer
Experience” and “Customer Success Manager.”
Representing a skew in favor of business
leadership, 51% of respondents identify as either
directors, vice presidents or C-level executives.
A staggering 88% of respondents are at least
labeled managers within their organizations. An
additional 7% are analysts, while the remaining
5% identify themselves as either team members
or administrative personnel.
Multi-Channel –
Even Losing Races
Can Be Challenging
To professionals with their sights set on a
seamless, consistent omni-channel customer
experience, including those experts interviewed
for this report, multi-channel is child’s play. It
is a relic of the antiquated perspective that
internal factors within the business – not the
demands of the external customer base –
should drive contact center strategy.
If a business is customer-centric, these
professionals would argue, it is focusing not
simply on where it offers customer service but
how it builds an entire customer engagement
framework to support the needs, expectations
and desires of today’s marketplace.
But to the majority of organizations, even “multichannel” represents a concept of ambitious
progression rather than constricting regression.
Given a host of potential definitions, respondents
most commonly selected “allow a customer to
connect in his preferred channel at all times” as
the proper multi-channel conception. Supported
by 44% of respondents, that multi-channel
definition commanded nearly three times more
affirmation than any alternative.
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“Allow a customer to simultaneously
communicate via multiple channels” and
“Allow a customer to connect in more than
one channel at all times,” the next two
most popular definitions, best represent the
multi-channel concept for 17% and 15% of
businesses, respectively.
At its linguistic core, multi-channel reflects
maintaining a presence in more than one
channel. That businesses are adhering to loftier
standards speaks favorably to their customer
management mindsets.
Unfortunately, embracing an aspirational
conception of multi-channel is meaningless if
the business does not establish and execute a
strategy for realizing that vision.
Collectively, the aforementioned three
definitions reflect how more than threequarters of businesses approach multi-channel.
For one to successfully claim that action has
met idea—and that the marketplace actualized
the rhetoric of the multi-channel movement—
he would have to prove that three-quarters
of businesses are consistently operating
in accordance with at least one of those
definitions.
Q1
They are not.
Only 44% of businesses believe their operations
align with one of the aforementioned definitions.
Only 7%, moreover, say their existing strategy
allows “a customer to connect in his preferred
channel at all times,” which is the most popular
conception of multi-channel.
Businesses are aware of the multi-channel
concept. They believe it involves more than
simply introducing a second or third channel
within which they can sometimes engage with
customers. They recognize that it is a concept
driven as much by customer demand as it is by
organizational convenience.
The awareness and philosophical acceptance of
a particular multi-channel conception has not,
however, produced universal and successful
execution of that idea.
By virtue of their inability to create a successful
multi-channel experience, businesses find
themselves revering a dated, antiquated
practice as a point of strategic aspiration.
That, naturally, puts them at a significant
disadvantage when it comes to adopting the
more ambitious and comprehensive omnichannel approach to customer engagement.
What is the most accurate definition of multi-channel?
14.6% Allow a customer to connect in
more than one channel at all times
more than one channel during
regular business hours
43.9% Allow a customer to connect in *his/
her* preferred channel at all times
*his/her* preferred channel during
channels preferred by the majority
of customers at all times
of customers during regular
business hours
17.1% Allow a customer to
simultaneously communicate via
multiple channels
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Q2
Which definition best describes your organization’s
current approach to multi-channel?
7.3% We are not currently a multichannel business
more than one channel at all times
more than one channel during
*his* preferred channel at all times
*his* preferred channel during
of customers at all times
of customers during regular
business hours
6.1% Allow a customer to
simultaneously communicate via
multiple channels
Calling all Channels
To meet even the most basic standard of
multi-channel, businesses need to offer
communication opportunities in more than one
channel. To meet a standard that requires them
to satisfy customers in their preferred media, let
alone consistently do so at all times, businesses
need to commit meaningfully to those channels.
“As a baseline, to provide a good customer
experience, you should be able to give the
customer whatever they want in whatever
channel they want,” declares Contact
Solutions’ McShea.
While actions like launching a Facebook page
and installing a live chat application technically
bring a business into multiple channels and
thus give it the linguistic right to claim existence
as a multi-channel provider, they do not
inherently assure the business will function
as one. Establishing a presence in a channel
and creating platforms for legitimate customer
engagement are two vastly different things.
With respect to that distinction, it is important
to consider not only the channels in which
businesses exist but the nature of their
existence within each channel.
If an organization addresses numerous types
of customer inquiries within a given channel, it
is unmistakably rendering that channel more
capable of accommodating customer demand. If
an organization arms a channel with dedicated
resources, budgetary allotment and staff, it is
undeniably creating a more robust platform for
customer engagement. If it actively monitors
performance in that channel, it is irrefutably
giving it a more fundamental role within the
overall customer engagement strategy.
By declaring that they are not adhering to
the most popular definition of multi-channel,
today’s businesses revealed that they have
not met the previous standard for channel
engagement strategy.
But it is not until exploring exactly how they
are approaching the multi-channel question
that the marketplace can best understand why
they feel disconnected from that standard and
what they must do to move out from behind
the multi-channel curve and get ahead of the
omni-channel one.
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Channel Offerings: Where Businesses Connect
The customer engagement hub might be
widely known as a call center, but for today’s
businesses, it is most popularly a platform for
email engagement.
A whopping 96% of businesses confirm that
they connect with customers via email. A lesser,
but still extremely significant, 94% say the same
of engagement with a live telephone agent.
Not simply the most commonly offered channel,
email is also the most accommodating. 44% of
businesses confirm that they handle customer
service, marketing and sales requests via email.
The same is true for the website/FAQ channel in
36% of cases, of the live telephone channel in
only 32% of businesses and the in-person/onsite interaction forum in just 27% of them.
Used specifically for customer service by
34% of businesses, e-mail rarely functions
specifically for marketing or sales purposes.
No respondents said they are using e-mail
exclusively for marketing, and only 4% of
businesses rely on it solely for sales. A more
notable 12%, however, rely on email to tackle a
hybrid of support and sales inquiries.
When it comes to channels specifically geared
towards customer support, the telephone IVR
system is the most popular choice. Relied upon
by only 16% of businesses for the full suite of
inquiries, 4% of businesses for exclusively sales
inquiries and no businesses for mere marketing
endeavors, IVR is used exclusively for customer
service by 44% of organizations.
Ultimately, 81% of organizations rely on IVR to
communicate with customers.
Due to the greater flexibility provided by a
human agent, live phone support plays a more
diverse role within businesses. It functions
exclusively as a customer service center in 30%
of businesses but represents a hybrid sales and
support channel in an equal 30% of businesses.
32% use it for the complete combination of
marketing, sales and service.
While their application is not as versatile and
varied as it is for phone and email, several other
channels represent engagement platforms for
the majority of businesses.
88% of businesses—an overwhelming
majority—depend on corporate websites and
FAQ sections to communicate with customers.
Primarily viewed as a customer service channel,
it is used exclusively for that purpose by 36% of
businesses. An equivalent percentage uses it for
the combination of service, marketing and sales.
A communication option for 80% of businesses,
the Facebook social network also represents a
particularly attractive engagement avenue.
Used exclusively for marketing by 20% of
businesses, Facebook is proving itself to be
an increasingly popular channel for all forms
of customer interaction. 17% of businesses
use it for the combination of marketing, sales
and support while 19% harness its power
specifically for customer service tasks. It might
not receive the same commitment as the phone
and email channels, but it is definitely one of
broad relevance to businesses.
Reflective of dramatically growing support
for social media, Twitter rises above the 50%
utilization threshold for the first time ever in a
Call Center IQ research study. An impressive
76% of businesses connect with customers via
Twitter.
While Twitter, like Facebook, is a popular
marketing channel, it is actually most commonly
used by the customer service function. 21%
of businesses use Twitter exclusively to support
customers; 18% do so exclusively to market
their businesses or to engage in an allencompassing flavor of communication.
Other engagement channels operated by the
majority of businesses include web self-service
(76%), in-person/on-site service (67%),
YouTube (61%), mobile self-service (59%), Live
Chat (57%), LinkedIn (57%) and Text/SMS
(55%).
Channels struggling to gain prominence include
mobile app interaction (35%), Google Plus
(31%), virtual agents (27%), video chat (21%),
Tumblr (16%).
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Q3
In which channels do you engage with customers?
No
Yes - for Marketing
Yes - Marketing & Sales
Yes - for Customer Service
Yes - Service & Sales
Yes - All
Yes - for Sales
Yes - Service & Marketing
Telephone - live agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
Live chat (mobile app/
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
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Channel Offerings: Who Facilitates the Connection?
Media like email, web pages and telephony
often accommodate all—or at least multiple-forms of communication between a business
and its customers. No longer relegated to
marketing causes, social networks like Facebook
and Twitter are demonstrating increased
versatility and thus increased application in
customer service environments.
As the multi-channel concept continues to
establish footing in businesses, channels are
coming to serve the more holistic purpose of
“engagement” rather than a particular type of
engagement within businesses.
The growing universality of channel function
does not, however, remove those channels
from the organizational silos to which they have
historically belonged.
71% of respondents, for instance, say that their
customer service department “owns” the live
telephony channel. An additional 13% leave
the keys to that channel with the operations
department. Even though the call center is
being portrayed as a more multi-dimensional
engagement center, it remains very much
rooted in the traditional customer service and
operations wings.
IVR ownership is also rooted most notably in
customer service (58%) and and operations
(12%). Due to its technological nature,
however, it also finds itself controlled by the IT
function in 9% of businesses.
While no businesses claim to use e-mail
exclusively for marketing, 13% say the
marketing function owns the e-mail function.
That total, however, pales in comparison to the
57% ownership rate for the customer service
function. 11% of businesses allow IT to guide
the email effort.
Like telephony and email support, ownership
of social media is also determined by traditional
party lines. Channels like Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Tumblr
most often belong to the marketing function.
The owner in 33% of businesses, marketing is
also the most prominent party behind web/FAQ
strategy.
Save for its 19% frequency of ownership when
it comes to in-person/on-site interactions, the
sales or business development team rarely
dictates channel strategy. While IT plays a role
in guiding web, email and self-service strategy,
it is not the most common owner for any
communication type.
The C-level, operations and human resources
functions also assume uncommon leadership
preferences within the realm of channel strategy.
Channel Offerings:
Where Businesses Should Connect
Before a business can focus on optimizing
and integrating its contact channels, it must
select the channels in which to focus its efforts.
While a totalitarian approach to customer
centricity requires that the business operate in
virtually all channels—if it promises to serve
a customer on his preferred terms, then it
must be able to account for the terms of every
individual customer—a pragmatic one allows
for businesses to operate with respect to costs
and benefits.
Once a business does deem a channel valuable,
however, it must commit itself to offering an
efficient, effective suite of engagement options
within that channel. If not, it is guilty of the
same idea-action disparity that undermines
so many potentially valuable customer
management strategies.
To identify any such disparities, the Call Center
IQ study asked respondents to reveal the
channels in which they feel they should be
operating. If organizations make no attempt
to actively engage within all of those channels,
they are failing no matter which definition of
multi-channel they embrace.
They are failing.
While the range of channels in use is the largest
ever reported in a Call Center IQ survey, it still
pales in comparison to the range businesses
claim they should be using.
Not one of the twenty one channels presented
to respondents was deemed unimportant by a
majority—and only one (Tumblr) was deemed
unimportant by more than 35%--but a handful
are not actually being utilized by a majority of
businesses.
Save for e-mail, no channel, meanwhile, is
being used by every organization that feels it
should be using the channel.
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Phone (live agent), email and web self-service
are all deemed important by at least 95% of
businesses, but only email actually commands
that level of utilization. Offered by only 76%
of organizations, web self-service is subject to
a particularly large gap between its utilization
and its perceived importance.
At least 90% of businesses believe they should
be interacting via FAQ/web pages, mobile selfservice, live chat and IVR, but none represents
an active channel for that percentage of
businesses. While the 88% utilization rate
for FAQ/web pages is close, the 58% support
level for live chat and 59% level for mobile
self-service trail their accompanying importance
ratings by a considerable margin.
The virtual agent approach, which by virtue of
its 27% utilization rate is a virtual non-factor
in today’s market place, is deemed valuable
by 73% of businesses. Few comparisons so
notably demonstrate the disparity between
thought process and action.
Believing they need to be able to accommodate
customer preferences at all times, today’s
customer-centric businesses naturally know they
must be prepared to support a wide array of
contact channels at all times.
That they are not doing so – at least not
remotely to the level they believe is necessary –
provides a pessimistic counter to the optimism
generated by the fact that far more channels
are being supported this year than last year.
Businesses are moving in the right direction,
but they are not moving all the way in that
direction.
They are not, by their very own admission,
sufficiently “multi-channel.”
Channel Offerings: Engage Like You Mean It
Even when judged against the simplest standard—
offering some form of customer engagement—
businesses are not as committed to the myriad of
available contact channels as they feel they should
be. Participation levels match or exceed value
assessment for only one of the twenty one most
common platforms for engagement.
For as damning as that picture is, it only
scratches the surface of the story. Simply
allowing for the possibility of engagement in
a channel is not the same as committing to it
wholeheartedly. Looking simply at the channels
offered by businesses, therefore, presents an
inflated perspective of the state of multi-channel.
While thirteen of the available 21 channels are
“offered” by the majority of businesses, only 9
receive dedicated staff and/or resources from a
majority.
Particularly victimized by the disparity are
the mobile self-service and live chat channels.
Offered by 59% and 57% of businesses, the
two receive dedicated resources from only 49%
and 37%, respectively.
Offered by 88% of businesses but only the
subject of dedicated focus in 75% of them, the
website/FAQ channel also receives a notably
weaker investment level than its prevalence—let
alone perceived value—would seemingly require.
The disparity is even greater when it comes to
the channels for which businesses measure
performance. Only 8 of the 21 channels receive
performance management focus from the
majority of businesses, and only two receive such
attention from more than 75% of businesses.
Performance in email, one of those channels,
is surprisingly measured by only 76% of
businesses. Considering that it is now the
most popular contact channel with penetration
in 96% of organizations, its lack of universal
performance focus vividly underscores the
extent to which offering a channel is not the
same as striving to optimize that channel.
Offered by the majority of businesses, channels
like FAQ/web sites, live chat and mobile selfservice receive performance management
attention from no more than 50% of
businesses. Mobile self-service is on the radar
for only 38%.
Without measuring performance, businesses
cannot possibly assure they are optimally
satisfying customers within a given channel.
They also cannot possibly be sure they are
operating the channel with optimal cost
efficiency. So whether today’s businesses
feel motivated by a philosophy of customer
centricity or guided by an emphasis on cost
containment, they are at risk of greatly
bottlenecking—or even crippling—success.
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Q4
To which channels do you devote dedicated staff
and/or resources?
No
Yes - for Marketing
Yes - All
Yes - for Sales
Telephone - live
agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social
Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
FAQ/web info pages
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Q5
In which channels does your organization measure
performance?
No
Yes - for Marketing
Yes - All
Yes - for Sales
Telephone - live
agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social
Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
FAQ/web info pages
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SPECIAL BRIEFING:
To Serve is to Provide
The customer experience covers more than the
mere way a business retroactively responds
to customer inquiries. From pricing strategy,
to the quality of product utilization, to sales
and marketing development, everything that
affects a customer during the course of his
engagement with a brand is a component of
the customer experience.
A business, therefore, should not approach
channel engagement specifically through the
lens of customer service. Channels must always
be introduced—and optimized—in accordance
with how they can optimize the totality of the
customer experience.
The customer service perspective does,
however, paint a very vivid picture about an
organization’s channel capabilities. Insofar
as a multi-channel organization, let alone an
omni-channel one, is striving to connect with
customers in their preferred channels at all
times, it naturally must be able to respond to
customer inquiries in each of those channels.
Outbound marketing and sales initiatives are
absolutely part of the customer experience, but
insofar as they can be implemented with their
own, pre-selected parameters, they do not
speak as notably to an organization’s versatility.
Customer service, insofar as it at least partially
hinges on the demands of the external
customer base, is a far better reflection of
that agility. It is thus a far better reflection of
whether an organization is in position to use a
channel for engagement rather than merely for
communication.
As an auxiliary benefit, it also reveals the
extent to which the call center, which is
typically perceived as a customer service hub,
is transitioning into a contact center. For the
call center to warrant a broader term, the
boundaries of its engagement must extend
beyond “calls.” Demonstrating a legitimate
commitment to customer service via channels
like live chat, mobile applications and social
media is one of the best way to prove deserving
of the “contact center” label.
Service Environment:
Where Communication Evolves
Viewed through the lens of customer service,
the term “call center” has enduring relevance.
self-service or social, but if they have an actual
issue, they want to talk to a live person.”
A staggering 74% of businesses confirm that
live agent telephone support represents a
service channel for all forms of customer inquiry.
Only 5% of businesses provide absolutely no
customer support through telephony.
Predictable given its prevalence as a
communication channel, e-mail is also a
preferred support channel for businesses. 65%
are in position to handle all issues; only 20%
say they do not provide any form of customer
service through email.
Collectively, both statistics establish the phone
channel as the premiere option for corporate
customer service. Whether the issue is a quick,
transactional one, a deeper, strategic one or
anything in between, if it involves customer
support, odds are strong that a business is in
position to handle it over the phone.
At least a partial product of tradition, the
organizational preference for telephony does
not run counter to customer preference.
“Customers, even younger customers, actually
prefer talking to a live person when they have a
problem,” explains Virtual Hold’s Bray. “If they
need to do something on their own, they’ll use
Several other channels commonly provide
some form of customer service, but no others
function as all-encompassing support channels
for the majority of businesses.
IVR, for instance, represents a customer service
channel in 80% of businesses but an allencompassing one in only 34%. A significant
27% of businesses prefer to only use IVR to
service “quick issues.”
The FAQ/web page avenue represents a
customer service channel for 74% of businesses,
but a whopping 33%, predictably, use it strictly
for outbound information sharing. 23%,
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nonetheless, have found a way to turn their
web pages into more robust channels capable
of addressing all inquiries.
While it cannot handle all issues for a majority
of businesses, web self-service is most
commonly used in that fashion. 65% of
organizations use self-service as a customer
support channel, and 28% use it to address all
inquiries. No form of customer support is more
popular within the web self-service lane.
The same goes for in-person/on-site care.
Almost all of the 50% of businesses (and 42%
of all businesses) that offer an in-person form of
customer support position it to handle all forms
of customer support.
Q6
Twitter, which is also a customer service option
in 50% of businesses, is not as versatile.
According to the survey, 21% of businesses
use it specifically for quick issues. 16% use
it primarily for outbound information sharing
while only 5% approach Twitter as a full-service
customer service destination.
Channels not commonly used for any form of
customer service include mobile self-service,
Google Plus, Tumblr, mobile applications (live
interactions) and virtual agents. From most
to least prominent, they are used as support
channels in 39%, 21%, 21%, 18% and 10% of
organizations.
To what extent do you use the following channels
for service?
Not offered
Information-sharing only
(outbound)
Point-of-contact only -- issues
then escalated to other channels
Service for deeper issues, quick
ones routed to other channels
Service for quick issues, deeper
ones routed to other channels
Service for all customer issues
Telephone - live
agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social
Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
FAQ/web info pages
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Service Environment:
The State of Multi-Channel Service
Channel availability makes no guarantee of
performance.
In fact, insofar as a more widely offered
channel is subject to a wider array of challenges
and a wider pool of feedback, it is possible that
it will also be subject to more frequent—and
harsher—customer criticism.
While that phenomenon might not affect a
channel like telephony, which has been a focus
of perfection efforts for decades, it likely does
impact newer, yet prominent channels like
corporate websites and web self-service.
Sure enough, businesses identify the frequently
used FAQ/web page channel as their worst
performing. On a converted scale of 0-5, with
0 representing “completely dissatisfied” and 5
representing “completely satisfied,” the channel
scored a mere 2.8.
Web self-service, which is also employed by
the majority of businesses, scored a similarly
low 2.9. It tied “other social networks” as
the second-worst-performing service channel.
Other weak performers include Google Plus
(3.0) and mobile self-service (3.0).
Given its longstanding reign as the primary
contact channel, telephony predictably
received the highest marks from businesses.
Respondents scored performance in the
channel at a 4.3/5. In-person/on-site, another
“traditional” channel, also scored well – it was
the second-highest-rated with a 3.9/5.
Other top performers include live chat (3.9/5),
video chat (3.8/5) and YouTube (3.8/5).
Insofar as neither video chat nor YouTube is
widely used for any form of customer service,
let alone to handle complex issues, it is clear
businesses are content with the limitations they
impose on some channels. Video channels
play a particularly compelling role in customer
service, but businesses are very happy with
what they are contributing.
Customers are less content. And businesses,
interestingly, are very aware of that disparity.
In an attempt to identify any inconsistencies
between an organization’s internal
contentedness and performance in the external
marketplace, the survey also asked respondents
to rate the experience within each channel from
the customer’s standpoint.
While the scores were less glowing, live phone
support (4.0) and in-person/on-site (3.8) again
ranked as the best-performing channels. Web
self-service and FAQ/web pages again ranked as
the worst channels (both scored 2.9).
YouTube and video chat, however, scored
notably lower. Viewed internally as some
of the best-performing channels, they were
among the worst performers from the customer
perspective – respondents gave both a score
of 3.3/5. While that score does not reflect a
terrible performance, it does reflect a notably
weaker one.
It suggests that the business performance
perspective is at least somewhat misaligned
with the customer perspective. And insofar as
that is true, business decisions about channel
involvement are at risk of being corrupted by
flawed data.
callcenter-iq.com
15
Q7
How would you assess your organization’s
performance in the following channels
(converted to 0-5 score)?
How would customers grade their
experiences when engaging with your
business in the following channels
(converted to 0-5 score)?
1 2 34 5
Telephone - live
agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social
Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
FAQ/web info pages
1 2 34 5
callcenter-iq.com
16
Service Environment: Creating Limits
Per disparities in performance assessment, it is
clear businesses and customers are not perfectly
aligned on channel strategy. Businesses
might declare a philosophical commitment
to customer-centricity, but when it comes to
making decisions, they draw from more than
the voice of the customer.
But if not exclusively customer sentiment, what
does dictate channel strategy? Which factors
play the greatest role in determining where
and how a business communicates across the
spectrum of existing contact channels?
Businesses say technology and system
limitations play the greatest role in determining
where a business communicates. That
driver scored a 3.4/5 on a scale in which 0
represented “not a factor” and 5 represented
“paramount factor.”
With a score of 3.2, concern over cost also
ranked as a top inhibitor.
Customer sentiment and behavior were
not, however, irrelevant to the consideration
process. With a score of 3.1, existing customer
behavior ranks as the third-greatest driver of
channel strategy. Stated customer demand also
possesses relevance—with a 3.0/5, it follows
concern over staffing and resources (3.1) as the
fifth-greatest driver.
Indeed, organizations’ reluctance to commit
to web, social and mobile channels the way
Q8
they do telephony has some footing in actual
customer data.
“There might be a lot of demand for mobile
support, for chat support and for social support
from the increasingly connected audience that
wants to communicate with their brand on their
channel of preference,” explains Five9’s Dumas.
“But when you look at some of the numbers
a little bit more closely - you see that the
expectations for response times on non-voice
channels are not as high as they are on voice.”
And with those reduced expectations comes
justification, flawed or not, for reduced focus
on performance within those channels.
The weakest five drivers include outsourcer/
partner recommendations (1.4/5), consultant
recommendations (1.7/5), competitive offerings
(2.5/5), tradition (2.7/5) and concern over
privacy/liability (2.9/5).
Despite its lower overall score, tradition actually
plays a paramount role in more organizations
than stated customer demand or existing
customer behavior do. 24% of businesses
ascribe the highest possible level of influence
to tradition; only 20% do the same for each
customer-centric motivator.
One of the bottom five overall drivers, privacy/
liability is a paramount influencer in 28%
of businesses. Concern over systems and
technology is a top driver in 26%.
What role did the following factors play in determining
service levels/offerings within each channel?
Not a factor
Moderate factor
Slight factor
Important factor
Paramount factor
Tradition
Lack of familiarity/unsure
how to start or measure
Cost concerns
Staffing/resource concerns
Technology/systems
concerns
Privacy/liability concerns
Customers’ stated demand
Existing customer behavior
Competitive offerings
Consultant
recommendations
Outsourcer/partner
decision/recommendation
callcenter-iq.com
17
Q9
How do you most notably assess customer
demand for engagement in a particular channel?
40.9% Volume of customer inquiries in
the channel
11.4% Quality/depth of customer
inquiries in the channel
20.5% Customer behavior
20.5% Customer sentiment/feedback/
stated preferences
2.3% Customer demographics/profiles
4.5% Competitive offerings
0.0% Channel popularity
Service Environment: Conveying Limits
Some will blame it on a lack of customer
demand. Others will blame it on cost and
resource concerns. Others, still, will cite
limitations created by existing systems
and technology.
And no matter what they say, some have
nothing other than laziness or organizational
inertia to blame for their failure to introduce a
full suite of customer contact channels.
Regardless of the reason for limitations on their
channel offerings, businesses will, inevitably,
interact with customers who are unable to receive
service on their precise terms. Whether the
channel is not offered (at least at a given time) or
not robust enough to meet the customer’s needs,
it will fail to deliver exactly as requested.
When that happens, a business is unequivocally
falling short of any so-called commitment
to customer centricity. It, through strategic
routing and an overall commitment to
resolution, might be able to avoid dissatisfying
that customer, but it cannot claim it is giving
that customer precisely what he wants.
Insofar as many businesses recognize their
channel strategies are imperfect, they naturally
recognize the inevitability of this shortcoming.
There will come a time in which they have to tell
a customer they cannot meet a precise demand.
They will, therefore, have to concede a hole in
their customer centric philosophy.
Confessing the inability to serve a customer in
a given channel, therefore, is more than simply
making a statement about an organization’s
channel offerings. It is acknowledging a gap
in the business’ commitment to the customer.
How it communicates that gap is, therefore, an
important strategic question in and of itself.
For the largest portion of businesses—42%,
in fact—failure to provide support in a given
channel is no excuse to ignore inquiries in
that channel. That percentage of businesses
confirms that it responds to all inquiries in all
channels even if the response merely involves
letting the customer know the inquiry needs to
be escalated to a preferred medium.
Believing it to be reasonably consistent with
the omni-channel mindset, Contact Solutions’
McShea shares in that philosophy.
“Even if you’re not able to serve them [in a given
channel], allow them to initiate the interaction,
and then come back to them with a solution—
even if that solution is to switch to a different
channel,” says McShea. “That type of response
is still better than not being available in a
channel at a given point of time.”
Agreeing, HP’s Eakland adds, “It is probably
true that a company cannot afford to staff and
offer an immediate answer to a chat or Tweet
24/7. It must, however, possess the ability to
give a reasonable and perhaps automatic but
always friendly response that provides the
customer with other options.”
callcenter-iq.com
18
Hoping to preclude the need for a response,
29% explicitly advertise internal channel
preferences (and thus implicitly reveal
limitations). They, for instance, will only list
a customer support phone number on their
websites if telephony is their preferred customer
service venue.
list limitations on or within each channel. A
business with a limited social media strategy
might, for instance, reveal that its Twitter
account is “for marketing only.”
4% of businesses passively route—and attempt
to condition—their customers by ignoring
inquiries in non-preferred channels.
Knowing that some customers will first visit
their preferred channel, 22% of businesses
Service Environment: Conveying Limits
Across every 2014 Call Center IQ survey,
respondents have made one thing clear:
improving the customer experience is a
top priority.
22% of businesses that say they are currently using
live chat, meanwhile, plan to significantly increase
their commitments over the next 6-18 months.
That commitment to improving the holistic
customer experience does not, however,
confirm that businesses are notably planning
to improve the scope of their channel offerings.
Due to a variety of inhibitive factors, many
businesses will refrain from making sweeping
additions to the number of channels they offer
and even from making improvements to the
channels within which they currently engage
with customers.
Recognizing those inevitable limitations,
observers should not be surprised if businesses
prioritize certain channels when developing
their addition and optimization strategies.
Logically, the priority channels should include
those deemed most important to customers
and those most notably lagging when it comes
to performance.
Unsurprising given the extent to which
businesses feel they should be offered, the
mobile app (real-time interaction) and live chat
channels will be the most commonly introduced
new channels over the next 6-18 months. 22%
of businesses not using the channels plan to
start doing so during that period.
Other channels for which utilization levels will
grow dramatically include web self-service (38%
of businesses are using and will significantly
increase that use) and FAQ/web pages (23%).
Despite being one of the most prominently
offered channels, the phone remains on
the improvement radar. 18% of businesses
say they plan to significantly increase their
utilization of the telephony channel, and an
additional 14% confirm that they will make
slight increases over the next 6-18 months.
While 10% of businesses will at least slightly
decrease email utilization, a far larger 38% say
they intend to at least slightly increase use. A
similar dichotomy exists for in-person; 8% will
decrease utilization but 21% will at least slightly
increase it.
What the majority of businesses will not be
doing over the next few months is initiating
fringe channels. Virtual agents and video
chat, which are not used by the majority of
businesses in the status quo, will remain unused
by the majority 18 months from now.
callcenter-iq.com
19
Q10
How will your organization change its commitment
to the channel over the next 6-18 months?
Using, will stop using
Using, will significantly
decrease
Using, will slightly
decrease
Using, will slightly
increase
Using, will not change
Using, will significantly
increase
Telephone - live
agent
Telephone - IVR
E-mail
Live chat (web)
website)
Video chat
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google Plus
YouTube
Tumblr
Other Social
Network
Web self-service
Mobile self-service
Text/SMS
Text for call back
Click for call back
In-person/on-site
Virtual agents
FAQ/web info pages
callcenter-iq.com
20
Omni-Channel:
Defining a Revolution
The previous sections of this report stress a
fundamental difference between the multichannel and omni-channel concepts. Arguing
that the latter represents a more distant point on
the curve of progression, they suggest that an
organization struggling to meet the standards
of multi-channel is even more distantly removed
from earning the omni-channel label.
A logical assertion from a linguistic standpoint,
in which multi-channel refers to operating in
more than one channel while omni-channel
involves engaging in all of them, it might seem
inconsistent with the findings of the survey.
The largest share of respondents, after all,
declared that multi-channel refers to satisfying
customers in their preferred channels at all
times. Insofar as a business would realistically
have to be in all channels at all times in order
to meet that standard for multi-channel, would
it not effectively be operating as an omnichannel business? Once it meets that standard
for channel engagement, does it really require
more progress before it can fairly describe itself
as omni-channel?
The answers to those respective questions? No
and yes.
Just as businesses operate with an elevated
standard for multi-channel, so too do they for
omni-channel. According to the report’s expert
contributors and respondents, omni-channel
does not simply refer to the practice of offering
all possible channels as engagement options. It
refers to a strategic vision that typically regards
channel universality not as an end goal but as a
baseline requirement.
Omni-Channel – The Expert Perspective
Ted Bray, Virtual Hold: Omni-channel is
integration across the channels as it relates to
the customer care function. Multi-channel
involves providing information or solutions
channel-by-channel; the channels are not
necessarily integrated.
Lonnie Mayne, InMoment: If we look at
multi-channel, it’s more about a transactional
and operational nature. They do talk about
providing some consistency, but we look at
it as being more transactional and tactical.
It is more about capturing the transactional
information as opposed to reaching out.
Omni-channel is two-way; it involves
capturing and also reaching out and getting
the information. Omni is more strategic and
more about the experience - is it a consistent
experience at every moment of the process.
Richard Dumas, Five9: From our perspective,
omni-channel has been talked as an aspirational
goal – as the holy grail supporting all channels. It
requires being able to share context and share
transactional data and being able to maintain an
institutional memory of everything that has gone
on in every channel. In an omni-channel company,
the customer can engage in one channel , and the
system can understand what they’ve done and
where they were in a previous transaction.
John Cray, Enghouse: When people say
omni-channel, they mean that their customers
can cross-channels in real-time. When you have
omni-channel communication with a customer,
it spans more than a single media type. It is a
full-blown interaction with a customer that, on
the fly, can move from one channel to another.
It is no longer the case that a customer chooses
a channel and that it is it. There is an initial
choice of channel, but from that point forward,
it becomes an opening thing.. Both the agent
and the customer can choose alternative forms
of communication.
Mike McShea, Contact Solutions: Omnichannel, from our perspective, involves offering
the same experience across all channels. Multichannel simply entails providing multiple points
of entry into the contact center.
Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint: There has been
a shift from an multi-channel mindset to an
omni-channel mindset. Now, it really is about the
customer’s choice. The channels are offered by
the company, but they are chosen by the customer.
Henry Eakland, HP: Multi-channel is an insideout approach. It involves saying, ‘We’ll do the
best we can with the channels in which we
provide service, but we’re not really taking the
longer term customer view into the equation.’
Omni-channel is more of an outside-in approach.
It involves listening to customers, understanding
where they are spending their time, recognizing
how they are using the different channels and
developing a communication strategy that
has a clear view towards accommodating that
sentiment and behavior.
callcenter-iq.com
21
For respondents, an omni-channel customer
experience is most fundamentally a seamless
one. Not simply a statement of where a
business operates, omni-channel refers to a
business’ success in connecting its channels to
create a unified customer experience.
Yes, many businesses do believe operation
in all contact channels is a pre-requisite to
establishing an omni-channel experience. 39%
of businesses say omni-channel refers to a
seamless experience across all channels. An
additional 2% prefer the linguistic definition: an
omni-channel business is one that offers some
form of engagement—not necessarily seamless
engagement—in every possible contact channel.
But, at the end of the day, it is the seamless
element that reigns supreme. In addition to
the 39% who say an omni-channel experience
is one that spans seamlessly across all channels,
12% of businesses are content to focus only on
the former part of the definition. As long as
the experience is seamless, they say, it does not
necessarily have to cover all contact channels.
It is they who, ultimately, determine whether or
not the experience they are seeking is seamless.
It is they who, ultimately, will create a demand
for integrated channels when they start an
issue in one medium and attempt to finish it in
another. It is they who, ultimately, will attempt
to forge organic conversation in the most timely
and convenient channel – even if that particular
channel is not the business’ traditional or
preferred method of contact.
For an experience to be omni-channel, it must
be capable of seamlessly—and continuously—
engaging today’s omni-channel customers.
Empowered to choose when and how they
contact, they will evaluate experiences for their
ability to accommodate customer autonomy.
And if an experience is branded as omnichannel, customers will expect it to be wholly
accommodating.
Multi-channel refers to the extent of interaction
options business is offering to its customers.
Omni-channel refers to the type of experience a
customer receives when he interacts.
Another 34% of businesses, meanwhile,
believe omni-channel refers to the customer’s
perspective that the experience he receives is
“seamless, integrated and/or consistent across
channels.”
The business’ role, therefore, transforms from
thinking about where and how to engage with
customers into determining how it can deliver
a consistent, seamless experience regardless of
where and how the customer is connecting.
While that definition provides further support
for the seamless concept, it also adds another
layer to the omni-channel concept. It asks
businesses to stop thinking about channel
strategy merely from a provider standpoint
and to start thinking about it from a customer
experience standpoint.
It must uncover—and implement—what
is necessary to create perfectly seamless,
consistent communication across channels. It
must also develop a view of the customer that
is comprehensive and singular. Instead of
thinking about a customer within the terms of
a given interaction or even in terms of a given
transaction, it must adopt a perspective that
recognizes the customer as the potentially
infinite totality of all past, current and potential
engagements, transactions, behaviors and
sentiments.
When discussing strategy in a multi-channel
world, customer management professionals
and advocates largely focused on the channels
that were being offered by a business. Whether
one required a business operate in all channels,
several channels or just two channels to
earn the multi-channel label, he was always
concerning himself with the channels that a
business offered.
A child of the age of the customer, the omnichannel concept is not a provider perspective.
It is not an inside-out perspective.
It is one that rests entirely with the customers
seeking to engage with the business.
It is in accordance with that bold directive that
a business struggling to offer enough to be
considered multi-channel is by no means in
immediate position to label itself omni-channel.
It is in accordance with that bold directive that
businesses still scratching the surface of the
multi-channel movement are vastly separated
from even the earliest stage of the omnichannel revolution.
callcenter-iq.com
22
Q11
How does omni-channel differ from multi-channel?
7.3% No difference - they are synonyms
34.1% Multi-channel is the organization’s
viewpoint about where a business
engages customers, Omni-channel
is the customer’s viewpoint
about whether the experience he
receives is seamless, integrated
and/or consistent across channels
19.5% Multi-channel is about engaging
customers in multiple channels,
Omni-channel refers to
establishing a singular view of
the customer across all of those
channels
39%
Multi-channel is about offering
engagement in multiple channels,
Omni-channel is about offering
a seamless experience across all
channels
12.2% Multi-channel is about offering
engagement in multiple channels,
Omni-channel is about offering
a seamless experience across
whichever channels a business
offers (not necessarily “all”)
2.4% Multi-channel is about engaging
customers in multiple channels,
Omni-channel means engaging
them in all channels (but not
necessarily seamlessly)
8.5% Multi-channel involves creating
a specific experience/hierarchy
for each channel; Omni-channel
involves creating a singular one
across all available channels
2.4% Multi-channel refers to the
disparate experience offered in
each channel; Omni-channel
involves using multiple channels
within a single transaction/issue
The State of Progress
To the extent that a handful of businesses
acknowledged that they are not even remotely
multi-channel—and many more confirmed they
are just beginning to adopt a multi-channel
approach—there is little reason for optimism
about the status quo’s stance on omni-channel.
It might be the age of the customer, but to the
extent that customers are becoming “omnichannel” and thus expecting that of businesses,
it is not the age of giving customers exactly
what they want.
Only 10% of businesses currently define
themselves as omni-channel; 73% of
those businesses, meanwhile, still believe
improvement to their channel offering is urgent.
An additional 10% declare their progress in
becoming an omni-channel organization to
be “significant,” which means that a whopping
80% of businesses have, at best, only made
some progress in becoming omni-channel.
callcenter-iq.com
23
And insofar as 27% of businesses have made
little to no progress in becoming omni-channel,
if one were to randomly select an organization
out of a lineup, it is more likely he will select
one that has made virtually no strides towards
becoming omni-channel than one that has
moved significantly in the right direction.
39% of businesses have neither made much
progress towards becoming omni-channel
nor intend to exercise urgency in making that
progress. Troubling insofar as it reveals that
35% of businesses that do believe omni-
Q12
channel is the correct customer experience
approach have no immediate intention of
adopting that approach, it reassuringly reveals
that the majority of businesses are committed
to the multi-channel revolution.
The customer service behavior of the past and
the customer service behavior of the present
make it very clear that thinking is not the same
as doing when it comes to strategy. But with
the ambitious bell of omni-channel tolling,
restrained excitement can at least emerge
in response to the fact that businesses are
thinking about the transition to omni-channel.
How would you describe your progress towards
adopting that view of omni-channel?
Is doing so a priority?
3.7% Little to no progress; By design,
we do not feel “omni-channel” is
the right approach
12.2% Little to no progress; Improvement
is not urgent
11%
Little to no progress; Improvement
is urgent
26.8% Some progress; Improvement is
not urgent
25.6% Some progress; Improvement is
urgent
4.9% Significant progress; Improvement
is noturgent
6.1% Significant progress; Improvement
is urgent
2.4% We are already an “omni-channel
organization;” Improvement is not
urgent
7.3% We are already an “omni-channel
organization;” Improvement is
urgent
All Channels, Zero Effort
“Omni-channel has to really look like a unified
experience for the customer and for the agent,”
says Enghouse’s Cray. “It has to be easy and
obvious for customers to peruse the different
channels.”
Effort is the enemy of satisfaction in today’s
customer management environment.
Conditioned to believe that organizations
are committed to satisfying their needs and
accustomed to instant gratification, customers
anticipate virtually no hassle in the engagement
process. They anticipate receiving the greatest
possible return on the smallest possible
personal investment.
“The culture of your contact center has to be
one around reducing customer effort,” declares
Virtual Hold’s Bray. “I think customer effort
is the next Net Promoter Score. It is very clear
that if you can reduce customer effort, you will
differentiate your business and customers will
remain loyal.”
callcenter-iq.com
24
Perpetually “connected” through their mobile
devices, today’s customers are not in the
business of seeking out appropriate service
channels. Omni-channel experiences—those
committed to serving customers on customers’
terms—adapt to the customer’s pre-existing
communication preferences.
“If you look at it from the consumer’s
perspective, they don’t look at it from all these
channels,” explains Contact Solutions’ McShea.
“They have a preferred device, and all of these
channels converge there anyway. That’s how
they use it for everything else in their life.”
More than a mere transformation in how
businesses approach channels, omni-channel,
McShea argues, is the realization that channel
is an archaic concept. Customers think about
the type of engagement they require and then
attempt to establish that engagement via the
most readily available mechanism.
While a customer’s behavior in each
scenario might constitute a de facto channel
“preference,” it is an entirely organic one. In
McShea’s vision, the customer is not thinking,
“I prefer live telephony agents handle my billing
issues.” He is thinking, “I noticed a billing issue,
I have my phone in my hand, so I am going to
call for assistance.”
That behavior will change in accordance with
the circumstance. But insofar as the customer
considers himself perpetually connected to the
brand, he should not encounter any additional
hurdles or challenges when organically
engaging via a new channel. He should not
expect a greater imposition.
Just as the customer will organically determine
whether to establish initial contact, he will
also organically determine when and how to
span channels. While that might subject him
to knowledge gaps and additional effort in a
multi-channel universe, it should produce no
burden in the omni-channel world.
“We see that customers are continuously
channel hopping,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck.
In an omni-channel world, “there is an
expectation that the organization will respond
to them in an effective and personalized way
while still maintaining the context of how they
want to engage.”
Instead of meeting customer demand on a
channel-by-channel basis, omni-channels
businesses are better served focusing on
meeting customer demand for low-effort,
hassle-free experiences. Channel strategy
should stem not from a flexing of muscles
regarding capabilities but from an ability to
accommodate customers’ organic preferences
and behaviors. Omni-channel is not simply
about being everywhere—it is about being
where the customer is when the customer
needs a business to be there.
On Seamlessness, Consistency
For an omni-channel framework to sufficiently
satisfy customers in their organic channel of
choice, it must be consistent.
For an omni-channel framework to sufficiently
satisfy customers as they move from agent
to agent and channel to channel, it must be
seamless.
But what exactly do those terms mean in a
practical context?
Insofar as Twitter is a vastly different medium
than e-mail, which is vastly different from live
chat, which is different still from live telephony,
are customers truly expecting the exact same
experience within each channel?
And insofar as customers are obviously aware
that they are moving between channels when
they do so, they are inherently aware of some
seams in the process. It is not as if a business
can operate completely devoid of channel gaps.
What, therefore, do they truly expect when
anticipating a seamless customer experience?
Consistency, in the eyes of the customer
management world’s best-in-class
organizations, refers to demonstrating a unified
commitment to results across each channel
rather than assuring the channel experiences
are all carbon copies.
In fact, failing to account for the unique
intricacies of each channel—and the unique
ways in which customers will communicate
within those channels—would actually
undermine its efficacy. It would prevent
the organization from offering a consistent
commitment to resolve and satisfaction across
all channels.
“If you’re giving a long, complicated answer on
Twitter, you’re probably not giving the customer
what he’s looking for,” says InMoment’s Mayne.
“I do believe you have to be very careful in
how you communicate and what types of
people and technology you put in between the
business and the customer in each channel.”
callcenter-iq.com
25
Expanding on Mayne’s assertion, Enghouse’s
Cray adds, “You don’t necessarily want [the
experience in every channel] to be the same. If
we’re having an hour long call, maybe that’s
comfortable for us - maybe we’re dealing
with a complex issue. But if we were instant
messaging for an hour, we would probably
have an awful experience.”
Consistency is not about creating carbon copies
or mirror images. It is not about operating with
no consciousness of the distinctions between
specific touch points and forms of engagement.
It is about thinking about the core of an
experience. It is about recognizing what drove
a customer to connect and what, ultimately, he
intends to gain from that connection.
“Consistency ultimately becomes a brand issue,”
says HP’s Eakland. “The tone of voice needs
to be consistent so that the soul of the brand,
which is integral to differentiation, is clear in
every channel.”
It is then about determining how most
appropriately and successfully make good on
that customer’s demand within the customer’s
chosen communication parameters.
Consistency, at the end of the day, means
delivering a response that is effective, efficient
and contextually valuable. A business must
remain committed to that ideal regardless of
when and where the conversation takes place,
but it must also be willing to tailor its execution
of that ideal to the customer’s precise situation.
“I’m not saying you have to offer all of the same
functionality in each channel,” declares Five9’s
Dumas, “but you need to satisfy the customer’s
needs, respond quickly and offer great service.”
To create a contextually seamless interaction
in an omni-channel world, “you have to be
able to join all the disparate information into
a story - and make it digestible for the next
agent,” says Enghouse’s Cray. “Previously, if
you were involved in complex customer service
and had multiple people involved, you ended
up repeating yourself a lot.”
Damaging enough at face value, that repetition
also chews up valuable bits of the customer’s
time and effort. It reduces the value of
the customer experience and thus places a
bottleneck on the loyalty the customer will
develop for the brand.
“I completely agree - it’s important that
customers aren’t repeating themselves and
that their transaction history is available to
whichever agent they reach in whichever
channel they connect,” adds Five9’s Dumas.
Rather than processing interactions as
channel-specific transactions, customers think
of their engagements as pieces of a broader,
singular customer experience journey. They
desire to move through that journey without
encountering obstacles and interruptions, and
the responsibility rests with business to create
the most fluid landscape possible.
Customers know when they are switching
between channels or agents, but do not
expect that fact to have any bearing on the
experience. When cycling through different
media, a customer should endure no changes
in the business’ efficacy, resolve, efficiency
and familiarity with his sentiment, transaction
history and engagement objective.
“When I first engage via the web and then call
the contact center, I expect them to know
about that,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck. “You
want the organization to understand what
you’re trying to accomplish, regardless of where
the specific interaction is taking place.”
From Struggle Comes Opportunity
Yes, the majority of businesses are committed
to going omni-channel. But with so much
evidence to suggest they are not even
“multi-channel,” is there really a chance that
commitment gets fulfilled?
In short, yes.
The next few sections of this report will identify
the elements essential to an omni-channel
experience and advise practitioners on how to
begin implementing and optimizing those tenets.
But as many stress over the inherent dilemma
of introducing ambitious action to a business
division not known for its ambition, it is
important to recognize that factors responsible
for bottlenecking progress in a multi-channel
world would be inherently mitigated by the
adoption of an omni-channel mindset.
Consider, for instance, a respondent’s openended explanation regarding why he deems
performance within certain channels to be
unsatisfactory.
“Currently some of the channels (and therefore
customer requests) are handled by other
department, which means they sometimes
offer different (worse or better) solutions than
the customer rep can,” says the respondent.
“The customer rep is not informed about these
contacts, which creates a discrepancy.”
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That viewpoint, which was supported by several
other open-ended responses, reveals that the
segmentation of channels plays a major role in
undermining performance. Insofar businesses
approach different channels with distinct
commitment levels (or no commitment at all),
they are unable to provide a consistent service
level to employees. That inconsistency fosters
dissatisfaction, which ultimately minimizes the
return on contact center investment.
Under a multi-channel philosophy, businesses
would attempt to address the issue on a
channel-by-channel basis. Aware that they have
to elevate channel within each performance
to the level offered by their best channels,
they would potentially tackle the channels
with the same sense of disjointed segregation
that created the problem in the first place.
Performance might improve, but the required
effort would be excessive and the ultimate
outcome would prove less than optimal.
An omni-channel philosophy, however, would
drive businesses to consider a holistic approach
to the experience across channels. Thinking
like customers, businesses would design
an experience to efficiently and effectively
meet customer needs at each possible touch
point. They would also assure that customers
could move seamlessly—and without
hassle—between those touch points. Effort
and investment would then be delineated as
part of a centralized approach to improving
the total customer experience. The drain on
resources would be minimal, and the return on
investment would be as strong as possible.
“Becoming truly omni-channel can actually
improve performance,” declares Enghouse’s
Cray. “Personnel within seamless organizations
can better collaborate with agents and better
optimize the conversation.”
Businesses trapped in the multi-channel
philosophy, which is a “provider” mindset,
approach their challenges as disparate
questions of capability. If they need to add
or optimize a channel to better account for
customer demand, they might do so, but they
do so from an inside-out perspective. The
result is an experience that is neither valuable
to the customer nor to the customer service
function that wants to justify its investment to
stakeholders.
When a business transitions to omni-channel, it
adopts a unified vision for its entire customer
experience function. It will still need to address
bottlenecks on capability, but it will do so from
a different perspective.
“Instead of thinking about a bunch of different
channels that have to be integrated together,
design your contact center strategy to have
an integrated perspective with access to
all those channels,” says Contact Solutions’
McShea. “Instead of trying to figure out how
to cram those changes into an existing way
of doing business, I would look at how I need
to transform my business to accommodate
the transforming expectations about the way
customers want to interact today.”
Instead of considering the different ways to
extend its palette of channel offerings, it will
think about ways to bolster its single offering.
Its single, omni-channel customer experience.
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Omni-Channel:
Matters of Preference
Judged outside of the proper context, the
notion of being able to serve a customer in his
preferred channel is not an omni-channel ideal.
It is a decidedly multi-channel one.
Optimistically, businesses are beginning to
demonstrate strength—albeit strength of the
conditional sort in some cases--when it comes
to accounting for customer channel preference.
It, after all, speaks to capabilities. The more
channels a business provides, the more likely
it is to provide the one requested by a given
customer.
5% of businesses say they can always engage a
customer in his preferred arena. An additional
32% say they can usually do so. Before
even taking into account the statements
of conditional capability, the percentage of
businesses capable of accommodating customer
channel preference exceeds that of last year.
Omni-channel requires businesses to transition
from considering the type of service they provide
to the experience their customers receive.
Simply offering the channel a given customer
wants makes no assurance that the experience
inside—and outside—that channel will meet the
customer’s more fundamental demands.
Meeting the totality of those demands,
however, would seem very difficult if the
business were not even meeting the customer’s
intermediate demand regarding channel.
The majority of businesses agree.
52% of businesses say their organization
currently views serving a customer in his
preferred channel to be either a very important
or essential piece of the customer experience
puzzle. An additional 21% declares the
endeavor “moderately important,” while only
5% say it is irrelevant to their business.
Roughly consistent with the view documented
in last year’s Executive Report on Multi-Channel
Customer Management, today’s businesses—
even those adhering to a provider mindset—
do not view channel decision as something
they can impose on customers. It is one that
belongs with the customer; the business’ role
is to assure its overarching customer experience
accommodates the customer’s ultimate decision.
“They want to talk to the businesses and
they want to do so on their terms,” explains
InMoment’s Mayne. “The power is in the
customer’s hands: ‘I really wish they would
communicate with me in the way I want to
communicate.’”
Per last year’s Multi-Channel report, only 30%
of businesses were able to honor channel
preference with regularity.
Beyond the 37% of businesses who can usually
or always engage customers in their preferred
channel, an additional 14% say they can do so
during business hours. While that is unlikely
to be deemed wholly sufficient in today’s
always-on customer management marketplace,
it surely represents a step in the right direction
for businesses that are still juggling customer
demands with resource limitations.
23% can honor a customer’s channel
preference if that preference includes one of
the business’ priority channels. Certainly not a
sign of an agile, robust omni-channel offering,
the capability also reflects a step in the right
direction for businesses. They are still imposing
limitations at the provider level, but they are
at least giving the customer a choice within
that limited framework. They are at least of
the opinion that telling a customer precisely
where he can engage with a given issue is not a
customer-centric philosophy.
16% of businesses take the same mindset but
limit it to business hours.
The remaining 12% say they can rarely or never
honor a customer’s preference for channel
engagement.
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Q13
Rate the importance your organization places on
being able to serve a customer in his preferred
channel?
4.5% Not at all important
22.7% Slightly important
20.5% Moderately important
27.3% Very important
25% Essential
Q14
To what extent can you comply with a customer’s
channel preference?
4.5% Always
31.8%Usually
22.7% Only if customer’s preference is
one of our priority channels
13.6% Only if customer connects during
business hours
15.9% Only if customer wants to connect
in priority channel during business
hours
9.1% Rarely
2.3% Never
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Omni-Channel:
Connecting the Dots
Inherent to the notion of a singular, unified
customer experience are the concepts of
seamlessness and integration. If a business’
channels—and employees and systems within
those channels—are not all in perfect harmony,
it stands no chance of successfully creating
an omni-channel experience. No matter the
business’ commitment to the philosophy, its
cracks will show, and the customer will endure
the disjointed, inconsistent experience he
ascribed to previous eras of brand engagement.
The idea of seamless, instantaneous, endless
cross-channel communication is nothing
new. Even before grappling with a myriad
of web and mobile channels, businesses
had to execute—or at least had to consider
executing—strategies for communicating
information from an in-person channel to a
telephone channel. They had to determine how
information captured via the telephone IVR
system could be passed to a live agent.
Failure to create those cross-channel pathways,
unfortunately, is also not something new. The
concept of customers entering their phone
number, account number and social security
number into the IVR menu only to then be
asked for the same information from the live
agent is a routine target of mockery. The
notion of providing that information to an
agent and then having to repeat it when
transferred to another agent is almost too sad—
yet, sadly, all too real—for mockery.
What is new, however, is the challenge of
integrating a complete suite of channels at a time
when customers fully expect such integration.
Forget simply passing along information
that the customer shared during an earlier
moment in the interaction. Cross-channel
communication, in today’s environment,
involves recognizing when and where a
customer got stuck during the online ordering
process and providing him with support
personalized to his sentiment and his scenario.
In today’s environment, it involves recognizing
that a customer inquired about a billing issue
in a live chat session three months before he
called a live agent to discuss a different billing
issue. In today’s environment, it involves
recognizing that a customer wrote a scathing
Facebook post about a previous product so
that the live chat agent can be mindful of those
concerns when the customer uses the mobile
app to inquire about a new product.
“It involves not only understanding the transaction
history but also the path the customer has taken
across interactions and channels, what they’re
likely to want and what they’re likely to do in the
future,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck.
“In the omni-channel era, the conversation
doesn’t happen all at once,” elaborates Virtual
Hold’s Bray. “The business must be able to
capture the key moments of interaction and
the data points associated with it across the
conversation. It then must leverage those to
drive and influence the customer interaction in
the next step of the conversation.”
Neither time nor venue serve to create
borders for today’s customers. They approach
interactions as organic extensions of need.
They call, chat, Tweet or e-mail based on what
seems most appropriate when it seems most
appropriate, and they anticipate the business
will be able to handle the issue as if the two
parties were never once disconnected.
Delivering on that expectation begins with
establishing a rapid, uninterrupted flow of data
between all available contact channels. It ends
with enabling a business to transition from
one that offers customers numerous channels
in which to engage to one that fosters a
legitimately seamless, consistent, unified omnichannel customer experience.
“If I’m going to bring another person into the
conversation, I’ve got to be able to give that
person the context of what’s been happening
in the interaction so far,” says Enghouse’s Cray.
“That person should be able to immediately
see the history of what has already happened
during the interaction and should join in from
an intelligent perspective.”
“The notion of a single source of truth is hugely
important here,” adds HP’s Eakland. “The
technology that a company uses needs to
be able to connect to a number of different
knowledge bases. That connectivity is huge, as
is the need for a dashboard that can flesh out
that single source of truth.”
Aware of its importance to that objective,
businesses unsurprisingly rate the passing
of transaction and customer data between
channels to be an immensely important element
of the customer experience.
Believing it more important in today’s omnichannel world than even allowing customers
to engage in their preferred channels, 39%
of organizations call cross-channel data
communication an “essential” element of
experience strategy. An additional 27% deem
it “very important,” while 18% say it is at least
“moderately important.”
Only 2% of the remaining 16% of businesses
believe it is of no importance in today’s
business climate.
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Despite labeling cross-channel communication
as a pivotal element of the customer experience,
businesses are not behaving as if it is one.
Consistent with last year’s finding, the majority
of businesses are not especially successful at
integrating and communicating customer and
transaction data.
Q15
Even more troubling than the fact that the
majority of businesses have not yet established
cross-channel communication is the fact that the
many are not vigorous in their effort to do so.
Only 7%, in fact, say they are extremely successful
at it. A mere 9% add that they are very successful,
while 25% rate their success as “moderate.”
Over the next 6-18 months, only 19% of
businesses say they will significantly increase
their spending on channel integration. While
38% say they will slightly increase such
spending, a discouraging 33% say they will
make “no change” whatsoever. Ten percent
will reduce their investments
The remaining 59% are no better than “slightly
successful” at doing so. 30%, in fact, say that
they are completely unable to integrate and
pass data between channels.
Insofar as only 7% call their cross-channel
communication “extremely successful,” why
are 43% of businesses demonstrating such
complacency?
Rate the importance of integrating and then
passing customer and transactional data between
systems and channels in real-time (which would
facilitate channel switching).
2.3% Not at all important
13.6% Slightly important
18.2% Moderately important
27.3% Very important
38.6%Essential
Q16
How successful is your organization at integrating
and passing data between channels?
29.5% Not at all
29.5% Slightly successful
25%
Moderately successful
9.1% Very successful
6.8% Extremely successful
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Omni-Channel:
People Serving People
A business can be in the right channels. It can
have the resources and technology to give
the customer the precise experience he wants
regardless of which channels he chooses for
each interaction. It can have the systems and
processes needed to swiftly and seamlessly
move data and contextual information between
its contact channels.
cross-trained to be able to personally handle
communication in all channels and thus follow
individual customers throughout the experience
journey? Should they remain specialized in
certain channels to provide the best possible
care and then rely on effective systems and
communication strategies to create the
experiential seamlessness?
It might still be risk of failing in its effort to
execute an omni-channel strategy.
While few businesses have developed and
implemented the right systems for creating a
seamless experience, many believe the latter
approach to agent positioning is the correct
one. To them, creating an army of channel
specialists is the optimal approach.
A fundamental shift not only in the way the
business executes customer engagement but in
how it philosophically defines and determines
the parameters for that engagement, omnichannel requires more than the right channel
offerings, measurement instruments and
communication systems. It also requires a
team of agents—and managers—capable of
adapting to this newer, more customer-centric
way of thinking.
It is the agents, after all, through whom
customer engagement flows. Whether the
ones physically communicating with customers
or the ones guiding the technological
engagement touch points, agents represent the
truest link between brand and customer. They
simultaneously represent the biggest bottleneck
on the quality of customer interactions and the
biggest opportunity to transform those singular
conversations into sources of lasting satisfaction
and loyalty.
A revolution in the customer experience
approach, therefore, necessitates a dramatic
transformation in how agents are developed
within the contact center. The skills, training
and coaching that assured their success at
communicating within a single channel—or
even within multiple channels—will not
necessarily empower them to aptly handle
omni-channel communication.
But re-conditioning agents to approach the
customer experience from an omni-channel
perspective is merely the beginning of the
challenge. Once it is certain its agents possess
the skills and mentalities needed to thrive in
an omni-channel environment, the business
must then determine how to situate the agents
within that environment.
If the goal is to provide a seamless, consistent
experience that not only engages customers in
all relevant channels but effectively renders the
concept of channel moot, where should the
business position its agents? Should they be
43% of respondents reveal that their approach
to omni-channel engagement involves training
agents in the specific channels they will cover.
An additional 7% are cultivating their omnichannel agent pool by hiring individuals to serve
as channel specialists.
When it comes to omni-channel customer
management, one way is not the only one
way. A lesser, but still significant, 30% of
businesses train agents on all available contact
channels. 7% exclusively hire agents with
experience handling channels in a multi-channel
environment. While that practice does not
assure businesses will populate their contact
centers only with agents equipped for omnichannel engagement, it does indicate their
interest in locating ones that can handle a
multitude of channels.
The widespread support for both approaches
indicates that the answer to agent positioning
will differ based on the organization, the focus
of its customer experience and the nature
of its customer base. There is no universal
winner in the battle between cross-channel
agent development and specialized agent
development.
“It certainly depends upon the business and
whether or not they have the ability and the
need to have multi-skilled or single-skilled
agents to handle the issues,” says HP’s Eakland.
“I do not think there is one right answer.”
Regardless of how a business tackles the
challenge of channel preparedness, it cannot
exempt itself from another fundamental one.
It must focus on empowering its agents to
expertly engage customers in their preferred
channels and assist the customer in transferring
from channel to channel and agent to agent
without undue hassle or inhibition.
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“I think channels can be separated if there
are enough differences between the specific
channels” explains InMoment’s Mayne, “but
you have to improve communication between
the agents.”
Breaking down communication silos
and establishing effective cross-channel
communication systems are essential for
creating that empowerment. But an open,
integrated network of channels only assures
data will pass from touch point to touch point.
It does not assure the agent, whether asked
to service customers in one channel or in all of
them, is in position to put that data to use.
To make good on that element of the omnichannel customer experience, the business
must put the appropriate tools and dashboards
in front of agents. It must assure they have
actionable access to the context, customer
information, behavioral insights and transaction
data needed to not only address an inquiry in
real-time but sufficiently resolve the matter.
Omni-channel agents might require that
universal, holistic window into the customer
experience, but they do not always receive it.
In 25% of organizations, agents must access
separate, disparate systems for each contact
channel. Even though the omni-channel concept
hinges on removing barriers between channels,
agents within one quarter of businesses
experience those barriers on the back end.
Believing channel specialization and channel
isolation to be joint concepts, 18% of
organizations only provide agents with access
to their specific contact channels. Even
Q17
though a customer will move from channelto-channel—sometimes during the same
interaction—agents in such organizations
cannot see the totality of that movement.
They only have access to what goes on in their
specific communication medium.
Optimistically, 57% of businesses are working
to create a unified channel view for agents.
25% of businesses outright give agents a single
perspective across all channels, while 30%
provide a unified view of most contact channels.
Segmenting agents might be the best back
office approach, but it should never rear
its head in the customer experience. To
avoid sharing the contact center seams with
customers, businesses must provide their
omni-channel agents with an omni-channel
perspective of the customer experience. They
can acknowledge an agent best performs in a
given channel, but they must not allow him to
perform in that channel without a firm, realtime, actionable understanding of what is going
on across the entire channel spectrum.
“The agents have to have the right tools,”
explains Enghouse’s Cray. “They have to have
a way to not care about channel transition. If
the customer wants to engage in a different
channel, the agent’s tools must be able to
handle that.
The agent also has to be able to move across
those channels seamlessly while staying in the
same interaction with customers. Everything
the agent needs over the course of an omnichannel interaction should be in the same menu
item or achievable with a single button click.”
Over the next 6-18 months, how will you apply
budget/focus to the following objectives?
Will significantly reduce spend
No change planned
Will moderately reduce spend
Will moderately increase spend
Will significantly
increase spend
Adding channels
Upgrading/optimizing
channels
Eliminating channels
Integrating channels
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Q18
How do agents access the channels used for
customer engagement?
18.2% Different agents for different
channels
25%
Agents can access all channels in
unified desktop
29.5% Agents can access most channels
in single desktop/platform
25%
Q19
Agents must access different
platform for each channel
How do you develop and ensure agent competency
when it comes to engaging customers in multiple
channels?
18.2% We don’t
6.8% We only hire contact center
agents with multi-channel
experience
6.8% We only hire agents to serve as
channel specialists
43.2% We train agents on the specific
channels they will cover
29.5% We train all agents on all channels
offered by the organization
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Omni-Channel: Are
Solutions the Solution?
The omni-channel introduces a host of
challenges for organizations.
It asks them to better consider the voice of
the customer when establishing a holistic
contact strategy. It asks them to think about
harnessing the unique powers of a given contact
channel while still assuring it is tied back to the
organization. It asks them to remove barriers to
visibility and communication so that all corners
of the organization have an instant and complete
view of any customer who enters the omnichannel communication network. It asks them
to put agents in position to handle additional
tasks in an already demanding atmosphere.
Through proper strategy and motivated,
concerted effort, organizations can put
themselves in position to seize the omnichannel revolution. But the reality is that
no simple strategizing—let alone mere
contemplation—is enough to drive legitimate
change. To rise to the challenge of multichannel and assure their systems fundamentally
support the demands of the omni-channel
world, businesses must demonstrate shrewd
integration of technology products and
revamped systems into their contact centers.
Mindful of that need, many businesses will bring
solutions and technologies into their strategic
lines of focus over the next 6-18 months.
Given that the voice of the customer is both
the driver of the omni-channel revolution and
the barometer of its successful implementation,
tools that capture customer behavior will
garner considerable focus.“First and foremost,
you need to be able to listen to customers
understand what’s going on there,” says HP’s
Eakland. “If a company does not have a robust
answer for being able to do that, that’s where it
would need to start.”
But the journey does not end there. Eakland
adds, “All of the data we want to listen to
and understand is unstructured. That means
there is a massive amount of data and so
many different types of formats that need
to be parsed and underestood – the “Big
Data” needs to be pulled together. Once the
listening commences, the call center and the
IT department need to then shift focus to
unpacking and analyzing the insights.”
Customer analytics solutions, which help
illuminate both channel demand and behavior
within channels, will receive increased focus
from 37% of businesses over the next 6-18
months. A whopping 20% will introduce a
customer analytics offering into their contact
center for the first time, which means the
majority of businesses is committed to better
understanding its customers.
And insofar as it reflects a desire to get
closer with customers, interest in analytics
solutions supports the notion that businesses
are committed to customer-centricity. Since
omni-channel represents the transition from a
provider-centric mindset to a customer-centric
one, the trend is very reassuring.
34% of businesses intend to increase focus
on customer feedback solutions, while an
additional 7% will implement items from that
category for the first time. Insofar as customer
feedback informs omni-channel strategy,
provides listening opportunities for a business
that wants to create a seamless experience and
offers a tremendous perspective on contact
center performance, the rise of customer
feedback solutions represents a significant boon
for the omni-channel movement.
While only 3% of businesses intend to
implement web self-service solutions, a healthy
38% say they will increase their utilization
of self-service. An essential part of the
channel mix—and one that, in an ideal world,
simultaneously boosts efficiency for customers
businesses—self-service is a cornerstone of the
shift away from telephony-centric engagement.
While omni-channel is a fundamental approach
that cannot be defined by new interest in a
single channel, it is also one that hinges on the
introduction of integrated, customer-centric
channels to reach its fullest potential. Surging
interest in web self-service will assist with that.
Targeted for utilization increases by 29% of
businesses and 26% of businesses, respectively,
CRM systems and IVR systems are also firmly
on the radar for organizations. Both play
valuable roles in the omni-channel experience,
particularly when it comes to improving the
quality and seamlessness of the customer
journey, so the increased investments introduce
additional optimism into the omni-channel
discussion.
Solutions not expected to garner significant
interest include virtual agent technologies (9%
will reduce, while only 9% will either increase
or initiate use), help desks (8% will reduce,
10% will increase), at-home agents (7% will
reduce, 9% will increase), outsourcing (5% will
reduce, 8% will increase or initiate) and agent
recruiting and training (9% will reduce, 16%
will increase).
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Omni-Channel:
You Say You Want a
Revolution, But Do You
Want to Make One?
The omni-channel revolution leaves nothing
to chance.
Unlike previous customer engagement
initiatives, which were conceived, refined and
constructed in the boardroom with the hope
that they would resonate with customers,
omni-channel is the byproduct of the external
marketplace. It is the result of legitimate
customer evolves, honest customer sentiment
and actual customer demand.
When a business successfully transforms into
an omni-channel one, it therefore automatically
transforms into a more customer-centric one.
Given that reality, omni-channel should not
be dismissed as the latest, unwanted burden
on a business unit that already has more than
enough on its plate. It should not be reduced
to the latest trend or buzzword for which the
hype—and accompanying investment—greatly
outweigh the ultimate impact.
It must be embraced as a gateway to not only
excelling at the channel element of customer
management but to finally embodying
the notion of customer-centricity. It must
be cherished as chance to erase strategic
contradictions and conflicts and center all
contact center—and greater business—
operations around the immensely relevant
focal point that is the voice of the customer. It
must be welcomed as a means of removing the
inefficiencies and bridging the communication
gaps that produce undue customer engagement
cost and unwanted customer dissatisfaction.
They might not know precisely how to get
started or how to allocate budget, but the
61% of businesses that declare the transition
to omni-channel to be an urgent one recognize
the opportunity that accompanies the need.
They know their customers want it, and they
know their ability to compete on the customer
experience requires it.
But they also see omni-channel as a stimulus
for true transformation, true betterment
and true revolution in the world of customer
engagement. From connecting the backend to improving the front-end, omnichannel represents the business world’s
acknowledgement that customer service must
be inherently developed and executed on the
customer’s terms.
Those organizations must now break the
pattern that has so long consumed customer
service professionals and organizations. They
must allow rhetoric and belief to transform into
implementation and execution.
Omni-Channel in Action: Selecting Channels
Established and irrefutable is the fact that
in order to truly create an omni-channel
environment, a business needs to be able to
consistently engage customers in all channels.
It is the only way a business can truly assure it is
wherever it customer wants to be whenever the
customer wants to be there.
But insofar as the ultimate motivation behind
omni-channel is to create the best possible
experience forcustomers, stretching the
organization into all conceivable channels is
not necessarily the best strategy. Limiting
the number of channels offered—or at least
the functionality within each channel—might
assure the best overall experience.
“Businesses and contact centers can’t do
everything,” explains Five9’s Dumas. “There
is a balance between cost and being able
to provide a high level of service across one
channel and then across multiple channels.”
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And customers largely understand those
limitations. While their “always on” mentality
has empowered them to think in terms of
issue rather than channel, they ultimately
understand that the fundamental limitations
affecting channels—or overall contact center
operations—cannot simply be ignored.
“There is a point at which you have to count
on the customer to understand that there
are some limitations,” says Contact Solutions’
McShea. “The important thing here is to give
the customer options.”
Beyond cost, businesses also encounter
growing pains and maturity issues as they span
channels.
“You’re starting to see some of the growing
pains of omni-channel,” explains Contact
Solutions’ McShea. “The contact center and
the operations managers are trying to figure
out how to have agents be able to support all
kinds of interactions across multiple channels.
“Training problems and logistics problems
emerge as businesses attempt to function as
omni-channel ones.”
And insofar as an omni-channel experience
is a holistic one, the adverse impact of those
growing pains on one touchpoint threatens to
undermine the entire customer experience.
“The crawl, walk, run strategy is an important
one, because if you’re going to be good and
call yourself omni-channel, you need to be
great at whatever you know are the critical
touch points,” says InMoment’s Mayne. “There
is a cost to going too far down the path.”
But businesses must be careful about letting
maturity and cost issues stifle channel strategy.
Once businesses begin making decisions based
on internal concerns rather than the voice of
the customer, they exit the omni-channel realm
and slide back into multi-channel mode.
Limits are acceptable, necessary and even
valuable, but they need to be created by the
voice of the customer. By understanding
where customers truly want to engage, how
customers truly want to engage and what they
truly expect when they engage, businesses can
make appropriate decisions about when to
say yes and when to say no to given channels.
They can adhere to the spirit of omni-channel
without actually being in all channels.
“First, businesses have to understand who their
customers are, what their demographics are
and how they want to engage to determine
whether it makes sense to engage in a given
channel,” says Five9’s Dumas. “Once they
figure out which channels are relevant, they
then have to look at what service levels are
appropriate in each channel.”
“The best-in-class are asking questions about
where interaction needs to happen,” declares
InMoment’s Mayne. By asking those questions
in conjunction with an analysis of the “science
behind customer behavior in those channels,”
businesses will not only determine which
channels are important but “why those
channels are important to customers.”
Once businesses develop an understanding of
where they need to be—and what they need
to be within each of those channels—they can
start to emphasize training and performance.
They can condition agents to best account for
the intricacies of a given channel, and they can
best assure the effort within each channel is
productive and efficient.
That type of practice is not, however, exclusive to
an omni-channel business. It is also the blueprint
for operating a multi-channel organization.
A business elevates to omni-channel when it
not only assures its channels are optimized but
calibrates that optimization against the business’
overarching goals. How can the nature of
the channel—and the performance within
that channel—be leveraged to create the best
possible overall customer experience?
“You absolutely want be able to measure the
separate KPIs for each particular channel,” says
VHT’s Bray. “Whatever channel you might
be on, understand that you have to measure
specific performance within that channel.
“But when looking at the overall customer
experience, you really need, from the
customer’s lens to understand how all the
channels are coming together. Are we, from
the customer’s perspective, consistently
delivering first contact resolution?”
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Q20
Do you have a single, holistic view of your customer
experience across all channels?
18.2% Yes, we already have singular,
holistic customer experience
reporting in place
70.5% No, but we have plans to develop
a singular, holistic view of our
customer experience
11.4% No, we have no plans to develop
a singular, holistic view of our
customer experience
Omni-Channel in Action: Breaking Down the Walls
– And Not Just the Channels
Asked whether they have a singular, holistic view
of each customer, only 18% of respondents
answered in the affirmative. 71% said they are
planning to develop one, while a discouraging
11% demonstrate no interest in pursuing such an
omni-channel view.
For omni-channel to work, that perspective is
essential.
“You need to be able to follow the customer
as they cross channels and maintain the
context and personalization,” explains Verint’s
Hollenbeck. “The effort to the customer
should be minimal as you, through behavioral
analytics and customer feedback, literally have
a view into the customer journey and begin to
determine where they’re likely to go and what
they’re likely to want to do going forward.”
Businesses do not need to treat each channel as
identical, but they need to assure the channels
can speak to each other. They also need to
make sure objectives like first contact resolution
represent the priority in all channels; that assures
the channels are working in unity to provide the
best possible outcome for customers.
Accepting the reality that channels will be
operated distinctly—with distinct agents—in
many business, InMoment’s Mayne puts the
burden on businesses to craft proper backend
communication.
“Because there are specific agents with
experience in the specific channels, it makes
sense for them to reside in those channel, but
you have to improve communication between
the agents in different channels,” explains
Mayne. “What do we know about how these
customers have contacted us and how can we
give visibility to the agents that reside in all
areas of the business?”
Faithful that specialization is a product of
legitimate customer-centricity and not
organizational inertia, Mayne adds, “I think
businesses are attempting to do the right thing
by transferring you to the right agent to get the
best experience.
“But by the time customers get to the next
channel [of a multi-channel], they have already
stated their issues or provided their phone
numbers to the company, and they’re being
asked to do it again.”
“For many organizations, the unsolved piece
of the puzzle is being able to deliver that
[seamlessness and consistency] across channels,”
concurs HP’s Eakland. “In an omni-channel
world, organizations must be able to let a
customer start an inquiry in a chat session,
move to the website, come back to a phone
representative in the call center and have the
information passed consistently and completely
across channels so that the customer does not
have to repeat anything.”
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Technology capable of bridging the
communication gaps and illuminating the
customer journey is essential.
The right technology, in fact, will not only
reduce communication barriers but actually
guide the customer—and agents—in the most
productive manner possible. While that is
happening, the ideal technology also shares
context with the agent so that he is prepared
to respond, with personalization and relevance,
once the customer arrives.
Systems that can facilitate that level of
interaction are the building blocks of an omnichannel experience.
“What if an interaction actually started on the
website?” asks Enghouse’s Cray. “Whichever
agent is going to be in that interaction, regardless
of channel, has to be able to see that complete
picture of what the customer has done before,
including seeing what pages they were on and
what inquiries they made. They must also have
access to history from previous interactions.”
Although robust, integrated systems, unified
desktops and improved communication
channels can repair many of the busted seams
in the customer experience, they cannot wholly
account for what creates those seams.
“It starts with where the budgets lie,” explains
Virtual Hold’s Bray. “There are often siloed
areas within the business.
“Traditional channels are almost always cost
centers, and those are managed differently
from, say, some of the social channels or really
any channels outside of telephony. Because
they’re budgeted differently, they’re staffed
differently. You end up with a very disjointed,
segmented series of solutions across channels.”
While the ills of organizational silos are neither
new phenomena nor exclusive to the customer
management realm, they have a particularly
destructive impact in the age of omni-channel.
Failure to unify operations does not simply
create headaches behind closed doors
the way it would in another circumstance.
When it comes to the customer experience,
misalignment creates gaps, inefficiencies and
pain points on the front end of the business.
Customers are then asked to bear the brunt of
that destruction.
In addition to asking customers to endure
hardship during the experience, organizational
disharmony also sends a confusing—and
troubling—message about the organization.
Just as customers approach customer
engagement based on issue and need rather
than channel specificity, they also approach the
business as a singular entity. They expect to
receive the same—if not better—commitment
to efficient, effective and accurate service no
matter when or where they connect. They
expect to be perceived in the same way by a
business of a singular culture no matter when
or where they connect.
When different units of the business do not
adhere to that singular mindset, it not only
undermines the customer’s transactional
experience but damages his fundamental level
connection to the brand.
The good news is that the omni-channel
revolution is emerging at an opportune time.
“We’re seeing the emergence of businesses
looking for ways to transform customer
engagement across their operations,” says
Verint’s Hollenbeck. “And market demand is
accelerating the need to take a focused approach
to customer engagement optimization.”
Since, as Virtual Hold’s Bray says, “you have
to get high enough in the organization
to get the mandate,” the executive rank’s
growing appreciation for customer experience
optimization gives organizational harmony—
and channel unity--a fighting chance of getting
on the budgetary radar.
With organizational support emerging,
customer demand erupting, the roadmap for
action clear and the importance of execution
even clearer, the time is now for businesses to
transition from thinking to doing.
The time is now to embrace the omni-channel
revolution.
callcenter-iq.com
39

Customer Experience

Transcription

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